teddy-risation™

That’s half a decade!

Jul 3, 09 \ Daily Life, Emotions, Food for Thought \ 7 Responses

teddy-risation™ officially turned five on the 1st of July, 2009. Oh, and a big happy belated Canada Day to those who celebrated it – which happened to fall on the same day – and early wishes to Americans for celebrating Independence Day on the 4th of July. It surely is one happening week!

teddy-risation™ turns five!

That’s a simple and not-so-elegant typographic poster I’ve designed for the 5th anniversary. Well, to think of it, this blog has been through all the thick and thin of times for the past half-decade. I morphed from a adamant, rowdy, inconsiderate teenager to a person who has a better idea of what to do in life in the future. Experiences over the past 5 years sculpted the me today – reflected in a gradual change in my blogging style and entries. I used to not care about what others say about me back then. I didn’t care if my words hurt people. Now, I’ve learned to be more compassionate and considerate, and more importantly, learn to shut up when it’s the right time :)

Here’s a recap of what I’ve achieved over the past year, in chronological order:

Embraced Firefox 3.0. That’s so 2008. Now go grab Firefox 3.5, folks!
Wrote an article on Photographer’s Rights. Know your rights a photographer is entitled to.
Embracing my new life in NTU. See Loving Every Single Bit of It and Can I stay for awhile?
Embarked on mini morning photoshooting trip on campus, and sent Huilin off to Warwick, London :(
Turned 19, and my uni mates threw me a fantastic surprise party. Not to forget, I lost my phone on my birthday eve.
Got a new phone. Why? See #5.
Obamania! Yes we can.
An owl invaded my room, pooped over the floor and left me in a state of shock. Ah, the joys of living next to a forest.
Released a new blog layout, teddY-risatioN™ Eta.
Death of Oscar Grant. Police brutality on the rise?
My first typographic poster – greeNTU – is up on the campus walls! *dances around*
Weird dream, period.
I ventured into infrared photography. I’m currently using a Hoya R72 filter, alongside with my Sony Alpha kit lens.
The widely, wildly popular and notorious NTU stabbing incident – and yes, I study there.
Susan Boyle dreamed a dream… and that shot her to stardom!
Went on a photoshooting trip in Kuala Lumpur with my long-lost primary schoolmate, Jeremy.
Yay, revamped my blog layout. Here comes teddy-risation™ Theta!
On vacation, headed to Genting Highlands and then the Perhentian Islands (post not ready yet, my bad!)
RIP Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon and Billy Mays.

Sorry that I don’t have much gimmicks for you guys! Okay *inhales deeply* here’s one of the few moments I’m going to scare little kids with my face again. Here’s a photo of my cousin and I, taken at a local park a few days back. I’m currently enjoying the homestaying experience with my uncle’s family, which will – sadly – come to an end this weekend :/

Cousin and I.

Have a great weekend! Pssst, yes, I know I know I know I don’t look like a 19-year-old. I prefer to be described as being one that’s “looking youth” :)

The Fonty Friday feature has been canceled this week due to my busy schedule. Everything will be back to normal by next week!

Posted in Daily Life, Emotions, Food for Thought \ Tagged Anniversary, Birthday, Blog, Joyous, Life, Personal \ 7 Responses

Michael Jackson, your legend lives on

Jun 26, 09 \ Emotions, Food for Thought, Music \ 11 Responses

In case you haven’t got the new yet, legendary king of pop Michael Jackson passed away at the age of 50, his life robbed by the unpredictable, menacing killer, the cardiac arrest (better known as heart attack). I briefly logged in to Twitter today morning before leaving for Penang for a one-week homestay with my cousin, and saw Demi Moore’s update on Michael’s passing. Thinking that it’s a hoax – perhaps a hacked twitter account? I tried checking Wikipedia but they’ve locked the page for six hours to prevent any unauthorized editing until his death is confirmed. A quick Google search brought some relief with links to many news sites but the bummer came when many of them were flooded with traffic and were throwing up “Server Too Busy” errors.

