the module combination that i have for this semester seems to be pretty bad! What a way to end my university life as I begin sliding into the word "unemployed". Caught up with life, is what i would say, or maybe more of catching up to life, that there seem to be so many things going on that it becomes really hard to keep track! On a sidenote, I am a birthday ic in my cell group and me with two others, plan the cell group birthdays and being so caught up in life seems to steer that role into a more haphazard region. It's kinda funny when i think back about what happened for the past week and all i can reply is "I dont know". That it's been more of completing assignments meeting friends, suddenly plunging into a nerf war that now I am just tired. That moment in life that you got to unwind and relax from everything, including socializing, no matter how extroverted you are.

I guess one very good way to summarize my past weeks would be... Black and white. i have been exploring black and white film for the past weeks and have gotten quite a bit of results! Street photography is much harder than what i thought it would be, as I have that constant worry of being confronted whenever i take a photo of people in Singapore. It's like you never know when they'll throw you a punch and then you go into self defense mode and tackle them down isn't it? What I like about film photography is the uncertainty as to whether or not you got the shot, which then over time soon becomes a trusting "relationship" with your gear that you pretty much know how the shot is going to turn out without having to look through the viewfinder. At least that is for street photography. Another thing that I really like about film photography is.... there is no need to post process. Or rather post processing makes the photograph look better, but it's just that you'll just want to keep it that way as it is. It's film.

Let's say you want to improve your photography skills, the only way is to keep trying and trying and really run through the film rolls while watching youtube to learn how other photographers do it. Practice is really key i would say. Same thing for my piano practices, that it is a bittersweet moment of practicing. Sweet because you know that at the end of the day, you'll improve. Bitter because the process is hard and filled with tons of mistakes and it requires so much concentration, topped off with grunts and rolling of eyes. For film photography, the process of practice is slightly different. Burning through film rolls can be really expensive and you got to wait for the film rolls to be developed. And you don't really get that annoyed feeling that you can't get it right because you can't even see how the photo turns out! Nowadays in this modern world, we have youtube, we have google, so use them to your advantage to learn something new! What I do is that i don't just watch tutorial videos on how photographers take photos or videos or post processing images but rather seeing how they tackle the situation, how they think in my opinion is more crucial. That when you learn how to, next time you can apply the same thing in different scenarios! Seeing how a photographer composes the shot, what they want within the frame is really enlightening.

With these internet tools available, even the forums, we have access to so much information and hence so much more to learn! It's like life is a constant process of improving oneself, to hone our skills better through our passion. And so every week, I never fail to take photos. Sometimes it's digital, most of the time it's film. But more importantly, it's the process. These few weeks, i've been learning how to sit upright and not slouch especially when playing the piano as I am going to be doing a recording. It's about the image on camera! Of course i would not have known about this if it's not for my piano teaching sounding off to me. That is piano lesson for you, that every lesson it's about learning something new and improving. Go full force into something and experience it wholly. It will be rewarding even if it's a bad experience! because there is always something to learn from it.

i still remember the time when my first film roll did not even have a single shot that could be used. Half of the roll of 37 shots were just blanks and blacks. Now, every roll has all 37 shots turning out, with one or two that are blur or sometimes off focused. and of the 37 shots, many of the shots actually turn out nice! that i've managed to capture the essence of the moment. I think that I can do better. I tell myself sometimes that I could have tilted the angle more towards that way, or included more of something into the photo, or i shouldn't have chopped off that portion in the photo. But more importantly, it's just the process of improving, even if it's just making baby steps of progress, it is better than making none! So far, I would say that my steps of progress seem to be rather positive :)








and once again, the content of my blog post have totally deviated off what I wanted to talk about today. yay

I think that this would probably be the last time that I will be doing an outdoor stall at MAAD Fair. Which means that Thumbforlego would not be there! I have quite a lot on my plate now. (It's funny how I am taking Nutrition now in university and plate has a so much different meaning.) But I still think that it is better to rework the idea of Thumbforlego; the presentation, the marketing effort, the image. The pricing too will also need revision as I have been doing it as a non-close-to-zero profit margin and it is largely unsustainable. While the past months have been extremely rewarding learning how to better market my products and chatting with so many people. However it is time to change! Change doesn't necessarily equate that it will be better, although I feel that it would be better :) and that it would be more justifiable for the amount of work that I pour into every piece I make.




These few weeks have been really busy and hectic, preparing for the MAAD fair while still reeling in from the tiredness over the past weeks. Which also explains the really untimely post! But still, I've decided to devote more time and energy and money to revamp Thumbforlego and hopefully that works out~ There's a certain inertia to it, that when you see such a big thing to do in front of you, you just procrastinate because that is the easiest thing to do. To find a new packaging, deciding on the new layout of the stall, what kind of props to use, how to catch attention better, setting of expectations for customer, etc etc. Maybe I'll miss the velvety-horror looking red walls of the Red Dot Design Museum.






Here is featuring the youngest stall owner ever! He dug out his $80 piggy bank savings to get a stall like this! Such entrepreneurship at a young age :) More than that, such daring self exploration at a young age. From my perspective, it just seems like Singaporean kids are not really doing much of self exploration and more of accepting the cookie cutter education system of studying and studying. Moreover it is so much easier to just stay at where you are. From my point of view, I feel that self exploration partly stems from a need and is partly due to being inquisitiv, while treating every failure as a learning opportunity. Surely it sounds easy and straightforward to treat every failure as a learning opportunity but really coming to terms with failure can sometimes be pretty difficult. But it seems that the more you are used to it, the easier it becomes -- that the next time you fail, it becomes second nature to you to treat it as a learning opportunity, overlooking the "failure" aspect.




The beauty in reaching that artwork is not just the end product but the process in reaching it. Keeping a log from how it first started out all the way till present. I've noticed this with so many well known illustrators, that they keep a whole log about the different designs that they have done all the while, the modifications done to each of them. Seeing how these artists at Portraits After Dark come up with their artworks is really interesting! Some paint, some draw with a pencil, some with a pen and all the artworks look so diversely different! Looking at the photo, you can see how everyone has their own way. That domokun bag on the woman's lap though, just how do you draw with that on your lap?! I wonder how some of their previous portraits look like.