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Switched the viewfinder to the screen side of the camera so that it is easier to take a picture since I am strapped down in the car. Oh look, I got caught in the frame as well, sans head. So there you have it, me and my dog. :P

Mr P was driving so he couldn’t be in the picture :P

For the last couple of months, I have started to worry that perhaps Donna is missing out on building social skills now that she has started life afresh from the shelter. I guess you could even say she perhaps never had social skills to start with. This, after all, was the dog that was isolated with an old man dog (who is too chill to care about crazy pups) because she couldn’t get along with the other dogs in the other bigger fenced yards.

We took her to the dog park, but she couldn’t deal with the dogs that home in on her and got fearful. I introduced her to our cousin’s dog Doudou, but they seemed to prefer the grass around them compared to each other. Oh she wanted to meet the other dogs we pass by on our walks alright, but a lot of times her tail would be wagging stiffly, which apparently can mean that she is undecided if she wants to be friendly or no.

But over the weekend, we drove to a doggy cafe and then to the dog park and she did great with both. She was gentle with the small dogs in the doggy cafe and a little submissive but friendly with the big dogs at the dog park! The people we met remarked at how calm and gentle she was! Good progress given that we have only had her for half a year so far! :D I’m pretty stoked!

Phoneography Weekly: The City at Night – Marina Bay

By weliveinaflat

On July 22, 2013

In Photography

We were in the Marina Bay area on Saturday night. This area is part of the country’s urban redevelopment plan to extend the existing financial district to the waterfront, emulating London’s Canary Wharf and Shanghai’s Pudong area. More on the Marina Bay Vision at www.ura.gov.sg.

Marina Bay Financial Center

Across the street from the Financial Center is the Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade.

Breathe, kinetic sculture, a legacy sculpture from the Youth Olympic Games in 2010.

One would have thought this is a dead-town on a Saturday night, being the financial district, but not so. This area is also one of the vantage points for taking pictures of the city skyline, particularly around these couple of months. And while not packed, there was already a healthy crowd hanging about the waterfront area…

… including the country’s many photography enthusiasts staking out along the waterfront. The country celebrates it’s National Day in August so the rehearsals for the parade and celebration have begun. The crowd was waiting for the fireworks display that typically is the finale of the celebration.

Wait, wait, wait… … Kaboom!

I found it pretty challenging to take good, unfiltered night photos with the iPhone. So this set is pretty heavily edited with Snapseed and HDR Art.

Phoneography Monday Challenge: Challenger’s Choice
(Architecture, Night Photography, Street Photography, Travel)
Apps used: Gorillacam, Camera+, Snapseed, HDR Art, Camera360
App effects:
Picture 1 – Snapseed – vintage blue filter
Picture 2 – HDR Art – mysterious filter
Picture 5 – Snapseed – vintage blue filter
Picture 6 – Camera360 – black and white (red) filter

I had an impromptu City Timelapse Vimeo marathon on Twitter today – one short movie clip for each hour. These are the city reels if you are interested ;)

You can go directly to my Twitter page @weliveinaflat where each tweet can be expanded to play the videos all on the same Twitter page (go before they get buried by other tweets!! I shall improve on unique hash tag handles next time round!! :P), or visit any of the above links directly to Vimeo for any city that gets your interest. I found it pretty fun to watch those of cities I’ve been to before and see if I can identify the landmarks there. :P

Phoneography Challenge: (Almost) Portraiture (lensandpensbysally.wordpress.com)

Weekly phoneography: Triple exposure urban landscape

By weliveinaflat

On July 15, 2013

In Photography

A long shot. And for the birds, how near and yet how far from the sky. And how far away are you reader from Singapore where this picture was taken?

Phoneography Monday Challenge: Black and White
Pic #1 Apps used – Camera+, Gorillacam, Snapseed
Pic #2 Apps used – Camera+, Snapseed, Blendcam, Camera360 (Jelly), HDR Art (Red October)

Pic #1

This is a scene from my mother’s neighbourhood. Keeping birds seem to be more a pastime for elderly man. The birds get to go out on their “walks” and a bit of sun when the elderly men congregate at the bird poles to socialise and enjoy their feathered friends. Perhaps hanging them up high helps the bird song weave through the atmosphere further. I can’t really say.

I took a picture because there aren’t so many of such pole-dotted landscape nowadays. I imagine it would be quite a sight and soundscape should the poles have been filled to capacity.

Pic #2 (colour version on instagram, click.)

