Wishing you all Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri!!!

I've been away for a coupla days from the computer. I finally caught up with my sleep. :D It's about time cuz I was starting to get moodswings like a girl having her PMS. haha!!

Tomorrow might be the last day of Puasa. It feels as though time passes so fast nowadays. It's kind of sad to see life going by so quickly and that I never really make the most out of it. But I've lived a full life despite of that. I did everything that I could possibly do. I've fulfilled a dream. I've proved so many people wrong when they didn't believe in me. I've achieved something that no one thought would lead to anything when I was doing it. I tried so many things to prove that I can do better if I put my mind to it. And I still do believe that I can. It's been a great year. And for the first time in my life. I'm proud of myself. And I'm genuinely happy without any worries whatsoever.

But then again, life is a roller-coaster ride. From experience I know something bad will happen later if not soon. It's a cycle that keeps repeating itself. So I might as well enjoy the moment and make the best out of it.

I'm going to be off for a few days. I'll be spending my Raya with my family and relatives and non-stop Xbox 360 + PS3 gaming sessions. Yes, my cousin who just got back from Dublin brought his PS3 home with him. Yeehaaww!! Like I said, life's been great. Once I get back I'm gonna get me a 50mm. I've messed with manual focus with my kit lens some time ago. It's so damn easy!! So I'm hoping I can find one. This thing's pretty hard to get.

And of course here's another pic for today. It's from the After the Rain set. The last one. It's been great photographing plants. I'm so much better at taking non-human photos. But I'm still not giving up on the homo-sapiens tho. Hari Raya will be the best time for me to have more practice. :D

Happy Holidays and Selamat Hari Raya!!

Burger King + KFC + Chicken Chop = Belly Ache.

In about 15 minutes I'll be heading to TTC for training. I guess I could work on my foot-work while I'm there and maybe do some arm strengthening. :D Unfortunately I've got a stomache ache. aaahh!! tak tahan!! gi toilet sat!!........ oh wait! cancel. :P It seems that I can tahan it.

My health has gone haywire. I haven't had enough sleep for about 2 weeks now. And yesterday's Uptown gathering didn't really help either. Had Burger King and KFC and chicken chop in the same day. No wonder my belly's berjoget2.

Arhh!! can't tahan anymore, gotta go to toilet lol!

Before I go here's a pic from last nite. My cousin's BACCCKK weeee!!! at the end there. And which one's me? I think my coolness aura emenates from even this photo. My awesome Reebok dry-fit T and my newly purchased Nike jacket and my Adidas shoes just screams coolness! woohh! I'm so cool. hahaha! ok I really need to go now. later!

Shopping for PK gear :D

So today I finally met my long lost cousin after not seeing him for 2 whole years! He's changed a lot on the outside but on the inside he's the same ol' cuz. haha!! Welcome back man and stay in Malaysia. :P

Went shopping for clothes today at Midvalley. Should've been for Hari Raya but me being me, I ended up looking for stuff that'd look good while doing PK. haha!! I got myself a pretty cool Nike hoodie, and a plain converse tee. Now all I need is to find a pair of cool track bottoms. Preferably cotton. I hate those synthetic crap. And a new pair of trainers. Cuz my old ones are well.... OLD!! :P

shots of the day that has nothing to do with today's post. I just finished editing them today.

Photoshopped Plant Awesomeness Part. 1

It rained heavily earlier today. And when it stopped, I went outside and became mosquito food as I strolled around with my camera in the garden. :) I was hoping to get some shots of squirrels. But they were too fast for me. haha!! In the end, it's the plants who became my victims... again. :P I think I'm starting to like these plant subjects.

Here's a couple of em for now. I've got quite a few more. Gonna process them in a bit. In the meantime. Enjoy the view. :)

A coupla more just finished editing with.

The rest will come tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Ammar Showreel 2008!!

You read right peeps. Ammar just compiled and released his year 2008 Showreel. Lots of new moves and awesomely improved old ones. Enjoy the vid and support Free-Running/Parkour/Tricking and say no to shuffling? Shuffle = lame + loser + noob. lolz!

KAMPAI non-alcoholic 5% juice.

Currently my favorite drink.. they have it in pinapple, strawberry, lime and apple. :D I like 'em all. :P An empty bottle of it is sitting right next to my computer monitor. I'll throw it out later. Nothing to do, nothing to watch. I have no life. Yeps. But somehow that doesn't bother me... which is kinda sad really.

