Author Archives: 2konbla

Hey Man, Nice Shoes

4 Replies

27th July 2007: Fireflies And Something Something at KL Jamasia.


Kien Kit of Silent Scenery, master shoegazer, at work.


Ivan does the rhythm for their lush soundscape.


Ask Me Again. This quickly divided the night into two distinct genres; emo and post-rock.


Sky Juice Coffee turns into an emo core band. They did punk rock so well before.


Champion! A Nikon D40 with Nikkor AF-D 50mm F1.8D lens. Yes, she can only use it in manual focus.


Do not be fooled by the number of pedals here; post-rock only requires one post-rock pedal. The rest are there just to look colorful and pretty and give the shoe-gazing guitarist something to look at. I did not get this band’s name, because I can’t seem to find the gig poster anymore.


Once in a while, they bend down to tweak said pedal.


Cigarette lighter as a slide!


Izuan is again on fire, with Auburn (who, well, isn’t post-rock or emo, but more of alternative rock?)


Ian Koren returns as Jesus, to play for Throne Away!


This picture is for Sarah Chong!


They had a whole bunch of new songs. Hooray!


Their last gig was Rock The World 7, but they still had that amazing energy.

More shots were in Ian’s Canon Ixus, in black-and-white and ISO1600 (because black-and-white complements the camera noise well.) All the good ones of the jumpy frontman’s antics were on his camera instead.

Ready To Hate

7 Replies

Now for shots from the Tribute To Radiohead, 20th July 2007, KL Jamasia.


Dopplegengger, who started with Just (which I’d rather have as an outro song, with everybody on the floor ala the video), Electioneering, Let Down and Paranoid Android.


Somewhere before it all the electricity tripped, and I took this 1 second exposure at 50mm F1.4 ISO1600.


The self-declared awesome possum in the picture above can solve one of these! (Of course, the Rubik’s Cube shown here was solved by me. Some chick just bought it and I pretended it was my first time figuring it out… in near darkness.)

I would like to take credit for teaching her how, almost entirely over SMS. 😀


Back to the show! Now Everyone Can Play Radiohead was this band’s name.


They played Fake Plastic Trees, High And Dry and I don’t quite remember what else.


Gotta love Izuan’s fire hazard guitar effects.

These guys were so good, the intensity of the haunting music was so strong, I felt it rip through the very fabric skin of me. The emo-ness of it all was too much to bear, I wanted to rub myself against the effects pedals and self-combust. The emotion was beyond wanting to cry. Of course, only two people ever knew what really happened to me.

I distanced myself from the stage, walked to the back for some fresh air, and their set was over.


Ham of Seven Collar T-Shirt is well prepared for anything Jonny Greenwood can muster.


“Wow, that looks like so much fun. I wanna headbang too!”


Yep, Evol, who I last saw at the Incubus Tribute, did a rockin’ cover of Karma Police. It was the first song I heard from them…


…and one that is so great to swing and headbang to.

Sh-Red

4 Replies

Project Bazooka at Laundry Bar, 19th July 2007. Penang Invasion night!


Two Sides To A Story, modern rockers.


Shot from the bar on a bar stool with the 600mm F11 combo, with Sony HVL-F56AM flash pointed directly, ISO400. I finally have another case of red-eye!


Poseidon, Penang mari.


I love their metal riffs!


Melodic and yet thrashy, with plenty of progressions.


“Ooooo guitar solo.” Shot at ISO1600. Whoever complains of the Sony Alpha 100’s noise doesn’t know how easy it is to clean up.


Yow!


It was truly shredder night for the last two bands, and bliss for my air-guitaring left hand. Oceans Of Fire, all instrumental, all technical.


Even the drummer pauses to see what’s cooking.


A MIDI jack, perhaps. These guys won second place in Asian Beat 2006.


“Here, this is how you play bass!”

July Moon

3 Replies

Moonshine, July 12th, 2007, at good ol’ Laundry Bar.


Lied, with special effects of the angry rock variety.


Adlin Rosli is shiny.


Adil shreds for Milli’z.


Milli’z is sometimes dark, sometimes acoustic, sometimes dreamy, and always enjoyable.


MeetUncleHussain! Jumpy vocalist with high pitched falsettos.


Kickass riffs and emo falsettos like MUSE.


Guess who he’s playing for now!


Guess who he’s playing for now!


…Stonebay, grunge rock. Kickass riffs too, but with low macho vocals instead.

Streetways

5 Replies

On the 23rd of June 2007, I went for the Sony Alpha 12 Hour Street Shooting Marathon. I didn’t stay till the end, as I went for the Cosmic Funk Express farewell gig.


We started off by hopping on the KL Monorail from KL Central all the way to Titiwangsa.