While the clear sky showed up the bird cages on the bird poles really well, I found the surrounding trees noisy and disrupted the pattern of the poles. I decided to disrupt the image further by blending in a previous picture I had taken of clouds over the surrounding landscape of blocks of flats. What you see is a triple exposure of two images only. Perhaps the ghosts of apartment blocks predict the future removal of this public interaction space? That is not impossible.

The colour filter I used for the picture (before conversion to black and white) has a pretty distinct signature to it which I do not favor. Hence if you look carefully, a bird silhouette added in photoshop helped to shield the number “5” that comes with the filter. In my mind’s eye, I could see a swarm of ghostly bird silhouettes building into a crescendo from the poles to the sky to create a visual image of bird song. That could be cool :P

I recently created a Twitter account for this blog. I was surprised to find people using the hash tag #unfiltered for their images. This makes me wonder, do you prefer your photos clean or filtered so that they become virtual/alternate versions of what exists in reality?

Phoneography Weekly: The blue wolf

By weliveinaflat

On July 8, 2013

In Photography

“Oh, grandmother, what big eyes you have!”

“All the better to see you with.”

“Oh, grandmother, what big hands you have!”

“All the better to grab you with!”

“Oh, grandmother, what a horribly big mouth you have!”

“All the better to eat you with!”

*chuckle*

Accompanying text: Excerpt from Little Red Cap, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Phoneography Challenge: Macro – Donna
App: Camera+

People who are unfamiliar or have a fear of dogs may see the dog as the sum of its parts – the staring eyes, the long black claws, the gaping mouth, the sniffing nose atop the fangs, but most of all the unpredictability that comes with an unfamiliar animal.

But what I see is a lovely canine companion, fun-loving, playful but also patient and smart enough to put up with all sorts of non-dog things I make her do, like playing dead and high-five. How else could I get a dog to let me take pictures of her parts at such close range? :)

Phoneography Weekly: Not exactly timber

By weliveinaflat

On July 1, 2013

In Photography

Somehow the image of an woodcutter chopping up a tree and yelling “timber!” as the tree fell is ingrained in my memory, even if there is no woodcutting culture or industry here. Hah! That’s the power of the media for you.

Anyway, the tree cutting has started. Here’s the guy who will take the tree apart, limb by limb.

Phoneography Monday Challenge: Nature – I seem to be making a habit to take pictures of man and/vs nature nowadays.
Apps: GorillaCam, Snapseed, Camera+ (Cyanotype and Toy Camera filters)

S7F5XFJMWQHA

Weekly Phoneography: Population

By weliveinaflat

On June 24, 2013

In Photography

new vs old flats
Phoneography Monday Challenge: Architecture (challenger’s choice)

New flats less than 2 years old on the left; old flats easily more than 20, 30 years old on the right.

As buildings grow taller, trees are growing shorter.

news infographic on roadside trees in Singapore
Excerpt from The Sunday Times, May 19, 2013

I have written before about the impending removal of some tall Angsana trees downstairs to make way for three new blocks of flats.

Change is inevitable, but I do like trees that stand as tall as 12 to 13 storey flats. When walking the dog, they provide welcome shade in our hot, bright climate although yes, they also harbour poop-dropping birds and life-threatening falling branches when it storms.

roadside trees

Wherever they stand, trees and the oxygen they produce enable life.

This is the main road junction of our neighbourhood. Look how well the trees obscure the blocks of flats behind them, and then scroll back to the first picture. How hard and stark the buildings are with the small trees. And then I think about the haze and know that I will always still prefer the big trees of life that cleanse the air around us faithfully.

Note: Copyright of the newspaper belong to SPH, I will be obliged to remove the clipping if requested.

Phoneography Weekly: The light in dining halls

By weliveinaflat

On June 19, 2013

In Photography

Not the smartest advertising around but this will have to do :P Just a quick banner pointing to the Phoneography Monday Challenge since this post below is my late submission for it :P

Chandeliers in Formal Dining Space

Hanging Lights in Casual Dining Space

We were at Tim Palace (pictures #1-#3) for Fathers’ Day lunch.

The colour laser lights dancing on the chandeliers made them flash and sparkle above where we were sitting. It was interesting how different they look closeup from the bottom up (#1-#2) compared to the long shot (#3) of the dining space at the other end of the room from where I was sitting. Over there, the main light source was from the large screen display and the curved floor-to-ceiling windows since it was mid-day. The light and sound crew were setting up for a formal dinner later in the evening. There were security scanners being set up outside, which according to our uncle meant that either or both of the two key figures in our country will be attending the dinner that night.

