Photo Challenge 5 – Christmas

Sorry for the delay in this one, folks. Xmas tends to throw things into disarray.

I was just about to press “Publish” after writing that we’re “Ken-less” again this challenge. He’s stuck somewhere in the Canadian boonies with sporadic Internet access (and probably no electricity, telephone, food or water and fending off grizzly bears).  However just as I hovered over the button I received Ken’s submission.   We also have Katy from Brazil submitting her first photo, so I have five images to share with you this time.

First, some housekeeping – Katy has given me a little bio to publish.

“First of, I have to confess that photography has taken over my life. I’ve always loved taking pictures. Passion that flourished when I was a little girl with a Zenit 12XP.

So now let’s talk about my work. I take self-portraits mostly – as you might have noticed on Flickr – because I get complete satisfaction being able to express myself thru art along with the fact that I am the only model I have. Shooting myself allows me to have full control and I also have a lot of fun doing it. It is, beyond doubt,  a challenge I enjoy taking on for two main reasons: it allows me to grow as an artist and as a person myself – I used to hate having my picture taken because I don’t really think I’m very photogenic. 

Photography to me is a package. There is so much to it from setting up the shot to taking the image, and the processing – I tend to use editing software on most of my photos, though I try not to overuse it, unless I’m doing more illustrative work, which I love.

Please feel free to criticise, praise, or comment on any of my pics either here or on Flickr. 

Thanks for your time and, of course, for taking me aboard.”

Thank you Katy – now, on to our photos.

Steve’s submission

My thoughts: Xmas in Australia is represented by warm weather, blue and cloudy skies, simple cold meat or roast feasts, christmas pudding, quaffable Australian beer and the cricket on the telly. Here’s the chimney Santa tried to slip down this year in a typical suburban Melbourne dwelling. As long as he doesn’t break the aerial on the way down he’s always welcome.  Just wish he’d take some of the children back with him to work as elves through the year.

Shot on my Panasonic FZ18 with some Photoshop curves and mask magic applied to bring the chimney back out of the shadows. 

Joepi’s submission

Joepi says:

There are several things that can depict a Filipino Christmas. There’s the Belen which is a diorama of the Nativity scene; the Simbang Gabi (Night Mass) which is a 4am mass several days before Christmas; vendors selling Puto Bumbong and Bibingka - made with rice sugar and coconut sold after the mass; and lastly my favorite: Christmas Lanterns or the Parol which depict the star that shone the way to Bethlehem. Parols are made from whatever material you can find at home as long as in the end it forms a star! Of course, if you’re lazy and have had your share of Parol making as a kid (like I did with my dad!), you can actually go out and buy yourself one. This photo is one of the first corners in Manila that sold the more extravagant lanterns. It was always a sign that Christmas is in Manila (which typically starts in September) when these stalls are put up and the nights are lit with blinking stars.

This photo was taken on the 23rd of December – Christmas is already in full swing in Manila, but this hopeful is still waiting to sell more of his merchandise. Now I know I need more help in the whole shooting at night department, so I apologize ahead of time for the noise. This was shot at a very high ISO 1600 at f1.8. Somebody tell me how to get better photos of alternately blinking lights at night without using flash! It was drizzling too, so I was in quite a rush!

Oh and Merry Christmas to you Steve, Mat, Ken and Katy! Cheers!

My thoughts: Xmas in the Philippines sounds like madness. Just like every other aspect of it.  Good madness, mind you.  Love to have experienced it.  Re shooting this better than you already did – ask Ken.  I think you did fine.  A little fill flash, if you can work out how to do it on that cam, might have helped.  And cropping more tightly would stop me from straining my eyes to see the detail. 

Ken’s submission

Ken says:

Technically this shot is all wrong. I had no flash and only the Christmas lights to illuminate Cameron. I also had to push the ISO all the wait up to H1 (1600 i think). 50 mm lens at f1.4.  This is straight out of the camera as I have no editing tools in Canada. Actually, I have no decent pc even to open the files. Thankfully I found an late night Walmart to buy a USB cable.

This is Cameron’s first Christmas and I loved spending every minute with him.  He didn’t cry when sitting on Santa’s lap and enjoyed the tearing of Christmas wrapping paper to discover his  new toys

My thoughts:  Should have bought a Canon, Ken  But seriously, not-so-little-anymore Cameron in his Santa suit looks very cute and very warm in what must be a chilling Canadian winter.  This photo looks like it could have been taken in any Australian home on Xmas morning, and I doubt there are too many differences between us other than the weather.

Katy’s submission

Katy says:

Thinking of my concept for Christmas wasn’t a struggle at all.  First, I really love the whole Christmassy atmosphere all around the globe. Second, Santa has always been my favourite Xmas character of all – as for many others.

Cheer up, y’all! We, the Santa Katies, have something for you. All you have to do is drop us a line or give us a call, and “we’ll bring your shopping to you”!

Well, it may sound a bit harsh, but that’s exactly the idea of what Xmas has become to me. Nobody, broadly speaking, can be bothered getting off their seats and actually getting outside to buy something meaningful – as Christmas itself should be- to the ones they love.