Photo and edit of the day.

Before:

After:


It costs RM2.50 a pop for a 275ml worth of pure yummyness. Totally worth it.

Adobe vs sRGB with photo comparison!!

This debate on which is better and which to use has been going on for ages. I used to be on AdobeRGB before, back when I was shooting HDR's and tweaking the colors in photoshop. But nowadays I just stick to sRGB after doing some personal tests of my own on how much do I really lose out if I use the sRGB profile as opposed to the AdobeRGB color profile.

This test is done with a photo of my cat. Shot in RAW format. Tagged and saved one file in sRGB and the other with AdobeRGB in 16bit TIFF format. I loaded both of them up in photoshop and made sure that both are zoomed at the same spots.

I applied a HUE/SATURATION adjustment layer on both files and pushed the saturation to 100. I then zoomed in to colors that the AdobeRGB color profile claimed to be superior compared to sRGB which looks to be the greens, yellows and some purple/blue. Here are the results.

The left side is in sRGB while the right is in AdobeRGB. So as you can see, there is truth that the AdobeRGB has more color gamut. And the transitions between colors are smooth, whereas the sRGB profile's color transitions aren't as pretty.

But then again I have to ask you. How often do you raise your saturation to the point of posterization and does that tiny bit of improvement in color gamut worth the extra hassle of calibrating your monitor and converting back and forth between color profiles to get the right color on screen and on print? And also that these are 600% and 1600% crops!!!

This is by no means a scientifically proven method of comparison. But I just wanna show you how little you'll be missing out if you decide to ditch the AdobeRGB color profile and opt for sRGB. :D

Training in the month of Ramadhan.

It's 40 minutes before berbuka. Decided to post one of the photos from yesterday. The lighting was bad. Heck, the lighting is always bad at the Garden. So I'm gonna save my energy instead of spending hours in front of the PC editing those trash can quality shots of yesterday. This one took a lot of work to get it looking barely presentable. But I liked the framing and the angle of this shot so that's why I went through all the trouble.

I think I might make this before and after shots part of my staple when I post an entry here. :D

Okay so here's the original unadulterated shot straight from the camera. Yes, the ideal scenario for an awesomely bad shot of an action photo. Bad lighting, no scenery and a colourful mattress disrupting the whole mood. haha!! not to mention the lowly shutter speed of 1/200s. And for a flip that's just unacceptable.


Now after a while in photoshop and a lot of meddling. I managed to get this. It went thru lucis, motion blur on the legs, some lazy ass cloning of the grass, color balance adjustment and some layer overlays for contrast.


Can't wait till I get to play with strobes. I can promise you it's gonna be a whole different world in my gallery. Saving up!! weee!!

P/S: I managed to do 20 pushups today!! awesome!! i guess my conditioning can start right away! gotta get back in shape. Hopefully before the KBS event in November.

My first aerial and 540 :D

Today Abudi called and we had a little very un-energetic training session at the Garden. The attendees included Ammar, Abudi, Azam, Mad and..... ME bebeh! :P

Abudi brought a mattress along with him to try out wall fulls. But unfortunately they (Azam and Abudi) kept bailing off the mat not on it. lol! It was hilarious. Too bad we didn't have any video cameras. It would've made a funny susuralley production if we did.

Okay now the important part. I did an aerial! hahaha!! the easiest move to do and the safest. Seems like I still have it and I have a very strong feeling that my other flips are still around as well. But I'm not gonna take any chances. Don't wanna spend raya in the hospital. :P

Photos of today will be processed later tonight and posted tomorrow. In the meantime. You can look at this. FLOWER POWER BABY!!

LucisArt Tutorial. Get that Dave Hill look.

I'm feeling generous today. So I did this last night. I love playing around with stocks. It really helps when you have relatively good photos to begin with that has some kind of mood and lighting.

So we're gonna be changing from this


To this

Got you're attention yet? :P Take note that this workflow is specifically for this photo to give you a feel of how to use the LucisArt plugin.

Alrity here we go. First of all, download the stock photo from here http://www.stockvault.net/download_file2.php?pid=8019

1. first step after opening it up in photoshop is to duplicate the layer, and use the CLONE STAMP tool to get rid of that flag pole or something below that kids' feet.