Upon reaching there, we found out that Ted Adnan was secretly a camwhore.


Street photography they say is about permission and shorter focal length ‘birding’.


Showdown.


Light a candle for feminism!


Paging for macdude.


The Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye on my Minolta Dynax 7. Full frame cropped to give a square circle. Sharp as heck at F16.


Sony 11-18mm F4.5-5.6 DT lens, at 13mm F5 F22 1/500th of a second. All hail the amazing lens that works on a full-frame camera, at even wider than it is on the Sony A100 with 1.5x crop factor!


13mm F5 F11 1/40th of a second on full-frame.


In comparison, 11mm on the Sony A100, with a 16.5mm equivalent, doesn’t look so impressive anymore. 🙁


We also did panning shots. I had no idea that panners used flash! (And to think, I used to do that on my point-and-shoot without flash and it seemed so easy.)


Ted the tourist.


Waiting for something to come his way.


Back at Titiwangsa Monorail Station, we spotted two-legged snails.


We then headed to a mamak, where the Peleng on my Sony A100 provided enough coverage.


Poison session at MyBuddyClub.com, 3rd floor, above Uncle Lim’s in Berjaya Times Square. Andersen Chong is a long-time Minolta fan who brings in gems and sells them on eBay.

Featured in the picture is Justin, being poisoned by his Tokina 20-35mm F2.8 AT-X.

Manner Queen

8 Replies


24th June, 2007: Cineleisure Damansara. I found these real-life mannequins for Elianto!


If I had to pick a mannequin to bring home, it would be this one…


…or this leggy doll.


Shift change. Mannequins that rotate themselves so you don’t have to do the dirty work of changing the mannequin’s clothes.

Fisheye Macro!

5 Replies


So one 1st of June I missed the company bus and got on the LRT instead, to work, and found flowers opposite Sogo, on the way to Bandaraya LRT!


I shot with either my Minolta 50mm F1.4 with Tamron 1.4x teleconverter…


…or the Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye.


Aperture plays a very important part in making a shot; make sure there is enough depth of field to make the flower sharp and defined as one object. Sometimes it also helps to not entirely throw the background into a blurry mess.


Wireless flash from below.


Also, I had to watch out for the sun and my shadow blocking it, especially so with a fisheye.


Annoyingly, the Peleng has an unevenly colored coating, where the color cast can change by just turning it about. Its effect can even be seen in the viewfinder!

Cross State Borders

5 Replies

On the 21st of July 2007, I spent the entire scorching day in a Tourism Malaysia treasure hunt… that didn’t exactly follow the convention of a treasure hunt in the modern sense. We’d have to go to Point 1 before getting the location to Point 2. Doesn’t that sound like the movies, and how a treasure hunt is like?


Our first stop took us all the way to Malacca. On the way, I spotted many battered vehicles.


Omak Den Restaurant, where we were to get item #1…


Mango Spice (on the left). On the right is item #2.


We were running short on time having deliberated much at our first few stops. Nabila proved to be an excellent driver.


Beetle mania!


At least over 10 spotted in Banting. Madness!


Istana Bandar, Banting. One of Malaysia’s historical monuments.


Oh well.


Another well.


Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Memorial. The place is so clean and well kept, you’d be glad taxpayer money went to this.


His Cadillac Fleetwood.


His little adorable train. Built like a tank and self-contained.


We then ended in Taman Tasik Titiwangsa, where I sniped this with my 600mm F11 combo…


…and this.


We won second place! What beginner’s luck. About the prizes I am not really sure, as the prizes seemed to have changed from what was written to something else for the worse, when announced. Spot the haven’t-linked-in-blog-entry-in-a-long-time Hannna, Nabila the crazy 160kmph driver and her mom, who wanted us to pull out and give up. Thank goodness we didn’t!


I think we won tickets to ride the Eye On Malaysia, too. I guess I’ll find out when Nabila gets the prizes.

Insignia

2 Replies

Spotted in you-know-where-from-the-signboards.

As for the question and the answer to Home Edge, it is:

Question: Whose style am I trying to imitate?
Answer: Asyraf Lee‘s

Yep, complete with the titling convention, black-and-white style and non-Rule-Of-Thirds framing, as accorded by XJ.

Money Sendiri

6 Replies

Shop attendants in DIY stores have an easy job.

Males don’t ask for directions and just won’t bother you.

Females in DIY shops are probably of the more independent variety, possibly with a more dominating, uh… personality.

That would make a relaxed job. I could stand in the solvents section and uh… open tins of thinner and turpentine to make sure they are still fresh and do not have a crusty coating.

Ah, high times! Sadly, I’m not cut out for that job. Contractors were in my new office with filler and turpentine, and I couldn’t stand the fumes.