It’s been a while since I’ve photographed daisies. Daisies are found in abundance at the Sentosa Flower Fest, although they usually don’t take the spotlight. I thought the coloration of these daisies were pretty interesting, quite atypical from the ones you usually encounter. These flowers bring a sense of optimism amid their simplicity.

It has been quite a while since my last visit to the annual Sentosa Flower Fest. I was busy shooting for my photography class assignments, this time last year. I can’t remember what I was doing at this time the year before that. The last time I’d gone to the Flower Fest was in 2009. In my memory, the Flower Fest was much more interesting, there were certainly more flowers. This time, the visit is disappointing. My Mum accompanied me to the Flower Fest, and she complained it was (hot and) boring. Yeah, I certainly do miss the times shooting in Buffalo, at least you don’t perspire from heat. But it’s better to be drenched in sweat than having my hands succumb to frostbite. Anyway, I was photographing these flowers when a group of older women walked passed me and asked what these flowers are. For some reason I told them these are cherry blossoms. How wrong could I be… These are peach blossoms. Yes, these are essentially flowers of a peach tree.

In my opinion, the best skyscraper to head to for a good skyline shot of New York City is Rockefeller Center. The reason is simple. You get a shot of the iconic Empire State Building in the picture. Of course, if you’ve only time for one skyscraper to visit, then I suppose it makes more sense to visit the Empire State Building.

P.S.: If you look hard enough towards the middle-right side of the horizon, you can faintly see the Statue of Liberty.

My Mum does not believe these are cherry blossoms, she calls them pink little flowers. In fact, she didn’t even notice them. But who could’ve blamed her? Cherry blossoms are stereotyped with Spring in Japan. No one would be expecting to see loads of them in North America. They are pretty flowers indeed, especially if you witness the evolution of the tree through the four seasons. There were cherry and cranberry trees on UB campus. I did not pay much attention to them, apart from being fascinated that the cherries (especially the cranberries) lasted well in the chill. The berries look fascinating in Autumn. Unfortunately, it did not occur to me what they were. To me, they were some berry trees that were possibly poisonous. Haha… Not every fruit-bearing tree in Singapore has edible fruits. Even the fruit trees planted by the government were thought to be “inedible”, due to the chemical fertilizer and whatever pesticide that may be used to protect the trees. There weren’t many sort of fruit trees in Singapore, despite the island being known as a “garden city”. We weren’t a “garden city” from the start, and many trees fail to bear fruit due to our climate and terrain.

Every single time I’ve been to New York City, the sky is overcast. I wonder if it’s perpetually like that at NYC or maybe I lack the luck for good weather. I took this picture with an overcast sky. The sky wasn’t exactly on the verge of pouring, but I do wish for some break between the clouds. You can’t see much of the sky hidden behind the thick blanket of clouds.

Liberty Island is a worthwhile visit, even though the security measures to get there is a pain. The visit to the island is absolutely not tourist-friendly. I hated having to untie the laces to my leather boots and having to tie them back again three to four times. It’s really annoying, and inconvenient. They actually scan you so many times over that it begs sanity! Oh well, I have to admit it’s worthwhile putting up with the security checks because I know I’m gonna get great pictures of the Statue of Liberty on the island. Nothing beats taking a picture of the statue on the island itself.

I’m still trawling through the holiday photos. Yes… I’m working pretty slowly on it and I only check back on it once in a long while. Frankly I’ve not been shooting much these days. The last time I’ve been out shooting was in late September. Oh well… My photographic productivity is at an all time low.  Picture taken by the window of Canadian Maple Delights in Vieux-Montréal. If you’re wondering, the leaves are plastic. Haha…

I was at the National Orchid Garden. The flowers caught my eye. They were part of the shrubbery that no one paid much attention to. After all, the star attractions of the garden are the orchids, not some “random” flower sprouting from some shrub by the side. There were Chinese tourists nearby that shrug in wonder why I was focusing intently on these insignificant flowers. But to me, the flowers have this unique personality. Its simplicity and quaintness draws me to it. Many visitors have past by this shrub. How many of them bothered to take a closer look at it?

