All my bags are packed......
At 6, to Australia
- One or two books in a small bag. [all luggage handled by parents]
At 16, package tour to Beijing
- Necessities [clothes, underwear, towel, shampoo, body foam, toothbrush and paste]
- Winter jacket
- Camera
- Few rolls of film
- Books for handluggage
At 20, Redang Island, KL and Taman Negara with friends
- Necessities [clothes, underwear, towel, shampoo, body foam, facial foam, toothbrush and paste]
- Camera
- A roll of film
- Swimsuit
- Guitar scores [Redang]
- Food and water [Taman]
At 21, across Europe [rather than carry tons of luggage around, I chose to go light]
- Necessities [clothes, underwear, towel, shampoo, body foam, facial foam, body moisturizer, toothbrush and paste, foot deodoriser, travel detergent]
- Camera
- 7 rolls of film
- Travel Journal + pens
- Medicinal pouch [po chai pills, tiger oil, plaster]
- Jacket
- Poker cards + notepad as boredom busters
Now, at 26, just before going to Athens,
- Necessities [clothes, underwear, towel, shampoo, body foam, facial foam, body moisturizer, face moisturizer, leave-in conditioner, toothbrush and paste, foot deodoriser]
- Camera kit: Camera, charger and SD card
- Travel Journal + pens
- Medicinal pouch [po chai pills, plaster]
- Jacket
- Travel pillow
- Boredom busters:
1 Lonely Planet Athens,
1 Lonely Planet Greek Islands,
101 places NOT to visit [to read],
and 1 Little Book of Sudoku
- And the poker cards
Plus:
- Umbrella [due to reports of rain]
- Flip flops [see above]
- Swimsuit [for possibility of sunshine]
And I haven't counted in the other assorted stuff I may pick up along the way -_-!!! Seems to me that as you grow older, the things in your luggage seem to increase at an exponential rate.........
ATHENS: 9th June to 16 June 2007
Friday, June 08, 2007
Thursday, June 07, 2007
There is a certain beauty in impermanence, I realised.
Before you read this blog post, I want you to try a little experiment.
Take a camera, any camera. It can be film, digital or handphone. Find something interesting happening in the area around you. [or heck, if there really is nothing, focus on something trivial, like the potted plastic plant.]
Now, take a picture of that interesting thing. But at the same time that you do it, keep one eye on the viewfinder, and one eye on the actual event. Then take a picture.
Can you do it? I realised that it's very difficult to do so, because my eyes were taking in two different perspectives of the same image. The information that goes to your brain is that of 2 different things, the image of the thing itself, and the image on the viewfinder. Since your eyes usually combine information received from both eyeballs in order to process imagery, you will most likely see a jumble of 2 strangely similar, yet different images of the same thing.
Still with me so far? Good.
Why this has suddenly inspired a blog post is because of the number of pictures that I've been taking on the handphone and on Kenny. I was at the opening event of the Arts Fest, taking pictures of the acrobatics and I realised how 'bent' my vision was.
You see, although I was watching the event, I was only experiencing, in fact, a poor visual substitute of it on Kenny's LCD screen. Like, come on! This fantastic acrobatic display was happening right before my very eyes, and I was watching it through a 2.5 inch LCD screen when i could have been seeing it in real, unadulterated life!
Do you think we've become a nation of voyeurs?
This concept is not an old one, and I think it came up when the first camera handphones first came upon the market. Last time, though, people were more concerned with the potential for criminal voyeurism. [unlike the paparazzism I seem to be tending towards] Now, though, I'm concerned about another thing.
Are we so entranced with the images, that we forget about the real thing?
As an amateur photographer, I admit there's a kind of pleasure in capturing a beautiful, lasting image. Technology is getting cheaper, and more accessible to every aspiring wannabe like me, so anyone of us can claim to be an 'amateur photographer' if you have a camera with a decent number of pixels, 3X optical zoom and a good memory card. [Or even a handphone with the same features] Once you buy that shiny new toy, you wanna snap every thing in sight, and you bring it out for all kinds of events, snapping away and playing with all the features. Something that I, admit, am guilty of with Kenny as well.
But part of the thrill of photography is also the interaction with the environment around you. Perhaps this is best expressed by a sentiment I read in a photography magazine: That as children, we play with the tool. We become familiar with its technical features and we get pretty decent shots. [no more red eyes on your friends]
But to really transcend this and become a GREAT photographer, you must also have a keen awareness of the environment around you. You must know how the light falls in the evening. You must know which direction the sun will rise from. You must know the colours that are around you. You must be friendly enough with the people to get permission to take their photos.
How will you do this behind an LCD screen?
It is hard. Like all great artists, you have to drink deeply from the cup of life, before you can take truly great photos of it. Without the knowledge, and love, of your environment, it is hard to take really good shots. Perhaps you can take decent looking holiday snaps, but that is all you will ever get.
Maybe once in a while, you can just leave the memory cards at home, and the handphone in your pocket. Get a chance to really taste the life that is before you. Go out and really live in it, rather than just staying a voyeur of it. Sometimes, the true deliciousness of life comes not from viewing a poor photo of it, but from the awareness that this is all you will get, and that if you don't take in all you can of it now, you will lose it forever.
Maybe, the true beauty of life comes not from its seeming permanence, but from its fleeting moments. That the moment is made ever the more beautiful because of the possbility of it flying away forever at any moment.
This really only hit me as I was leaving the event. I left a few moments too early, and before I knew it, the first fireworks had flown into the sky, straight golden rockets that burst into huge sunflowers of lights that briefly shimmered for a while, then fell gently to earth.
