Experience

As I sit here writing and thinking back about the past year, I don’t think I’ve gain a lot as a person. I think I need to go out and experience life, more. There were so many activities and events that I missed out on, solely because I am lazy. And partly because I am not interested at all. Some other part is because I have classes and all that cliche reasons. How dumb can I be, there are people who take more credit hours than me and still can be the president of this and that and still have the time to enjoy life.

The source of my un-interestedness perhaps comes from my self-induced generalization that these events are boring and that they do not appeal to me. The fact is, I’ve never actually get involved in a lot of this events, how could I possibly judge? To come here and being able to have all these ‘luxuries’ of opportunity is not easy and I am angry at myself for not realizing that much much earlier (or I guess I did but I didn’t do anything about it). It hit me today that I probably have wasted my time in the USA, unless I really change and use the opportunities that I have here as much as possible before I go back to Malaysia. I got a year or so.

This is just how I am feeling tonight and I hope no one is going through this. Or perhaps, no one should even bother reading this because a lot of other people are going through even more serious stuff than my mere rant about not doing more with the time I have.

Don’t have time?

“Don’t have time for _____? In 2010, on average, Americans watched 34 hours of TV per person/week. That’s 2 & a half months of TV a year!” -David duChemin-

That was a tweet by David duChemin, a humanitarian photographer and the author of Vision Mongers.

This tweet prompted me to take action and end my subscription with NetFlix. I realized that it is the main source of my distraction thus far and I needed to get rid of it in the goal to increase my time for studies, assignments, work, family & friends, and my passion, photography.

Come to think of it, my aim for the coming weeks is to identify the distractions and reduce it to bits because frankly, I am way too occupied with stuff that I don’t need to be and it is affecting my grades and life as a whole.

Grades can really set the tone for my mood, and when I do get low grades, I tend to be down and out. It feels even worse when I know I could’ve done a lot better and the fact that the class is not at all hard makes me wanna punch my self in the face. I think my decision to ditch out NetFlix is just a small step towards a better tomorrow, theres a lot more that I need to change.

I hope anyone who reads this can do the same. Lets try to reduce the distraction and focus on what matters. Always remember that life is short and live our life to the fullest. As Dacid duChemin says, “I’d rather live a great story than watch one”.

Have a good weekend, wherever you are!

END this already

Tired and so unmotivated, I want this semester to END…

Chocolates!

Today (technically, yesterday) I was inspired to take photos of a box of chocolate that was given to me as a special gift.

For the past 2 weeks, the weather has been great. Its sunny and hot so I know I could get great shots in the mornings with great soft lighting. (as well as at evenings) I woke up early this morning and while the sun is rising, I went out to my back yard and took lots of shots of the chocolate box. It was hard at first, but as I took more and more shots, I sorta get the idea of what I want it to look like.

One thing that I learn, using my 35 mm is easier than my 17-50 mm for these type of shots. Just a thing to note.

So after a couple of hundred shots, I went inside happy and excited to edit them just to be bogged down by the fact that I have class at 10 am. So I had to put it aside until I get back home by 4 pm and it didn’t feel great, I was just thinking about the photos while I was in school today.

After I got back, I know I had to study for the exam on Saturday, 9 pm (approximately 7 hours from the time I’m writing this), but I just went ahead and did some editing. As far as my photoshop skills are concern, I am still a ‘noob’ and I am learning my way through it as I go. Theres a lot more features that I have not discover and I really am excited to learn more and more.

After browsing through the pictures, I decided that I should make the photos into one canvas and create a kind off advertisement for the chocolate sorta thing. I don’t really know how to put in words, its getting late and I can’t really think straight right. (i’m anxious about the exam tomorrow!)

So anyways, heres the result. Hope you’ll like it and get jealous of the awesome chocolaty-ness that I posses here, he he. Just kidding, until next time!

 

Basic

Today I watched Chase Jarvis LIVE on YouTube. He was interviewing Tim Ferris, the author of 4 Hour WorkWeek and also 4 Hour Body. They were talking in-depth about how a photographer should think about the business side of the art. But I just want to highlight some of the points to help aspiring beginners to improve their photography.

Some points that I got from CJ is that

1) Take more and more and more pictures, don’t be afraid to just snap the shutter. The more you take the pictures and the more you experiment a shot, the faster you improve and it will make you better at filtering out photos you like vs photos you don’t like.

2) Don’t delete the pictures! Keep them and review them on the pc/laptop. This is essential because bad photos teach us how to correct them and will later show us progress on our photographic journey.

3) Always try to find/frame pictures in your mind using everything around you, EVERYTHING. Your table, laptop, pens, pencil, keys etc.Your surrounding have thousands of potential to be great compositions.

Hope it helps.

On a totally different topic, today I decided to try out low key photography. Shooting my self as the subject. The set up for this self portrait was super simple. I boost the shutter speed up to 1/2000, scale down the f-stop to f1.8 and set ISO of 200. The light source came from a light stand (a Walmart contribution) and I was looking straight into it. Finally, I snapped using a remote shutter.

Freaking out yo

This semester has been a roller coaster ride for me. I am now in Junior year and the courses are getting a lot tougher and hard to keep up with. Early on, I’ve committed myself to 5 classes with 16.5 credit hours. Aside from that, I joined MaSA International Fiesta group and practiced since January up until performance night(which was yesterday). It was an awesome experience, but surely a tiring one. It has also cost me a lot in terms of my studying (got an average score for PHY102 test 1, gotta improve!) as I did not balanced up my schedule well. But I can’t dwell on this and rue what has happened, I need to keep telling myself the reasons why I am doing all this and keep my head strong. Right now, the important thing is to learn how to  balanced out my study, extra-curricular stuff, work, and fun time.

One of the course that I am taking this semester is Petrology, it is freaking me out, SERIOUSLY FREAKING ME OUT! It is a lot of stuff to read and cover. The professor is a funny and laid back during his lectures but he is well-known for his crazy-ass strict grading. Some students used to get 5 or 10 out of 100 in a test…freakin..kiddin…me?…

In the end, there is always just one solution and that is to turn to Allah. I pray that Allah helps to reduce the stress level and the “freaking-out” level in me (I always get nervous until I sweat my butt thinking about exams), and help me in all my struggles, give me health and the strength to carry out my duties as a son, a student, an individual in the society and as a prospect husband( He He). Amin.

Mid-Nov

It has been 2 weeks since my last post. Wait, we’re already going into the middle of November?! Which means, I have about a month before winter recess comes, yay!

The highlight this month so far was when I injured my left hand while playing soccer on Thursday (Nov 3rd). We were losing the game and despite looking like we’re done for the tournament, I was still eager to get us back in the game. The ball was loose so I ran towards the ball to try and win it but because the other guy was way, way tougher and bigger than me, I was literally thrown away and fell awkwardly on my left hand…with fingers pointing straight towards the ground. Ouch! (I could still imagine the pain, ouch!).

I went to see an orthopedic the next day and the doctor said I might need an x-ray because my bone might have been fractured. But I opted to wait and I endured the pain throughout the weekend. Thankfully, my swollen hand had recovered on Monday and the doc said I can let it heal by it self. She told me that I most probably have sprained my tendons and it takes a long time to heal.

I was thankful that it was my left hand and not my writing hand, as I had 3 exams the following week.

Hmmm, guess that is it for now.