Tried a couple of moody shots this time. I had a wonderful young musician Charlie to work with and it was pretty easy getting the soft moody shots from him as he was more comfortable just simply chilling with his guitar and not having to pose too much.

The general idea I was trying to get at was having half his face lighted up with a off camera side-on flash. The result: Quite a harsh shallow on the other half especially the one from his nose. However, I quite like it!

I love how his guitar was all battered and patched up with tape in places and I tried to zoom in on the little details as much as possible. I shot in black and white this time because I felt it would give me the closest result to what I was trying to get.

Best part about this session was that I had to do hardly any post-processing. In fact, I reduced the exposure even more if anything as I wanted the pictures even darker with more shadows. Photography is extremely subjective and eventhough I kind of went against all the rules of shadows and white balance on these shots, I thought it brought out Charlie’s surreal and relaxed nature…without being too imposing.

More shots can be seen in my portraiture gallery.

If you’re interested, check out my flickr account for the entire collection from this session.

I have a confession to make.

I couldn’t wait for the weekend…so…. I got home from work, changed, got back into the car and drove to Argos to get my brand new Nikon D90!

Obviously, I fell instantly in love with it. The size and weight is perfect and the 3″ LCD screen a big bonus. I couldn’t contain my excitement as I charged the battery for a couple of hours when I got back while I tried to have some dinner. Eventually, with a fully charged D90 and my manual, I began exploring my new best friend.

As I was taking some test shots in our slightly dark living room, I had no idea that the clear and extremely sharp snaps were on at an ISO of 2000! I have to admit that the out-of-the-box settings weren’t ideal for me. I had to change a lot of the exposure compensation and white balance etc to get the D90 to do what I wanted it to do. However, once I sorted that out, it was a dream to work with.

Anyway, back to the ISO issue (which is a big selling feature of this camera…)…it does what it says on the tin. With the same composure, I only started to notice the noise at ISO 3200. I can’t imagine how I had put up with unacceptable noisy pictures from my D40 on a mere ISO 1600.

On a personal level, the big bonus for me was being able to snap away and focus automatically on my favourite 50mm f1.8 lens. The beauty of the lens coupled with the ISO sensitivity of the D90 is a great combination for low light photography.

However, swapping from a 6MP SLR to a 12MP SLR and shooting in RAW, I suddenly realized how quickly my 4GB SD card got filled up!

Anyway, I’m sure there are a lot more features I’ve yet to discover on this briliant piece of kit. It sure has a lot more menu options I’ve never seen before on my D40. It’s gonna take me some time but oh…is it gonna be worth it…

Financially speaking, I’ve been rather fortunate this month. With the month coming to a close, I have succesfully saved £300 towards my D90!

However, I still needed another £120 from somewhere. Low and behold, I was surfing on Argos the other week and discovered that I could trade in my Nectar points for cash! Now, I’ve been collecting Nectar points for 5 years now. Never used any of it. Therefore, I had a substantial amount in my account. And eversince combining our Nectar accounts, J and I had a total of 25, 000 points.

With every 500 Nectar points you trade in, you get £2.50 in Argos vouchers. Now, if I actually sat down and thought about it, it sounds like a bloody crap deal! It took me way more than £2.50 to get those 500 points. If I didn’t want my camera so bad, I would have decided to just hold on to my points till a better deal comes along. But I…just…can’t..wait…any…longer!

However, it might be due to the constant moaning he’s been subjected to from me over the past few weeks as the challenge for saving for my D90 progressed OR he could just be a really really really sweet person but whatever it was, J has very kindly decided to donate his points to me so that I could get a whopping £125 off my camera!

With a retail price of £743.79, I will be getting my Nikon D90 this weekend for a bargain price of £618.79!

Sweeeeeet!

Compared to last month, this month has been rather easy on my wallet. I can’t begin to explain the withdrawal symptoms I’ve been experiencing not shopping for a whole month! Which probably explains my lack of fashion posts in recent days.

When I first started my challenge of saving up for my D90, a target date of the 29th of Sept seemed like a reasonable timeframe. However, over the past few weeks as I tried to raise the cash, I’ve been consumed with an overwhelming itch to get it NOW! Coupled with the fact that I really would like to use it for my photography class which is drawing to a close in a couple of weeks.

I dream about it, I’m constantly thinking about it, I’ve googled ‘eco-driving’ endlessly and adapted it in order to reduce my fuel bills; I scrutinize my finances everyday trying to figure out a way to get it right now.

For goodness sakes, I even gave up shopping for a whole month!

And…I think I’ve figured it out…

I’m sure every Singaporean will tell you that the one thing they miss about being away from home is the food. Inevitably, when I first arrived, I was extremely homesick and what made things worse was the fact that I was hungry all the time! I couldn’t get used to the sandwiches and crisps everyone else seem to content with at lunch and I missed my favourite Hainanese Chicken Rice desperately.

I would moan to my mum on Skype and bless her…she started looking into quick-fix recipes for me to try in my little student accomodation. None of them worked. Some were either too complicated, some had ingredients which I couldn’t get hold off and some…well, they just didn’t taste quite right.

Until one day, she e-mail me over a recipe for making it all in a rice cooker! And yes…rice cooker I did have. (You wouldn’t be a true Singaporean student if you didn’t drag one of these impressive kitchen devices across the world with you…) Be warned…your Turkish housemate might think it was a radio (believe it or not, that actually happened).

