18 September, 2008
Of photography and balloons
03:54:26 | Daily Life, Events | 
Signed up for the Canon Photo Marathon 2008, to be held on the 18th October.
The competition involves three segments - each with different themes lasting about three hours each. Participants would be assigned the theme at the beginning of each segment and they are required to go around, gathering snapshots and submitting their best work at the end of the three hour time frame before being assigned the next theme.
Nifty, huh?
Was initially contemplating whether I should register for it since I wasn’t too sure whether I would have recovered by then. But heck - this is just too good to be missed.
In the meantime, I’d work on polishing up on my techniques and use of lighting with Mojojo (that’s what I named my camera - a Canon Powershot SX100) so that I needn’t wrestle too much with settings and exposures and all that jazz on the actual day itself.
Speaking of which, I am eyeing quite a few DSLR models from Canon as of late. I feel that I’m quite ready to upgrade now, since I’ve progressed quite a fair bit from my former point and shoot with automatic mode phase. Mojojo, with his fair amount of manual functions has been serving me well enough but … I want more!
But of course, it’ll be a while before I actually go out there and get a new one. The prices are hefty, so I gotta’ think carefully.
Hmm.
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Presenting, the girl who loves colourful balloons. Captured last Sunday at my uncle’s 60th birthday celebrations, courtesy of my younger cousin, using Mojojo on … automatic mode.
Yay for balloons.
Much as I swear by the manual mode these days, I can’t seem to trust others to use them properly. Take my younger cousin for example - he only managed to get the above photo after six attempts, the first five using manual mode, and finally, his first success on automatic mode.
He struggled and struggled and after each photo, he’d go … “Eh, Brenda! Why (is the photo) so blurred/dark/grainy, ah?”
But I love the photo anyway.
Mainly because there’s a balloon in it.
It was balloons galore at the event, by the way. Loads and loads of balloons floated around us on the ceiling, in various shapes and sizes and colours. It made me ecstatic, and I wanted to take all of them home with me upon leaving. I eventually took only two in the end since there were a fair amount of kids around and it wouldn’t be fair, right?
There were a couple of balloons that were overly inflated, and ended up taking on a weird shape - elongated at the bottom and veering towards slightly round at the top.
My little nephew happened to be enchanted with one of those elongated balloons and had it tied to his pants such that it followed him everywhere he went, which I found really cute.
Until my smart alec cousin poked me in the side and went … “Eh, why is there a t*sticle following Luke around, ah?”
OMGGAH.
C O M M E N T S (5)
That sounds like a very interesting and challenging contest. Good luck!
I so suck at photography… or maybe my camera has gone bonkers. I’ve been trying to take a photo of a crumpled balled up paper but it still comes out grainy :(
I used to be able to take such good pictures with that camera… ah well it is “ancient” and rather rudimentary. I’ll be investing in a new one, but before I’ll need to carefully study the existing models and criteria… and… FFS I can barely be bothered to read anything these days :P
hmm, you’re taking part in this contest with someone right? i think you shouldn’t go alone, just in case you faint or something. (i mean, touch wood lah, but better be safe.)
your cousin (i’m assuming it’s david? =P) takes a pretty decent photo … in automatic mode. *sniggers*
sounds like fun! jiayou..i know you’ll enjoy the competition thoroughly..=D do let me see the pics you take!
Ahh, everyone around me seems to be eye-ing / owns / just bought an SLR. D= I’m so jealous! My point-and-shoot is starting to show signs of aging, ie. the LCD screen flickers white-grey at times, but gosh an SLR would be so expensive! -__-; And heavy. And big. =P Hehe. I think something like your SX100 would do well for me now. C=
Anyway, haha, why the heck did he tie the balloon to his PANTS?! xD That’s bound to lead to such … jokes.
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I think you had another entry back (around Valentine’s Day?) where somebody else compared a heart-shaped balloon with another anatomical part. Balloons are just balloons! Urgh! What wrong with your relatives and friends?! XD