That was my very brief description. Hope you work out the rest.

This picture was taken with my Sony DSC-W55. Yeah, still haven’t purchased a decent camera! I did some kind of Photoshoppery to that image: Multiplicity or Clone Shot, which most of you have heard about. It is a simple process of taking two or three images of oneself in different areas of the same frame (ideally mount your camera on a tripod) and layering each figure into one frame on PS using the pen tool and moving layers into the master composite.

My thoughts: Katy, this is an absolutely perfect start to your contribution to our little club.  Having also seen some of your other shots, I like the way you think your ideas through to every little detail of the composition – possibly something the rest of us don’t do quite to this extent. The shadow on the wall & the props really add story elements, and of course the stockings are a real attention grabber as well as a talking point.  This is an image full of conversation starters, and I think your style will add yet another level of balance to our group. I’ll chat to you offline about cloning/multiplicity, as I don’t know how to use PS to that extent yet, and am interested.  I was thinking of creating a collage but didn’t know how to use PS to make a professional one, so had to choose one image.  You might be able to help me skill up in that area.  Once again, welcome.  I just hope the boys in our club are going to be able to objectively critique your images.

Mat’s submission

Mat says:

Christmas often seems to be about family and food. As my family are
all on the other side of the planet, here’s the food that I enjoyed on
this Christmas Day.

My thoughts: I saved the best for last.  I absolutely adore this image. I could see it up on my wall. Great presentation of simple, yet telling images. Even the mobile phone in the breakfast composition helps to tell the story.  For some strange reason I think that baked beans “meal” is being eaten off a placemat on your polished floorboards!  Well done, Mat.

Next challenge

Time to do something a little different.  Well, not really that different. I’m just going to turn over the choice of themes to you guys.  BUT – to give you all time to send me suitable themes, the next challenge has been chosen by one of our readers, Veena Rusli.  V is the Bureau Chief of Berita Harian (Wikipedia is your friend) in Sabah, Malaysia. She’s a top journo in other words. So to have her as one of my regular readers is an honour. Mind you, she seems to be more interested in words than images, but you can’t win ‘em all.

So, V has suggested “Temptation”, and I’ve gone with it because I know it will challenge some of you in a new way.  Please have your submissions in by Sunday 18th January.

Final day in Bangkok – big changes, some good.

Bangkok has really taken it out of me. I was really getting edgy towards the end of the third day and felt like I was about to crack. After chatting to the Gecko’s tour guide I had to make a very difficult decision to cancel my tour to Chiang Mai and surrounds. My blistered feet are making it hard to walk long distances at the moment, my state of mind stemming from Bangkok communication and culture was not good, and the tour itself turned out to be with a bunch of hippie back-packers, none of whom I related to. The last thing I needed was 10 days of village hut conditions, and all I could think of was that I would be unable to get back to civilization for 10 days, and would probably end up in a mental hospital.

Goodbye to my tour fee, and hello to more accommodation spend. However, enjoying myself is more important than money. The good news is that my last day in Bangkok was actually quite fun. I decided to check out the Computer City plaza. A huge place full of technology for sale.

First I checked into my hotel, and learned that I really should be watching out for the good looking pick-pockets. Seeing as I wasn’t pick-pocketed that day I never found out why, or even what management thought was good looking.

Walking along the tiny lane-ways, looking for pick-pockets, I passed through a very popular market.  This view is repeated in rows of three or four for the length of the street, and nobody moves to let you through. I eventually learned to be more aggressive in my movements around people.  No-one complained.

In a city of chaos there is some sensibility.  There are traffic cops who look more like military police, and then there are traffic management guys like this one. His responsibility was to stop left-turning cars from running over pedestrians, and as you can see he did so with the use of movable barriers.  We could use those in Little Bourke Street to stop the pedestrians from running over cars.  To add to Thailand confusion, I’ve noticed some streets in which cars change the side of the street they drive on!

Street vendors dominate this place, although I still haven’t eaten from one.  This lady looked more Chinese to me, but you can see from this angle how she sets up and, in a rare example, she can serve seated guests.  One of the main reasons I haven’t been eating from these vendors is that it seems most of the food is meant to be takeaway, and I would rather sit down whilst working out what things are and how to eat them. Not to mention that it gives me a table to discreetly throw up under if it comes to that.  Just kidding – all the food I’ve eaten so far has been awesome – except Burger King.

I really should have tried some of this squid.  It looks great! This stall was along a street that presented jewelery, perfume, clothes and food according to no particular plan.

