My Journey

Hassan’s Graduation Day

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:02:26 +0100

Nasrul Shafiq’s Graduation Day

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 05:27:04 +0100

It was rainy that day, July 12th 2010. I saw the weather forecast the day before and it will be sunny on July 12th, unfortunately it was not. I planned to meet with Shafiq around 10 o’clock in the morning, but due to bad weather we postpone until 11 o’clock. At 11 o’clock, it was still raining but luckily there was a Sun coming out from behind the dark cloud. At least there was a sign of hope that the day will get better soon. Shafiq came to my house with his friends who will be graduating with him soon. I picked up my gear and we all headed to the nearest bus stop. While waiting for the bus to come, I grabbed my camera and start to take photos of Shafiq and his friends. Not for long though, a minute after that, the bus came. Couple of minutes later, we arrived in front of the University of Manchester Student Union.

Although it was still light raining and quiet hard to get the “killer shot” , I proceed as usual. After took his graduation robe from robing company, I took Shafiq and we wondered around his school. His graduation ceremony was held at 3 o’clock in the afternoon so we had a plenty of time to play inside the school. I took Shafiq into lecture hall, library and some other places. We bumped with his professor so I took a photo of them together too.

A little bit about Shafiq, his full name is Mohd Nasrul Shafiq. He studied in physics at University of Manchester from 2007 till 2010. He graduated from School of Physics and Astronomy University of Manchester with BSc (Hons) in Physics.

Panorama, Merging Photos :: Part 2

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:29:57 +0100

In my previous tutorial, I showed and discussed about how to merge several photos together using photoshop to create panorama photo. In this tutorial, I will be discussing the same topic but using different technique which I believe will save you some time

Graduation Outdoor Photo Shoot

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:20:15 +0100

My first time shooting someone graduation day was a bit tired. Yes, I admit, a bit tired but it was worth. I was really enjoyed doing it although I was just a second shooter that day. To be honest, when I arrived in front of the graduation hall, I was a bit nervous and envy and suddenly there was a feeling that asked me to go back and study hard. It was because my graduation day will be next year and that will only become true if I managed to pass the exam which I will.

Anyway I was quiet busy to write something now so I will just leave you guys with a few photos taken yesterday. Next Monday I will have my own graduation outdoor photo shoot which I will be the main shooter and hopefully everything will be great.

Panorama, Merging Photos

Fri, 9 Jul 2010 03:11:04 +0100

July 8th 2010, it was the day of my first photos exhibition. Yes, it was not my solo exhibition, but I cannot deny my happiness when I saw my printed photos hanged on the wall being watched by people. Maybe this was nothing for those who already did thousand of exhibitions, but for me, it was great.

At first I thought only one of three photos that I submitted to Cityco will be printed, but I was wrong. There were 2 photos of mine actually and I was very glad. As a beginner, what is more that you want? As it is now, I am very grateful for what had just happened today.

During the exhibition, there were several people asking me how do I created my photograph ( Black and White Panorama ) and I found it was a bit tricky to explain it in a way that they can quickly understand. I tried my best to explain it to them and I was not convinced that they were fully understand of what I said. A part from that, one of mind friend also did asked me and once again I could not explained it very well even in my native language, Malay.

So I decided to make a tutorial about creating panorama photography from several photos merged together and creating huge photograph. So just enjoy the tutorial and please, forgive me for my bad English.

Whitworth Park Morning Walk

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 07:06:48 +0100

Whitworth Park is certainly a place where my friends and I always spent sometimes playing football, rugby and frisbee. It is located just before “curry miles” if you are coming from city centre. My first time being at this park was not actually very interesting because I arrived at Manchester from Malaysia during winter time. So, the wet condition plus muddy condition in some places made my experience being at this place was not so special. The park itself has lots of mature tree lined walks, lawns and open fields which me and friends usually play football there.

After a year live in Manchester, I had witnessed Whitworth Park transformation. Now there is “Play Area” where parents can bring their children there to have their own leisure time.

Sadly, I did heard about one or more cases where there had been some robbery here at Whitworth Park. All the cases happened at late night and in all cases, the victims were alone. So, the obvious advise is not to walk there alone at night, in fact anywhere else that is known to be “black” area. But the last case if I am not mistaken happened during winter 2009. Since then, there is no more case like that happen, maybe due to the police patrol there.

Anyway, Whitworth Park is still my choice if I want to play football or anything else because it location is very convenient.

I believe, the only way to sharpen your photography skill is to go out and start shooting. There is no way you can improve your skill by only learn the theory without any practicality. Therefore, yesterday morning I went out and had some morning walk at the park near to my house.

Manchester City Walk

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 07:06:14 +0100

On the May 23rd 2010, I had a chance to join professional photographer Aidan O’Rourke . Without wasting any time, I headed to town where I was told to meet him and the rest of the group. While on the bus, I was very happy because I will walk with a professional photographer, here in Manchester. After arrived at the meeting location, I saw one of my friend, Mohammad Mokhriz was standing at the meeting point talking to someone. “ This is great, my friend is here too “ I said to myself. I walked straight to him and started to greet him and the guy he was talking to. I cannot really remember what was that guy name, anyway he was Aidan O’Rourke assistant if I am not mistaken.