RIP, Michael Jackson.

Michael was found collapsed at his rental home in Los Angeles on the morning of June 25, 2009. 911 emergency services personnel found no pulse on Michael. They rushed him to the UCLA Medical Center, and Michael slipped into coma shortly after that then pronounced dead at 2.26pm.

In a few hours, his death spread like wildfire. Fans of the legendary pop icon flocked to UCLA, crowds overflowing the sidewalks and spilling onto crosswalks and streets alike. Many paid their tribute by dressing in his style fo costimes, complete with white cotton gloves on their hands. Late into the evening and night, people held up candles, blasted the songs that rocketed and solidly positioned him as the king of pop. People danced to the beat, hoping the very best to keep his legend alive.

M.J and I

What Michael Jackson meant to me – I only remember that his face, songs and dance moves. His famous Black and White MTV played over and over again over the television – the words “It don’t matter if you’re black or white” etched a deep impression in me. I still remembered gawking at the amazing visual effects in the MTV, ranging from transitioning from a dance stage to a real stage set in the middle of wilderness with natives riding horses storming the scene. I remembered him dancing along with an Indian dancer in the middle of the street. I can recollect the ground-breaking face-morphing sequence, featuring esctatic Tyra Banks whose career was just about to take off. Of course, not to forget him showing off his sleek dance moves on a deserted street, screaming and shouting, smashing glasses (the studio had slurs digitally superimposed on them to justify his act of vandalism).

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In my childhood years, everybody with a name Michael will be called Michael Jackson. There’s this boy who lives behind my grandma’s shophouse, and you bet, his name was Michael and we’ve always been teasing him to replicate MJ’s dance moves. Of course he can’t – the only thing he did was to grab his crotch and shake it. Haha!

Rest in peace, Michael. Even as the organic part of you dissolves and fades away, your legend, your music, your personality, will remain as part of us, our culture, our history and our lives.

Fonty Friday

Miso, by Mårten Nettelbladt, is a typeface designed specially for architecture drawings. It’s slim, compacted form allows you to fit it into every single nook and cranny in your diagrams.

Fonty Friday - Miso

Have a great weekend!

Posted in Emotions, Food for Thought, Music \ Tagged Cardiac Arrest, Death, Legend, Michael Jackson, Pop, Shocking \ 11 Responses

Infrared for your Monday blues – Genting Highlands

Jun 22, 09 \ Photography, Reaching Out \ 15 Responses

So here’s another Monday post featuring some of my infrared photography works – if you’re interested in the previous infrared photography post, click here. Hope your Monday was good!

Infrared photography captures the image of a scene using lights of near-infrared wavelengths – the camera sensor, or film, is sensitive to infrared light to a certain degree, but only for near-infrared (far-infrared has wavelengths that are too long to be detected). Typically, a digital camera manufacturer will place an infrared filter before the sensor to prevent infrared light from reaching it. To many people’s dismay (or is it ‘delight’?), some clothings are actually transparent in the infrared range – that’s one of the reasons why infrared filter is used. In addition, infrared will mess with the auto-focusing mechanism in the camera, and leave hotspots behind due to differential refractory index, causing the light to bounch off differently in your camera lenses.

One easy way to capture a scene in infrared light is to place a filter that removes light in the visible spectrum, and only permit small amount of red light from the visible range to pass through, alongside with infrared. Due to the presence of the infrared filter in your camera, high exposure time is required, even under bright daylight.

For the following photos, I’ve used a Hoya R72 filter (55mm in diameter) and screwed it onto my Sony A200 18-70mm kit lens. A hot spot in the center of the photo is somewhat visible originally, but this can be circumvented by some photoshopping skills. The photos are taken during my recent trip to Genting Highlands, a popular getaway destination in my country located just an hour’s drive away from the capital.

I have only selected a few nice ones to show – the rest can be seen in my flickr set, Genting Highlands, in a different light. You can also view my Infrared collection too.

