Category Archives: Pictures

Plastic And Stretched

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(Montage of three different pictures.)

Are you feeling plasticky and stretched?

This would be the only good use for an LCD screen – the light is polarized. Transparent stretched plastic then turns it about, causing funky rainbows… but you need a polarizer in front of your camera to capture this. (The LCD screen was white, with the polarizer turned so the white background became as dark as possible.)

Here’s something for the photographically adventurous – articles from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. Check out his flatbed scanner-turned digital camera, high speed photography, strip photography, infra… oh wait, that sounds normal already.

The scanner idea would be awesome if implemented correctly, because with an A4-size 1200 dots-per-inch scanner, you could get a 14031×9921 size scan, or a 139 megapixel camera.

After Rocktoberfest

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November 2005 was a month full of gigs, so I’ll cram as many pictures as possible in under 600 KB, baby.

11th November: The Low Enders, or the bassists’ gig, part two (part one was the guitar shredders’.)


Clockwise from top-left: Daphne and Alda look merry; Alda doesn’t know how to turn off the video camera’s demo mode; Adam of Dragon Red enters a air-guitar competition and does a parody of Amil, his bandmate, complete with his expressions; he also shredded and threw in the Dimebag Darrell spider walk.


Clockwise from top-left: Serious business with AJ of Pop Shuvit, playing alone with his loop effect, major coolness as he builds a drum beat, adds basslines, then solos over it; Nakim and his secret weapon (the band); his bandmate, also on bass; Alda, representing Cosmic Funk Express. A joke: How do we get Cosmic Funk Express’ basslines to overpower Zack‘s guitar shredding? Hand Zack the bass.


After all that, the three bassists (and Jimmy of Tempered Mental) come together, to play… Come Together. The audience sings along, but they never got to the chorus. AJ and Nakim stole the limelight, with AJ doing jazzy lines as well as the melody, while Alda tried cutting in with his bass overdrive but failed.


12th November: Tracy‘s This Is Acoustics! Part II gig was at the same place as Part I, with about the same people, and about the same songs. Sorry! They did sound familiar despite only hearing them once. Well, at least they were memorable!


Clockwise from top-left: Christie King; Tony Leo the soulful church boy; Max Lim the guy who wrote a song about a broken guitar; Tracy Wong the piano player who turned Alicia Keys in half a year; Ian Chow the guy with the booming voice who doesn’t need a mike, Suk Yin.


17th November: Tempered Mental (featuring Zack on guitar) played at Backyard Pub, Sri Hartamas. I don’t quite fancy my camera’s night mode, but it does give cool effects when used appropriately, like these ghosts. 😀


Left: Before them was a macho tattooed man… on a Yamaha EZ-AG! Yup, the stringless beginner’s guitar, which lights up to show you where to fret. Middle: Zack on Cosmic Funk Express plays so fast he traverses time. Right: Zack shows us how to tap.


20th November, La Bodega KL: Top: Rhapsody, a jazzy R&B band, uh… jazzes the place. Powerful vocals with a strangely familiar but not overused tonal quality. Middle: Lucy In The Loo, on stage. Bottom: The Sofa Sessions; you gotta love the bassist’s lines. Plus they played a cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers – Soul To Squeeze, which in my opinion was the ultimate RHCP bassline song. Ariff nailed the solo (minus guitar slide) and the vocals.


Left: Billy Corgan meets Kurt Cobain, in this dude’s Nirvana cover. Right: Kevin strums to a happy acoustic-loving audience.


23rd November: KLue Upfront at Zouk promised free flow for VIPs. No free flow. No VIP area either. Noone stopped me from going upstairs, where I took a picture of Architecture In Helsinki, described by many as an avant garde rock band with 8 members and countless instruments.


The closest I could liken it to anything I knew was probably an emo-voiced Mr. Bungle. They had catchy, dancy hooks, but they changed it too often for us to enjoy it. So boohoo, to you progressive wannabes. Only when they turned the tables over to Twilight Action Girl did I feel the party started.

A privileged few would have ever seen me dance, but this one dude took the cake.

“Dude, are you on pills? You gotta stop that shit man.”
“Dude, I’m clean. I don’t smoke or pop pills… heck, I’ve never smoked weed!”
“WHAAA? DUDE! You are missing out on some good sheeet man!”