I get the feeling that the local touts are too busy with passing traffic to bother poor tourists as much on Sundays, as I was hardly harrassed at all today.  I was able to dawdle along a few city blocks before eventually arriving at Computer City.   I have a reasonably wide-angle camera with me, but I wasn’t able to fit enough into this image. To fully appreciate the size of this place you need to imagine what you see times two in height (five floors), surrounding you on all four sides, with each floor occupying the depth of an entire city block.  That’s not impressive if you think of Chadstone or the Singapore malls, but it certainly is when you remember that this mall is for nothing but technology.  I purchased a translation gadget and a power adapter.  I wanted a lot more, but the prices didn’t seem to be any cheaper than what we can get at home.  The only touts here were at the DVD/VCD stores.  Dodgy types were standing on each side of the walkway quietly asking if you wanted to “buy sexy video”.  In a real turn-about in my retail experiences they took “no” for answer.  Probably something to do with the fact that their trade is rather illegal.  In the larger stores, the salespeople that actually understood English didn’t seem to want to make a sale. Those on the ground floor were actually helpful.  The lady who sold me my translator put batteries in, showed me how to use it, took $500 baht off without me saying a thing, then when I said I wanted to pay with credit card she said I would have to pay the full price (surcharge) on the card, but that she would give me the $500 baht discount in cash!

Despite being told that monks are not allowed to shop, plenty were.  I’ve since been told that these aren’t “real” monks.  I just think that monks understand the importance of technology to society more than certain unnamed Australian retail organizations might.

I was extremely close to buying this from a second-hand store for about $250.  Then I realized that I didn’t actually think I’d want it in my house!  So a photo will do nicely.

My Bangkok trip finished at Soi Cowboy (spelling?). Soi means “street”, by the way.  It’s effectively Bangkok’s red light district (although I got the impression the entire city was a red-light district!). In my opinion it seemed more like a bunch of sideshows at a carnival.  I parked myself at the bottom end in an Aussie bar, drinking Singha and watching the passing parade.  Highlights included an actual floor show on the street involving 12 “Moulin Rouge” style dancers and a cabaret singer, the tiny little kid that kept trying to sell me roses for the entire time I sat there (on my own mind you, after having said no at least 15 times). Best of all was the tiny elephant that regularly walked right through the very crowded street with her trainer   I got footage on my phone, but can’t upload from there so you’ll just have to use your imagination for now.

I got talking with a couple of Aussies, which was a breath of fresh air – to actually be able to hold a conversation again!!!  They were regulars and wanted to show me the sights. I let them do that until we entered the third bar, after which I decided enough was enough and grabbed the next available tuk tuk back to the hotel to get some peace and quiet.  I won’t bother trying to describe what goes on here.  You’ll just have to experience that for yourself.  I won’t be back to do it again, that’s for sure.

PS – I started my Malaria tablets when I hit Bangkok.  I’m not experiencing any side-effects at all, unless reduced tolerance for people is one…

Bangkok – Day 3, tigers, the floating market and more issues

It’s after midnight and I’m exhausted. So this is going to be a short post with lots of photos. The reason I’m even doing one this late is that I’m not sure I’ll have internet access for the next 10 days – I’m about to leave for a backpacker adventure through northern Thailand. Let’s hope it’s better than Bangkok.

Today has been mixed. I booked a day tour to visit the Floating Market and it turns out that you also get taken to a bunch of tourist traps, and the Tiger Temple. That was worth it, but I found out later that the Gecko’s tour takes us there too. Would have been nice to see it in the itinerary. The organiser also told me we’d be back by 4:30pm. The guide told me 6:30pm, and when I told him what the organiser said he hastily changed his answer to 5:30pm. We subsequently returned to my hotel at 7:30pm, missing both my tailor fitting and tour briefing.

To make it worse, I open the door of my room to find someone else’s gear inside! Apparently they thought my room became twin share once the tour started. Needless to say I was pretty upset with the hotel and kicked him out. On the positive side, none of my things were missing or had been touched.
On to the photos.

The Floating Market is about 90 minutes north of Bangkok and consists of both water and land-based stalls, selling everything from fresh and cooked food, fruit, hats, knick-knacks and useless things that appeal to tourists. Here has been the only place I’ve seen Coke advertised. Pepsi dominates this city.

I couldn’t see why this lady was there as she wasn’t shopping, had no produce and her eyes were closed most of the time, so I suppose she could just have been enjoying the sun.

Dining on the water takes on a new meaning here.

As it got closer to midday the waterway became clogged. Somehow the boaters managed to find paths through, and the vendors got to their customers (something Thais seem to be very good at even when their customers don’t actually know they want to buy anything).

I went to a tiger sanctuary. There are real tigers there. Tigers are cute when they’re not eating you. Tigers are cuter when you can pat them. I was able to pat them. ‘Nuff said…

This guy was impossible to leave alone, and we had total access to him.

Look at those beautiful spots on his ears! It’s only when I see this photo that I realise I only ever look at a tiger from in front. I had no clue they had spots on their ears.

I think this monk only hangs around so that they are allowed to call this place a Tiger Temple. I didn’t see any temples other than those on each side of my forehead as I washed my face that morning. Oh hang on, I think they said one of the tigers was named Shirley. (“Shirley you can’t be serious!” I exclaimed when told).

Feeding time for the pigs (or are they peccaries), horses (I don’t know, they were too small to be real horses), chickens, peacocks, deer and water buffalo. This peacock was clearly in charge and kept attacking any other animal that raised an eyebrow at “his” root vegetable of choice. And they all ran when he went at them…

By the looks of this lethal karate chop, the peacock was about ready to add pork to his menu.

I’m off to re-pack my luggage and get some sleep. See you next time I get online.