2. Next add a CURVES adjustment layer and click on auto. Paste merged by holding CTRL+A followed by CTRL+SHIFT+C and then CTRL+V.

3. Now fire up LUCISART, set it to SCULPTURE 20. Fire up LUCISART again and do the same thing for the 2nd time. Now we've got the "look" but the color's flat. So next off we're gonna add more vibrancy.

4. Duplicate the current layer add a HUE/SATURATION adjustment layer and pull the MASTER SATURATION to around 35.

5. In the same HUE/SATURATION window go to the RED CHANNEL and pull the saturation down to around -35 to protect the skin tones. So in this case it's pretty simple since the only reds are the skin. If there are other reds then you're gonna have to mask and paint over the excess reds.

6. Okay now we're there! alright so now to brighten up the subjects. There are a coupla ways you can do this. Mainly using levels and masking the subjects but I found out another easier method by accident. Paste merged by holding CTRL+A followed by CTRL+SHIFT+C and then CTRL+V. Set the blending to OVERLAY. Choose a soft edged brush set the color to white and the size at 200. Set the brush opacity to 50% and brush over the subjects.

7. Paste merged by holding CTRL+A followed by CTRL+SHIFT+C and then CTRL+V. Burn the shadows and dodge the highlights to get that extra 3D feel and you're done!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Update: 3run Malaysia wooot!!!??

Good news from Abudi. We are now part of the 3run family woot!!??? they are like the best of the best!!! www.3run.co.uk

more details at http://myfrlife.blogspot.com/

We Finally Made It...

Let there be LIGHT!!

Yes finally the results are in. Had a meeting with some people from the Ministry of youth and sports. And we got the deal!! holy sheett!!! I couldn't believ what I was hearing. Although it was boring as hell throughout the meeting but they saved the most exciting part for last.

At first when I got this call from Abudi. He's the guy that got the offer. :D I thought that it was just gonna be another run of the mill parkour demonstration. And although I'm always up for some good exposure but still I wasn't in any shape and so were quite a number of the Bangi community. So I was hesitant in taking the offer since I didn't wanna risk anyone getting anymore injuries.

But then, he elaborated about how this event will be hosted by a government body. Not any government body, but THE people that could take us out from the underground scene. So after talking it out with Abudi on the phone of the possibilites and opportunities that could spring out from this venture we decided that this was it. The chance we've been waiting for.

So without informing the rest of the dudes me and Abudi went to check out what this event was all about with a couple of people from the ministry's office. So we had a chat in front of the Putrajaya mosque and they explained that how they wanted to absorb parkour into the mainstream, and this was when I was thinking, well I guess both of us was thinking at the same time that this is really it! Not trying to keep my hopes up to high, I decided to keep it cool just in case of any disappointments later on.

Earlier this morning we attended the meeting. I came with Qayyim and GG while Abudi was sleeping at home. Biasa la. President. LOLZ! So anyway, we sat through the whole BORING ASS meeting for the 2 whole hours and at the end of it the chairman of the event I guess or the chairman for that particular meeting seemed to have a lot of interest towards parkour. Heck I think the whole meeting room was interested in knowing what parkour is all about or more likely that there are people practicing it here in Malaysia.

The most important thing that comes to mind is the fact that we can start a Club for parkour. Officially. Which means we can hold workshops and official parkour jam events that are of a whole new level. But all this is gonna take time and we're gonna just keep training as usual and try to avoid any more serious injury. I myself am already on track of getting back in shape. My conditioning regime will be in full throttle after Raya.

So for the bangi parkour dudes who are reading this. Good job guys! we finally made it! weee!! and to the JB dudes too! keep training hard. We're at a new level now. Awesome stuff. It's gonna be an exciting new beginning from here on out.

Watcha looking at??!!

So I'm making it up as I'm writing this since once again, I have nothing of note to blog about except for showing off my awesome photoshop skillz. So let's see how this goes. :P

Tomorrow morning I'm going to meet up with some people from the Ministry of youth and sports cuz they are interested in taking up parkour officially. If this goes through then I can already imagine all the facilities we could ever ask for, at our fingertips. Not to mention how fast this will spread through out the country. It's gonna be an explosion!! Woohh!!! The more I think about it the more excited I get until I forgot that I still have this piece of metal in my arm. Can't get too excited when the actual event happens. Might injure myself again. SO gotsta keep it cool although I wanna do some stuff!! arrggghh!!!