No, I do not look like a druggie when I dance. I look like a druggie all the time, dammit. 🙁 His friend calls me the crazy dancing dude.


25th November: The Stickman’s Blitz ends the artistic series, which had the guitar shredders and bass players before. Here, John Thomas is called up from the audience for a drum solo.


Drinking games! Jimmy: “I’ll just have my beer while waiting for you guys to start, okay?”


Left to right: Alex Ang of Velvet Tones; Ainol of Deja Voodoo Spells; Jimmy of Tempered Mental. All three bands played before this, but Ainol couldn’t help but burst into drum solo when Deja Voodoo Spells played Jimi Hendrix – Fire. A bit too early.


They jumped about in their seats and danced, swapping drum thrones on the way. Jimmy rapped. Ainol did a tribal beat ala Safri Duo, reggae and lion dance, among other things – it was clear he was the uber-entertainer.


26th November: I don’t even know the name of this gig, but Khai was in it, and he heard that girls dig faceless guys, so he went on stage blind for Y2K.


Clockwise from top-left: Warve gets a rapper; Dragon Red featuring Roshan of K-Town Clan (before that, they did a cover of One Buck Short, with Adam making a parody of Mooky, hilarious!); Throne Away, superb emo band with new Jagger-swagger vocalist and tapping-solo, chord-playing bass player; Milla, some kind of emo metal.

What, you’ve got broadband and expect December pictures as well?

Of Skies And Stars And Hidden Badges

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Tonight was going to be a night like no other.


The sun set most dramatically.


The stars called out to me.


I reached divine enlightenment. Her voices spoke to me.


Many moons I passed; once, at dusk; the other two, each an hour away from midnight.

Anyway, to cut the drama short, I was stopped by the police! (Again.)

I lay my camera (with its lens pointing up) on the ground, on a junction platform, for a 15 second exposure. (The sky was so clear, you could actually see stars in my ‘hood!) Three motorcyclists came out of nowhere, circling me like vultures.

I ran towards a nearby coffee shop.

They intercepted me before I got there. “Tunjuk IC.” (Show identity card.)

“Kau dari mana?” (Where are you from?)

I said, from around here, but my IC had my PJ address. Fortunately my driver’s license had the KL address so I showed them that yes, I did live nearby.

“Kenapa kau lari?” (Why did you run?)

Dudes, you guys are such excellent undercover bikers, I was scared! “Saya ingat korang ni mat motor nak…” (I thought you guys were going to…)

One of them then unzipped his jacket to reveal his uniform. Phew. A very strange sense of security indeed.

It even got to where I work, and I showed them my tag. I also showed them my moon and star pictures.

“Ohhh… kau ingat kita mat motor nak samun you kah?” (Oh, you thought we were bikers intending to rob you?)

Well, thank God they weren’t. If you were a suspicious looking person up to some suspicious activity, and you saw a bunch of bikers circle you, you’d run, whether or not they covered up their uniforms! If you were innocent, you’d run too, so what’s the point of policemen being undercover?

I don’t even want to think of what would happen if they weren’t police. I should have reached the coffee shop anyway, as there were witnesses there.

October Best

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Rewind to October 1st 2005, Berjaya Times Square, for hitz.tv’s second anniversary.


Jason Lo says, “call me“.


Left to right: Deja Voodoo Spells, Edge Of Fire, Admonition‘s hothothot vocalist.

There were also a bunch of veteran-looking musicians doing a cover of Search – Isabella. Or maybe they were Search. I don’t know.

October 14th, I headed to Jamasia to rock out with Reta. (No, no pills are required to headbang, just a good appreciation for rock.)


Qings & Kueens with some good old rock and roll. (I cheated and used black and white because I couldn’t fix the color.)


Edge Of Fire having a reunion with the original singer and writer of their hit power ballad, Whole Again.


Be Jaya has the Joe Satriani of Malaysia.


Left: His son says hi to his bassist’s leg; right: every shredder has to do some left-handed tapping.


Naked Breed, the only band I knew was playing before coming. Haha.


Jack seems stunned by the sudden white lighting. Jamasia lights often alternate too fast, frustrating flash-less photographers.