P.S.: The leaves of the plant resembles mint leaves. I tried looking for any signage that may tell me the name of the plant, but there wasn’t any. If anyone out there knows the name of this plant, leave a comment below. Much appreciated.  :)

The week has started pretty eventful with Libya finally liberated from Muammar Gaddafi (with his death). What better way to celebrate this good news than with a photo of the Statue of Liberty eh? Ok… I’m still sieving through my 3000+ worth of holiday photos when I chanced upon this shot. Well, I clearly took this in Summer, and I have tweaked it in post-processing to create that Autumn vibe. Well, I’ve always been an Autumn person so it’s a recurring theme in my photos. As you can see I’ve framed Lady Liberty in between two maple trees. I was walking to the entrance to the pedestal when I chanced upon this well-shaded area.

It’s not exactly a deliberate shot, but an opportunity presented to me. I took the risk and pressed the shutter, after framing the shot to my liking. I’ve to admit that it’s sometimes hard to explain the thought processes that went through my mind when I held the camera to my eye and saw my “shot”. It’s fast, fleeting, and very much an opportune moment. It was in essence something I wanted, and off I go clicking the button.

Some of you may thing of it as a weird angle to take of the statue of liberty. My gosh… You actually took her backside? For really?? Hey, it’s alright to experiment, and I think I’ve managed to pull off the “unflattering” angle. Not easy, I admit and I’ve certainly came a long way… I further added a sepia hue to the image to give off the Autumn vibe.

So there you have it… Lady Liberty’s watching your back.

I suppose anyone who sees this picture would’ve thought I had taken this somewhere in Egypt. Well… Actually I took this at the Met during my grad trip in NYC. The Met has got to be my favorite museum in the entire world, second on the list is definitely Albright-Knox. What about the Louvre? Unless I am somehow miraculously able to speak French, I doubt I’ll ever put myself into the misery of traveling in France. You really suffer in a country that slights Anglophiles.

But the bigger marvel is how was the Met able to move an entire Egyptian shrine across the Atlantic into a museum, in another part of the world? I suppose deep pockets help. This shrine was one of the many ancient architectural structures Egypt had given away because they were located at land that had been swallowed from the excess water from the Aswan High Dam. It was a gift from the Egyptian government in recognition from the assistance US had provided to help with the saving of numerous historical monuments threatened by the dam.

Well it’s darn cool to see a slice of Egypt in US… The experience was just breath-taking. I’m also quite surprised no one has taken a picture of the idol that the shrine was dedicated to. Was everyone just awe-struck with the exterior, and were too busy taking shots of it to pay attention to what was inside? Maybe… But I’m darn glad I got this shot.

This photo depicts an orchid I had found on a bench in the National Orchid Garden. I went there thinking I was going to shoot some entries for an orchid photography competition. In the end I didn’t submit photos for the competition because I was pretty ill the entire week. Well, I was actually sick that day when I went to the garden, but I was not in that bad of a shape. The trip wasn’t wasted, it gave me a renewed sense of peace within that was draining away from me. It was worth the effort traveling there after work, even though I was quite shagged.

I’ve not been updating my photoblog lately due to work. I was, and still am busy with work. But I figured I should make time for myself to enjoy photography still eh? It’s quite ironic because my work is about photography too, and I’m trying to reason to my Mum that I have little time editing the crazy amount of photos I’ve taken during Grad trip. Yes. I took a hell lot of photos, and I don’t know what to do with them.

Recently, my photo library crashed again. Reason simple, the library is just too darn fat. I had reached 300GB+ of photos. Who the hell shoots that much. It was only 172GB+ before my laptop died last year, and now barely a year after ,I have chalked up near double the previous amount. Plain crazy. I’ll probably need to shop for another LaCie harddrive pretty soon. Or maybe I should shift everything over to my G Drive. The process of reformatting my library was catastrophic. Lucky I didn’t lose any photos in the process. I have since learnt the lesson and created new libraries for unique projects, and set limits to each to not exceed 10GB. I really cannot afford another scare of this scale. Lesson learnt indeed.