Later that day, Aidan gave us some pep talk before we get started. He did mention about places where we cannot shoot, some basic rules, and short story about himself. His passion in photography was well beyond me and that was what made me listen to him carefully when he spoke. I did not want to miss any tips, any suggestion that came out from his mouth.

With my canon dlsr and wide angle lens, we went toward outside Manchester City Centre in effort to find some unseen Manchester spots. It was not very clear why we all headed to this kind of places whereas we all could go straight into Manchester city centre where maybe we could get some great photos. But later, I started to get the whole picture why Aidan brought us to this place, our theme on that day was “The Changing and Unchanging City” and I assumed that he tried to shows us the unchanging part of Manchester city first before heading toward modernised city centre. While walking, he sometimes told us about his experience photographing Manchester city and witnessed the changing of Manchester City. I was always left behind as I cannot help myself to shoot interesting building and fighting with the harsh light. The sky was deep blue and with little cloud, the Sun’s bright harsh light really made me struggling to get the right exposure. Luckily, I brought with me my circular polariser. It helped me to bring the rich blue sky into my photos and it got even better when there was clouds because the clouds really standing out from deep blue sky and made the photos much more interesting to see.

As the time pass by, we started to get into the city centre. Before this, we only saw some old bars and some rusty tunnel’s steel bars but now we started to see some great buildings. The architecture of the building was worth to shoot and that was what I did and the reason I always left behind. At first I tried to get simple head on shots by placing the building in the centre of the frame and getting the right exposure as the harsh light always gave me trouble to capture the details of the building. Later, I tried to get some creative shots by tilting the frame a bit and get some close up shot and many more.

After about 2-3 hours walk, we arrived at the Triangle Shopping Centre where we met other groups that have their own theme that day. We spent a couple of minutes talked to each others and get to know some of the professional photographers. After that, my friend and I went back with head held high ( LOL) . It was a very nice walk furthermore it was totally FREE.

Anyway, a couple of days later after the walk, the management company, Cityco who organised this whole event emailed me asking me to send them 3 different photos to them. So, I sent them my photos and one of the photos had been selected to be exhibit at The Triangle Shopping Complex ( my first photo below ). It will be held from July 9th till July 29th 2010. The entrance is free so I really love if anyone in Manchester or live around Manchester could possibly comes to see my photo and others.

Me on Youtube

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:43:32 +0100

Youtube nowadays is like ( or more ) internet TV, most of everything you want to watch can easily be find on youtube. You can even learn something from youtube. Lectures, tutorials and many more educational videos are available for internet community to view it. Not to mention how many crap videos are there on youtube.

I have learn quite a lot from videos on youtube especially about photography and physics stuffs. I also watch TV series and movies on youtube. Whenever I felt boringness stroke me, youtube sometime helped me to kill the time.

I have joined youtube community quite a long time ago, but I not really active but now I think I will try to be more active and create more creative videos and maybe some simple tutorials about photography. Anyway please feel free to check my 5 videos available on youtube below.

Manchester Candid

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:47:00 +0100

It was quite a boring day and I had nothing to do. So I thought it will be a great time for me if I could go out and spent some time shooting random subject and just let my fate that day drift on its own way. Guess what, that was what I actually did. I went out and heading to Manchester city centre with my 70-200mm f2.8 and a monopod. In a bus, I was thinking what sort of photography I want to do that day and finally decided to just do some candid photography. Actually I was inspired by one of my Flickr’s friend, Ay Naku!. ( Don’t forget to check his awesome photo stream ). Talking about him made me reminds how we first met in Flickr.

At first I was inviting all of my Flickr’s friends ( who can speak Malay ) to join newly created group called SAHABAT SEJATI, unfortunately I was wrongly invited Ay Naku! since I imagined that his is from Malaysia or neighbouring countries. He then accepted my invitation and joined the group. One can only imagine how someone that never speak in Malay joined 100% Malay based group. Then, I asked him if he can speak in Malay and he cluelessly answered than he does not speak or understand Malay.

It was really embarrassing moment in my life ( well, that was not really the most embarrassing moment), but I must apologise for that silly mistake and so I did. Later, I started to visit his photo stream more often and so did him. Without realising, we started to become friend ( I mean not just simple contact ).

But there was one particular thing happened that made me “touched”. One day, he sent me an email full of advises and tips about about street photography. How often do you get an email from someone who you never meet giving you a great tips? That was what made me felt very lucky.

Back to my candid shot, I try to implement what he said to me. One of the tips is to act like you are the visitor trying to take holiday photos. Your candid photos will be more interesting if you managed to capture eye contact from your subject. Anyway, I thing I had enough for today so I will stop writing now. If you have anything to ask, just leave a comment below or send me an email. Have a nice day everyone.

Trip to Alton Towers

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:37:06 +0100

Last Saturday my friends and I went to Alton Towers. To be honest, I do not have any idea what it looks like and from I heard before it just a theme park or something like that. Yes I know there are roller coasters and things like that but this kind of stuff is really not my interest. The worst part was I never ride a roller coaster and at first I really do not know how it will feel. I was a bit scared when the roller coaster upside down. Anyway I do not want to write anymore because I just want you to enjoy my photos.

p/s : For those who are interested to get a photographer for their “days out” or birthday party just contact me.