Forward to October 26th, HELP prom band auditions. How cool is that? Instead of paying bands to come play for the prom, they come and compete for free entry to the prom.


So you wanna be a hot dancer? (They alternated between bands and dance performances earlier.)


Insulyna, grunge band.


Do not be fooled by menacing-looking BC Rich guitars. Have the laugh of your life when the vocalist comes on stage and sings off-key, Ah Beng style.


This band was better. I chose this picture for stim-girl, who I dragged, promising hot bass players she could fancy. We also camwhored during boring bands, but the pictures won’t be uploaded as I can’t link to her. 😛


A band from Indonesia proceeds to steal our thunder.


The ultimate recycled band.


Function-Z, a church band that keeps getting better.


Some dude who did a medley of James Blunt, John Mayer and heavier things.


It seemed like these people just got on stage unannounced. Ah well, such organization is expected in HELP events. At least the chick was cute.


Finally, the reason I was here – to finally see Syefri play bass (and Seng Yip play drums) for Dreaming To Sleep, an emo band. Well the emoness is most identifiable in George‘s voice, which is spot on emo like he was imported from the States and dyed his hair black.

There you go, all you demanding people, the gig pictures for October 2005. I’m going to spend the rest of the day I took leave for, to sleep.

Striking Pictures

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So I met Fazri for more camera geeking out.


This is his decked out FZ30, this time, with more filters and step rings than before. I’m not sure anymore what the order was, but I think it was a (edited) 58mm telephoto lens, 58mm macro lens, 58mm Hoya linear polarizer, 58mm to 52mm step ring, 52mm Hoya circular polarizer, 52mm Hoya R72 infrared filter, (then here comes my stuff) 52mm Hoya R72 infrared filter, 52mm Raydamn linear polarizer, 52mm Hoya 25A red filter, 52mm Raydawn circular polarizer, (and back to Fazri’s) 52mm to 55mm step ring, Panasonic DMC FZ30. Phew.


Similiar setup, on mine.


He placed his FZ30 on a tripod and took long exposures, with the strobe flash used to uh, expose… me. I was chosen because I accidentally wore a bright, easy to expose shirt.


I have reached Duhvana.


Effects of eating a red mushroom.


Fazri and I saw lightning in KLCC Park. I used his Canon Powershot A95 to get this, on a 4 second exposure. He set up his FZ30 on 60 second exposure, but the chances of us striking gold lightning striking when taking a long exposure was very small. Most of the time, the lightning would strike during the noise reduction part (which is as long as the long exposure itself!)


The buildings somewhat look like batteries.

Addendum: From my experiments with circular and linear polarizer combinations, I found that the most useful combination would be camera, circular, circular, linear. Turning the innermost circular would function as a polarizer; turning the middle circular was a warming/cooling filter, and turning the outermost linear would go from neutral density to infrared filter. We did not get a bright sunny environment to test the effects of inserting the red filter anywhere in between. Two circulars would be a warming/cooling filter; two linears, a neutral density to infrared filter.

Feeling Pink?

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Random shots from the side:


The pathway from KLCC PUTRA LRT to Suria KLCC is now welcoming visitors from abroad, especially a certain one from Singapore.


Jolly jellies!

Stock Clearance

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It’s the time of the week month year when I upload all the pictures I promised people I’d upload to my blog.


We start with the 16th of September, with Amber Chia signing autographs for the charity screening of The Longest Yard.


I then hopped over to Berjaya Times Square, for a supposed World Peace… concert?
Clockwise from top-left: Tragiccomedy; Army Of Three featuring Kevin of Broken Scar screaming instead of his usual acoustic guitar crooning (incidentally both guys in the picture are brothers); The Rebel Scum rip out the rap over a Transformers Theme beat; and finally cute dancers!


Poseidon’s album launch was on the 18th of September. I don’t even remember which bands were which.
Clockwise from top-left: Irene; a photogenic screamer; Pallid Sky (good hard rock with solos a-plenty); blood on the dance rock floor.


Frequency Cannon. Left: Captain Kua Chee barking, “Who swapped my socks?” Top: I loved the setup of a bright light installed for a camera crew, with Siva in front of a black wall, totally undistracted rock posing. Except for when Kua Chee pops in nosily asking about his socks. Bottom: Yu-Ri belts a melting solo.