Anyway, I gave it a shot and OH MY GOD…it saved my life (By this time, I was going mental). Over the years, I’ve tweaked it a bit and it always makes me feel so nostalgic when the aroma of garlic and ginger in sesame oil fills the kitchen…utter bliss!

Anyway, I just thought I’ll post my recipe. You might add your bits to it as this is very much a “quick-10mins-after-work-minimum-washup-for-the-tired-and-exhausted-professional” recipe so it might lack some ingredients/steps.

To serve 2

1. Marinate some chicken wings in light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and sesame oil. You can do this the night before. I would only use chicken wings as they are quite small and you can be sure they will cook in time with the rice. Don’t use massive pieces of chicken as they would be undercooked by the time your rice is done. I prefer chicken on the bones as I find the rice has more favour that way. You can use chicken fillets if you like.

2. Finely chop some garlic and ginger. I love my garlic and ginger so I normally use a whole bulb of garlic and a thumbsize piece of ginger.

3. Switch rice cooker on, pour some sesame oil in the pot and gently fry the garlic and ginger till brown.

4. Once brown, throw in rice.

5. Pour equivalent amount of water for rice to cook.

6. Toss some chicken stock granules ( I use Maggi which I stock from Singapore as I find it taste better but you can use any kind you have).

7. Stir and taste. This will probably be what your rice will taste like. Not too salty. Don’t forget…you’ve got the soy sauce from the chicken marinate yet to be poured in.

8. Throw in your marinated chicken.

9. You will need to pour some more water in to compensate for the addition of the chicken. My general rule: fill with water till chicken is almost completely submerged (see pic).

10. Close lid and let it cook.

That’s it! All in all, it took me 10 mins in the kitchen and 20 mins of “Me-Time” in front of the telly till I had to dish it out.

J loves this dish and it’s enough to keep my cravings for the real deal to a minimum so it’s definitely a recipe worth having…

I have to say, I am getting a hang of this. I’m starting to feel a lot more relaxed with kids photography. Last week, I managed to get a couple of shots outdoors with young Jess. I was a lot more pleased with my shots this time round. I felt natural light was a lot of flattering and it took away the whole rigid formal atmosphere of the studio. I got her to play with the grass, jump up in the air, run around; things she would normally do anyway on a day out in the park.

You can view it in full-size here.

I’ve never realised how difficult it would be to keep track of my finances once the dreaded term ‘mortgage’ came into the equation. Long gone were the days when I paid a set amount every month regardless of rising fuel bills or council tax. I didn’t have a car and public transport worked fine for me. Everything was just so…simple.

Which was why I was really dissapointed when my good old trusted VW Polo broke down last month leading me to spend a substantial portion of my income fixing it.

I was really…really hoping to save at least half of my targeted £750…which obviously didn’t happen. I actually believed I could get the D90 before the 29th of Sept; maybe even in August. Wishful thinking I know now…

Oh well…

I guess I’m back down to my original plan of Sept 09.

However, despite everything, we sold our dishwasher (which came with the house) on eBay for £160. Which brings in a decent £80 for my half.

Savings for my D90 – The Challenge Update:

£250 £330 saved.

Unfortunately, we’re left with a sink with a big gaping hole beneath it. Now, if only we can figure out how to redirect the plumbing…

I’m sure in a household with two engineers, we can figure it out soon enough before the dishes keep piling up even higher…Right?!?

I’ve been trying to find a suitable camera bag for some time now. At the moment, I’ve been using either my ordinary black and yellow Nikon camera bag which came with the D40 or my Mischa Barton handbag.

Now as much as I love my handbag, it isn’t ideal. It doesn’t have any padding and it can just about handle my camera body with an attached 50mm prime lens. Carrying a flash or an additional lens is totally out of the question. I couldn’t possibly treat my D90 with such….disrespect!

Therefore, I’ve been searching for a suitable alternative…not a backpack or an ordinary camera bag…no no no…What I’m looking for is a little different – I’m looking for something with a dash of style yet still encomposes the essential padding and compartments I need. My search finally brought me to Jill-e.

With a wide range of styles and colours, Jill-e manages to satisfy the style conscious female photographer. Ranging from small and medium shoulder bags to large rolling bags, the bags’ padded interiors and adjustable velcro dividers are exactly what I’m looking for!!

The small leather ones can easily fit a camera body, 2 lenses and a flash (as well as your personal items). Perfect!

If only the price (£107 for a small leather bag) was as appealing as the bag itself. sigh…Guess that’s another thing I’ve got to save up for…

Anyway, based in the US, the bags are available worldwide, either through their website or through a network of photo retailers and distributors. You can get your very own Jill-e camera bag from Amazon.co.uk.

I was really looking forward to my class this week. We had a break for two whole weeks and I was itching to get into the studio and get some frames.

We had a lovely little girl called Holly this time and she was an absolute star! I was quite worried that she might get bored and lethargic posing for the 6 of us so I managed to be the 3rd people to get behind the lens and shoot away (which didn’t matter eventually because she posed for all 6 of us brilliantly).

It was definitely an experience working with a kid.

I had to constantly engage her in conversation yet concentrate on taking some decent shots. Therefore, there were a few shots of her in mid-sentence which weren’t exactly ideal. I couldn’t really tell her what to do so I had to move and work around her to get the right lighting and exposure. Not the best subject matter when you’re on manual focus. It was a challenge but definitely worth it.

I came out of the class feeling rather happy with my shots but wishing I had my D90 which definitely would have guaranteed a few more decent in-focus shots.

We’ll be on location next week and I’m hoping to bring J along which will be interesting. In the meantime, you can check out my gallery for the latest snaps.