All Souls Day

p20110416-172911, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

April is the time of the year for Cheng Beng or All Souls Day.

Taken with the Panasonic LX3 and modified with Vignette app using Instant Film effect.

RAW Coffee

1301375699755, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

New cafe near the office. Serves great coffee and organic lunch. Healthy stuff.

Vignette demo app on Android HTC.

Waterfront @ Desa Parkcity

Waterfront @ Desa Parkcity, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

Amazing blue sky on a good day. Perhaps more amazing is that this shot was unprocessed and taken straight from the HTC Desire.

And no, those are not sensor dust in the top part of the photo. Desa Parkcity is a popular park for people to fly their kites.

Birthday banquet

P1070146, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

Annual grand event on the calendar must be the Chairman's birthday banquet. No expense spared to celebrate the event right down to the invitation card that befits royalty standards.

Taken with the LX3. Increasingly finding the DSLR a huge burden for functions like this.

Friends from Taiping

P1070051, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

Meet-up with Jessica Toh, back from US, at Starbucks, Jaya One. These guys never seem to grow old especially Peter Wong. Known them since my teenage days.

More photos taken with the LX3 here.

Aniza and Ian

DSC_0633, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

Aniza our friend who usually arranges our vacation tours, got married just before Valentine's and promptly jetted off to Winnipeg, Canada with her beloved Ian.

My second wedding shoot for the year. This time using the 50mm AFS and lots of leg zoom. Getting to grips with using the SB800 for fill-in flash during daytime.

More shots here.

CNY in Taiping

P1060860, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

A time for old friends to meet up. Kean Guan will organise a dinner on the 1st day of CNY at the same restaurant year in year out. This year Lawrence Kong was in town all the way back from the US.

Lou sang!

IMAG0514_edit0, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

Lou sang. An acquired Lunar New Year tradition that didn't really caught on in a big way in the northern towns like Penang or Taiping. Seems like another commercialised thing for the restaurants to make more moolah during the festive season.

Adilin & Jeremy

DSC_8755, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

Rode shotgun with buddy Hamzah to shoot this wedding in Sungai Buloh on New Year's Day.

Event photography is tough on older bodies. Really strains the joints.

The D700 & 28-300VR plus the SB800 did the job. D700 battery good for more than 700 clicks.

More photos here.

Christmas indulgence

DSC_8368, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

All lined up in a row awaiting the clinking of glasses for the Christmas dinner.

Taken with the D700 and AF-S 50mm at f5.6.

Tiger spirit

DSC_8330, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

Azmi belting out The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" in yet another energetic display of the Tiger spirit.

Spotted at the Old Edwardians Association KL Annual Dinner at Vistana Hotel.

More photos here.

Irene and Teng San

DSC_8018, originally uploaded by Lye Hock.

Congrats to the newlyweds colleague Irene and Teng San!

A couple of photographer friends, Roger Poon and CV Wong did the event shoot for Irene.

Took the Nikkor 28-300VR for a workout during the dinner. On reflection, I should have opted for the 28-120VR instead as the long end is rarely used in such situations. Struggled with the performance of the SB800 as I had trouble controlling the flash power due to the varied lighting.

Take a look at the rest of the photos here.