Okay enough of fantasizing over something that's still not confirmed yet. :P Off to photos!! well this time I only have one. And it's a shot of yours truly. Albeit only a part of me. haha!! This pretty much looks exactly as how I'd envisioned it before I processed the image. Except for the obvious fractalius lines tho. I still don't have a clue how I can smoothen it any further. But I'm not giving up! Muahahaha!! an hour till berbuka. mmmm.... fooodddd...

So here you go. you can gaze at my pretty hazel eyes. I know you want to. I don't mind. hehehe!!

Three-some anyone?

Ahhh.. The fresh cool breeze of the post midnight air circulating in my air-conditioned room. The silence of the night, the sing of the crickets, the glow of the mellow street lamp peeking in view through my window.. well part of my window anyway. most of it's covered by my pc monitor.

so anyway, it's 2.20AM and I'm awake. :) what the hell am I smiling about? this is not healthy! haha!! Since I'm up I might as well write something and this being a photo blog, there's bound to be pictures!! even at the dead of night I still produce pictures for you all to see. Actually I just wanna show off my photoshop skills. :P but you enjoy them right?? right? what? you don't? you think my photos stink? and that i should get a life instead of potato couching in front of my pc 24-7days a week? *see i just combined 2 words into one, ain't that cool? :P* oh yeah?? is that what you're thinking huh?? FYI I do have a life! I do lots of things apart from being online and editing photos 24-7days a week *OMFG!! I did it again!! GENIUS!!!* I sleep and watch astro in between okay?

Hah! got you there right? you didn't think of that when you spewed out those hateful words of resentment at me did'ya? take that!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!.................................................. I really do need to get a life.

actually I don't have anything to write about. It's just that I can't sleep. And my back's killing me. Oh! and in case you're wondering what the title of this post have anything to do with tonight's write up. BEHOLD!!! A three-some caught on camera of three in-animate objects!!! The kinkiness!! during Ramadhan no less! On my front porch!! In bright daylight!! okay that's enough. I'm gonna stop before this gets any weirder than it already is. :P

I'm not crazy okay!? just sleep deprived haha!! good night :):):)


And now be prepared for a scary picture!!!!!!! tangan berhantu!!!! look!!! look!!! on his shoulder!!! tangan hantu tu weyyy!!!!

Just kidding hhehehehe!!! okay okay. This time betul2 pegi tido. gunait all!!! ni sebab bulan ramadhan tu yang berani main2 pasal hantu tgh2 pagi buta camni. kalau tak, jangan harap le. XD

Photoshop Awesomeness V 2.0 beta

I'm on the verge of a breakthrough!! Finally I'm able to escape the clutches of my old workflow and into a world with intense colors! I love it. Mind you I've been in front of this PC trying to get this new look to work in my photoshop processing. It started off rocky but now it's starting to take shape. :D I still have more things I plan to add to this new style of mine. Mainly smoothing it out and make it look cleaner. I'll work on that tonight.

The new prototypes.. here they are. :) I'm still having a bit of trouble with human subjects. But I think I can figure something out. Enjoy dudes and dudettes and stay tuned for more photoshop awesomeness!!

Plant Me Tender

As promised. More pictures of the garden. hmmm... I love the plants. They're so photogenic. And they don't move around when I snap their pictures. haha!! I'm still struggling to get the perfect feel for human photos. I dunno why, but my PR skills are a bit off. Anything to do with human interactions kinda turns me off. In photography that is. Cuz they move a lot and I can never get the lighting right. GRRRR!! I will practice moarrrr!!

and ummm.. I kinda stole your line Naj. haha!

Bonding with nature

I woke up early this morning and decided to become a nature person. You know, get in touch with the earth in all of its glory and splendour. :P But to put it simply. It was because I've run out of things to edit. I need my practice. And I need to practice more on my telephoto.

It was a great morning, nice sunny weather. Cool air and dews on some of the plants. Gotta love nature. :D Except for the mosquitoes. Hate mosquitoes!! DIIEEEE!!

And below are the photos. More to come tomorrow. Gotta sleep :D

Fractalucis Blendorama!