Clockwise from top-left: Vespertine; progressive rockers Polaris; the new lead guitarist for Warve; and Stonebay’s guitarist’s pretty guitar. Yeah, so I used flash on all of these pictures.


Clockwise from top-left: Infiltrated; a guitarist scared shitless, intending to climb on his stage monitor and make a quick exit; Inverted Coma; Moodbox.


Of course, the highlight was Poseidon, a proper metal band with all the flash.


If you were running low on batteries, this would the the guy to record videos of. Fully flashy, fully scaling up and down the fretboard, with all sorts of funky effects.


I then rushed over to Luna Bar for Musiccanteen’s Awards, foregoing the last few bands for free beer. Up at skyscraper level, (33 floors to be exact) a lone Petronas Tower could be seen proposing to the KL Tower. Okay, so they were Photoshopped together.


They constructed a mini podium/walkway on the pool and filled it with blank CD-Rs!


Free beer equates to massive free jam. Edge Of Fire and Dragon Red feature in this one.


Amil of Dragon Red is seen on bass again! (For the first time, Alda was also publicly seen playing electric guitar!) At one point there were three people on the drums!


Kevin came back from Australia and played at Hartamas Square again on the 22nd of September. The joy of Hartamas Square gigs is that you never know who will play! From left to right, then top to bottom:
Admonition with a hothothot new vocalist; Tragiccomedy again, this time with a pretty Line 6 Variax guitar, probably wondering if the crowd is looking at him or the screen behind; Kevin; Jasemaine; Quizzicals; Seven; Edge Of Fire impromptu; a car with no bumper!


It was a return to Desa Sri Hartamas, this time, Jamasia, for the Xcited Screamers album launch. From left to right, then top to bottom:
Fathulistiwa; Zack of Cosmic Funk Express playing for Broken Scar; Epiphone SG, Emily Strange edition, of Kevin of Broken Scar; a black Epiphone SG hangs; Auburn, with cool rock progressions/riffs; Xcited Screamers.

Okay, I’m beat. October and November pictures will come another day week month. Yes, being September shots, these would all be with my old Canon Powershot A400 and not the A520.

Meet Where, Lee?

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Here goes, more attempts at being artsy.


One word: Midvalley. 🙂


It’s always nice to walk when it’s rainy.


When it’s less sunny we head to Telawi.


“Back in those days, the rink was filled with people.”


Where’s the party at?


I could not resist the infrared charms of bright, sunny parks, like Lake Gardens.


From left to right, top to bottom:

  • It looks like it’s the tow truck that’s broken, not the car.
  • I can now play guitar with both hands on an MSN Voice Clip, by using a Rubik’s Cube to press F2! (Answers: Madonna, Queen, Metallica – Nothing Else Matters, Metallica – Fade To Black, Franz Ferdinand)
  • I think the ultraviolet Zouk stamp says KISS with lips. We were debating this, so I said, “I’ll take a picture, and we can all compare when we’re sober, okay?“
  • Happy Birthday! Please donate to her corrective eye surgery. She’d be way cuter with both eyes aligned, donchathink?

Anybody noticed that Dunkin Donuts and Speedy Video did a switcheroo at the lower ground floor of Midvalley Megamall? For a while, I thought I was heading the wrong direction, and that my head was screwed on backwards. Or maybe I was staring at my friend’s picture for too long and contracted misalign-eye-tis.

What, The Frog?

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This is what happens when you work in Xfresh – you sit in an office with glass windows facing the lift so you can see people walking in and out.

Sometimes, frogs come by. Crazy giant ones, too!

He was here to give us free ice-cream. For a while, I forgot my afflictions, and dug in.

For more pictures, check out Jason‘s blog as well as Cherrie‘s blog.

Philler Fotografy

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Here’s some filler photography.


Clouds, in black and white. Unlike all you Photoshoppers, I only use black and white when necessary to save the picture. In this case, I used the red filter to increase contrast, but it also soaks the picture in red, so black and white saves the day. Some old gig pictures were in black and white as well because there was no way to save the color of the picture.


I have a heart of ice.