Directions, please?

An overhead road sign above the old route that people use to travel down the highland. Since the new pass opened, this road is now used to service the apartments and the police station. It’s now the road less travelled. I have no idea why the sign appeared orange though. Perhaps it’s the way it reflects infrared?

Go karts, in infrared

The Go Kart’s tack shot in infrared. The original photo shot in normal light can be found over here.

Flying Coaster, in infrared

The Flying Coaster (what an unoriginal name IMHO) is the first of its kind in Asia, and the management boasts that more than a million people has rode on that thing. The amusement park wristband, while granting free entry to all rides in the amusement park, does not allow you to board the coaster for free – you will have to pay for the ticket, albeit at a discounted rate. Here’s the one shot in normal light.

Genting Highands, in infrared

A gorgeous view of some of the hotels in the highland resort, from an outcrop near the lakeside. This photo is taken further up the pedestrian bridge, see the other photo.

Corkscrew + Sunset = Awesomeness

This is, without any doubt, my favourite infrared photo I’ve produced so far. There is little photoshopping done to this photo, except for artificially increasing the dynamic range and then color burning the sky a little for the dramatic effect. Everything else, including the lens flare, is real. The sun was setting rather quickly behind the roller coaster and I was on a final walk on the Dinasour Land hill before I retire to other parts of the amusement park. Grabbed my tripod and took around 10+ test shots, and this one turned out to be the best.

Are you involved in infrared photography too?

Just a question – if you’re also playing around with infrared photography, feel free to post links to your works and share some tips and ideas. I’ll be more than happy to list your work :)

You can also ask questions on how infrared photography is carried out, and I’ll try my very best to answer them. I’m currently working on a tutorial, but it’ll take a week or two before it’s done.

Posted in Photography, Reaching Out \ Tagged Genting Highlands, Holiday, Hoya, Infrared, Malaysia, Vacation \ 15 Responses

A highland getaway, back with photos

Jun 19, 09 \ Photography, Reaching Out \ 24 Responses

Frankly speaking, I’m quite clueless when it comes to penning this entry – should it make it more narrator-like, for example, the one I wrote for my photoshooting trip with Jeremy in my homecountry’s bustling capital, or should I make it a strictly photos-only post? My aunt suggested that I should just post the photos and then direct you guys to where all they are dumped, but I’ve decided to write a little, just so that I won’t overwhelm you with the story and my rather terrible grammar… and my eternal confusion in when to use to, with, of and for.

All of the photos can be found in the complete Flickr set I’ve made for this trip – Genting Highlands June ‘09. You can also view it in the gallery. Only a handful of selected photos will be featured in this post.

Interjection: Fonty Friday

Here’s this week’s dose of good type – who says that monospace fonts are ugly? Raph Levien, the designer behind the monospace typeface Inconsolata draws inspiration from some Japanese gothic fonts, making it more legible at small font sizes.

Told you, monospace fonts don’t have to be ugly to be called monospace.

A short introduction

The photos I’ve taken during the trip are processed differently from my usual photos – I experimented with my new post-processing actions, which is crafted to make photos slightly darker, smoother (thanks to Noise Ninja), has higher contrast and a pseudo-HDR touch to it. Now, read more to view the photos!

Continue reading “A highland getaway, back with photos”

Posted in Photography, Reaching Out \ Tagged Bokeh, Font, Genting Highlands, Holiday, Malaysia, Photography, Typeface, Vacation \ 24 Responses

Bookmarked: Nebula! Aweomse T-shirt design

Kyle (@Eckstatic) shared this link on Twitter to a T-shirt design by designer & illustrator, Shalimar Luis. Not does this particular T-shirt design by Shalimar has striking, beautiful colours, but also a good play with type. I totally dig the Rugrats-esque appeal of the font and the background stars, which remind me so much of [...]

Posted in Bookmarked, Design \ Tagged Design, T-shirt, Type \ 5 Responses