On a different day, I took a more casual snapshot (from the moving escalator at the basement) of the organic cafe called Real Food where I had lunch. One sees straight lines at first, but notice the curved wash of light from the lamps that mirror the darker curved design in the flooring.

I didn’t plan it but once I had all the pictures in one post, I thought the way the pictures were taken were pretty reflective of the formal and casualness of each of the different dining experience:

	Formal Dining		Casual Dining
>	bottom up	>	top down
>	details	>	general long shot
>	planned shots	>	shot from moving escalator
>	more time to be trigger happy	>	1 hasty shot

Chandeliers in Formal Dining Space
Location: Tim Palace, Toa Payoh Safra Club
Picture #1, #2 – App: Camera+, Ansel filter
Picture #3 – App: Snapseed, Black and White filter, Center focus (vignette)

Hanging Lights in Casual Dining Space
Location: Real Food, Novena Sqaure 2
Picture #4 – App: Snapseed, Black and White filter, Center focus (vignette)

My last entry for Black and White Phoneography Monday explored light reflection, light and shadow in the interior of a mall called iVillage. I seem to like to picture interiors in black and white.

What lies behind, what lies within the green facade

By weliveinaflat

On June 11, 2013

In Photography

On one of those random days, I was just hanging around downstairs waiting for Mr P to come by and pick me up in his car. I had just discovered iPhoneography Monday then. So I was trigger happy and adding junk shots to my camera roll.

This is a skinny young tree right by the foot path from our block of flats. You can barely see the bark behind the green stuff growing on it.

Not unlike my dog, I wrapped myself around the tree and tap, tap, tap… and before I knew it, I was at the back of the tree and this was clinging quietly right there. To tell the truth, I almost missed it because it blended with the tree so well.

I do confess my timid heart and this was as close as I dared to go for macro. :P Yes, even if I do believe it was quite dead. Mr P said otherwise and intimated that it will jump on me at any time.

And yes, I took liberties to add mysterious purple and deep green wounds to the tree to show you the potential or imaginary poison contagion left by the spider.

And then on my way home today, I found a section of the railing removed from the fencing running along the path. If I had a toy train, I would slip it inside and pretend it was a city rail tunnel.

Yup these are my close up shots for Phoneography Monday: Macro
Apps used: Camera+, HDR Art, Blendcam, Snapseed, InstaMag, HelloCamera

What does the sky look like?

By weliveinaflat

On June 7, 2013

In Photography

There’s a rainbow in the sky! Out came the iPhones and it was not just mine.

There is always something very compelling about the sky that makes me fill up the majority of the shot with it. The sky is the sky and yet it is so changeable. At times mild, at times dangerous. The sky is all wild nature, albeit sometimes tainted by man-made smog.

The strange thing about nature phoneography, at least for me, is how I am so tempted to make nature to be so much more than what it really is in real life.

The rainbow doesn’t look obvious enough. Let’s use the vibrant filter in camera+, let’s up the contrast in Snapseed, etc etc. And yet, I wanted the clouds to retain their soft colours and fluffy nature. So yes, I did continue to edit using Photoshop so that the editing was more specific to certain areas of the image only when it came to the clouds.

Quite some time back, I was awestruck by how the cross-winds sent the raindrops aflutter at more than twenty storeys high. Usually one sees the rain streak down in obvious pinstripes according to the direction of the prevailing wind. But that day, the rain drops flew like confetti in the air in all sorts of directions. Their frenzied activity caught in the light and I was mesmerised. What happen in nature in motion does not translate very well when one is using one’s phone to point and shoot.

That light-hearted flutter of tiny drops in the light gets lost. And so I try to achieve a sharper image with the clarity filter in Camera+, up the contrast, applied a gentle emo filter so that the tiny droplets show up against the darkened colours. It is of course a futile exercise.

What one ends up with… kind of like a stylised, sharp image of a moody scene peppered by dandruff for rain. I like it though. It looks like a town where Batman may visit :P

And then I wonder, what if I had taken my camera camera, not my handphone camera, and set it to achieve a longer exposure. Would that have captured the flying rain? Do I even know what I am talking about? :P

But still at least one image within this entry I would like, to be simple, basic, unedited and still interesting. And so, this is the one I have for you. The anvil-shaped cumulo nimbus in its gentle luminescent glory.