My first thought at the time was to quickly switch Kenny on, and take! take! take! Then I realised, I was wasting time just trying to take him out of the case, switch him on, and changing to the fireworks setting.
I put him back into my bag, and walked backwards along that street, all the while letting the fireworks burn themselves into my eyeballs, and my memories and appreciating them all the more for it.
Before you read this blog post, I want you to try a little experiment.
Take a camera, any camera. It can be film, digital or handphone. Find something interesting happening in the area around you. [or heck, if there really is nothing, focus on something trivial, like the potted plastic plant.]
Now, take a picture of that interesting thing. But at the same time that you do it, keep one eye on the viewfinder, and one eye on the actual event. Then take a picture.
Can you do it? I realised that it's very difficult to do so, because my eyes were taking in two different perspectives of the same image. The information that goes to your brain is that of 2 different things, the image of the thing itself, and the image on the viewfinder. Since your eyes usually combine information received from both eyeballs in order to process imagery, you will most likely see a jumble of 2 strangely similar, yet different images of the same thing.
Still with me so far? Good.
Why this has suddenly inspired a blog post is because of the number of pictures that I've been taking on the handphone and on Kenny. I was at the opening event of the Arts Fest, taking pictures of the acrobatics and I realised how 'bent' my vision was.
You see, although I was watching the event, I was only experiencing, in fact, a poor visual substitute of it on Kenny's LCD screen. Like, come on! This fantastic acrobatic display was happening right before my very eyes, and I was watching it through a 2.5 inch LCD screen when i could have been seeing it in real, unadulterated life!
Do you think we've become a nation of voyeurs?
This concept is not an old one, and I think it came up when the first camera handphones first came upon the market. Last time, though, people were more concerned with the potential for criminal voyeurism. [unlike the paparazzism I seem to be tending towards] Now, though, I'm concerned about another thing.
Are we so entranced with the images, that we forget about the real thing?
As an amateur photographer, I admit there's a kind of pleasure in capturing a beautiful, lasting image. Technology is getting cheaper, and more accessible to every aspiring wannabe like me, so anyone of us can claim to be an 'amateur photographer' if you have a camera with a decent number of pixels, 3X optical zoom and a good memory card. [Or even a handphone with the same features] Once you buy that shiny new toy, you wanna snap every thing in sight, and you bring it out for all kinds of events, snapping away and playing with all the features. Something that I, admit, am guilty of with Kenny as well. But part of the thrill of photography is also the interaction with the environment around you. Perhaps this is best expressed by a sentiment I read in a photography magazine: That as children, we play with the tool. We become familiar with its technical features and we get pretty decent shots. [no more red eyes on your friends]
But to really transcend this and become a GREAT photographer, you must also have a keen awareness of the environment around you. You must know how the light falls in the evening. You must know which direction the sun will rise from. You must know the colours that are around you. You must be friendly enough with the people to get permission to take their photos.
How will you do this behind an LCD screen?
It is hard. Like all great artists, you have to drink deeply from the cup of life, before you can take truly great photos of it. Without the knowledge, and love, of your environment, it is hard to take really good shots. Perhaps you can take decent looking holiday snaps, but that is all you will ever get.
Maybe once in a while, you can just leave the memory cards at home, and the handphone in your pocket. Get a chance to really taste the life that is before you. Go out and really live in it, rather than just staying a voyeur of it. Sometimes, the true deliciousness of life comes not from viewing a poor photo of it, but from the awareness that this is all you will get, and that if you don't take in all you can of it now, you will lose it forever.
Maybe, the true beauty of life comes not from its seeming permanence, but from its fleeting moments. That the moment is made ever the more beautiful because of the possbility of it flying away forever at any moment.
This really only hit me as I was leaving the event. I left a few moments too early, and before I knew it, the first fireworks had flown into the sky, straight golden rockets that burst into huge sunflowers of lights that briefly shimmered for a while, then fell gently to earth.
My first thought at the time was to quickly switch Kenny on, and take! take! take! Then I realised, I was wasting time just trying to take him out of the case, switch him on, and changing to the fireworks setting.
I put him back into my bag, and walked backwards along that street, all the while letting the fireworks burn themselves into my eyeballs, and my memories and appreciating them all the more for it.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Amidst all the emotional hoo-haing that went on over the past few weeks, I managed to find the time, energy and ka-chings to purchase 2 very new and expensive members to my family.
First up, the extremely colourful, extremely kawaii, Amore, from the very talented Tokidoki:
I was too lazy to take a picture of my bag, so I got one off the Internet instead... :p My bag is similar to this, except that it is rounder, and has no black mesh at the side.
And yes, it is saturated in KAWAII!!!!! >D
But since the bag cost, *cough* quite a portion of my bonus, I'm currently milking its worth for every Jap lesson I've been to so far. So if you see this printed bag on a Saturday afternoon or night, yea, chances are its me. XP
Next up is my new boyfriend after DF.
I got tired of being left aside by him once he went to Indo so I met this guy outside. Juls describes him as being "a tall, strong, manly black guy with a long extendable ________" [fill in the blanks with your own word.] Ladies, and gentlemen, I introduce to you,
Kenny:
I know he's not the cute, small metrosexual guy that everyone is going for nowadays, but damn to my eye, he's gorgeous.More shooting possibilities than with Oliver, fits nicely in the palm of my hand, a little heavy, but feels strong and secure there.
And yes, a long extendable. That extends up to 6X optically. >D Therein lies the first step to my future career as a paparazzi.
And yes, these two before my trip to Athens this Friday night.
My pictures will be great, but I'll be eating stolen hotel breakfast bread everyday. -_-!!!!
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