I've been busting my creative juices out trying out different kinds of combinations in my processing and I've come up with this... Hmm.. I'm still not sure how it looks like. I'm gonna have to wait for opinions I guess. But it's been a fun few days of experimenting.

Because of the lack of "good photos" I had to resort to using really old ones in my hard drive and gave it a go. So here are the finished results. :D Hope you guys and gals like these. :P

Who needs a DSLR when there are stock photos? :O

I bet the title of my post will strike a chord to the majority of photographers around the world. haha! I love to annoy you. :D

Apparently time is my friend and I have plenty of it. Too much in fact to the extent where I can spend all day just in front of this computer editing photos. I've been struggling on how I should set my camera processing. I've got no problems choosing the settings for nature, animals and such but when it comes to people shots i find that my D40's colors always seem to disappoint me.

I'm not blaming my camera but it's just so hard to get the proper skin tone!! arrgghh!! Anyway, I'm gonna try to get it right this weekend. Something good on the camera LCD doesn't really mean a thing. Cuz it always comes out differently on the computer monitor. Especially with skin tones!! aarrgghhh!!

You might be asking, why now? After all I've been taking people shots for a while now. I know, but today or earlier tonight I decided to check out stock photos. Cuz I've run out of photos to play with. And it was then that I realized that I could already create stuff like these. And it's always been what I wanted to produce only I never really managed to with my shots. So I was thinking it could either be my camera or my subjects. or most probably the dude behind the lens.... ME!

I will now have to re-study my camera. This is not cool. I gotta find the right settings and the right lighting and the right angles and the right locations from now on. But it's good to know that my post process was headed the right way all this time. At least it's something that I could be happy about cuz I learned it all from scratch without any help. Which is kinda awesome in it's own way. :P

So here are a coupla stock photos that I've pimped. I'm gonna practice more on these stock photos until my siblings get back from college and then I can try to get the same results with them as the reluctant models and with my D40. XD I have faith in my camera.

Here's a shot that first caught my eye. I love action shots. So I downloaded this one and souped it up and it turned out gooooooodddd.

Here's the original

This one is pretty typical of one of those usual outdoor model shoots that's pretty rampant in and around the photography world. Had to give it a try. :P and yeah, it worked but she ended up looking a wee bit "ganas" from the original photo.

Here's the original.

Props to the photographers who shot these. And hopefully I'll be able to steal their skills soon. :P

Fractalius

Thanks to some macro dude in the Photomalaysia forum I learned about this really wicked plugin. It's called Fractalius and it really adds a lot of spice to a photo. I'm trying to incorporate this to my current photoshop recipe. :) I've done 2 and the first attempt looks better compared to the other one. The first one I went for subtlety and for the second I tried to see how far I can push it withouth losing details. :D I kinda like both tho. Love it! Gonna see what else I can do with it. And as always, I'm not gonna follow what other people are doing with this. Gotta be original yo!



Funky no? More photoshop madness soon. :D

Why So Serious?

Phew, took a long time editing the photos and I still have more in the hard drive... I'm done for now. Tak larat lah. I've saved some photos with extremely fugly facial expressions in the hard drive for later. hehehe!! The guys are gonna love this once I'm done editing them. muahaha!!

So, let's see. What should I write about? Hmm.. What's happened since the last post? hmmm..... NOTHING!! yeps. I've been doing nothing but editing photos for the last coupla days. I can be such a geek sometimes. Eh wait a minute! I am a geek! in disguise. haha!

Anyway, I went through Alif's and Ammar's shopping bags last friday, mostly food stuff and toiletries. And I found a coupla boxes of cereal!! I LOOOVVEEE cereal! Koko Krunch, Honey Stars, Fruit Loops you name it. If it's sweet I'll eat it. So these guys had cereals and I didn't, and the Koko Krunch even had a cool little Joker figurine that came along with it. Knowing that I'm not gonna get the cereal, I might as well get something out of this discovery. So I took the toy. hahaha!!

And today we had a little photoshoot. The Joker being ze model. So photogenic, so cool. :P

Joker: Hello people!!

So how did I shoot this you ask? Easy peasy, the last pic is the set. Used an SB-600 at full power and bounced it off the ceiling. :)

As a last note. Dark Knight is the best movie evarr!!!