Fusion dish, Kobe Jones, Dockland

It was once said ...

Fusion cuisine is something when a chef is not well trained in 2 fields, combining half learnt skill from 2 styles of cuisine...

Sad existence.

However, this one did taste great. A bit of Japanese and French.

Kobe Jones, Dockland., Melbourne.

Rowing Boat

As usual, this tricky fellow took me to this particular E. coli infested Yarra river making an adventure out of paddling a semi-sunken canoe. The freezing temperature of the surrounding did trigger the hybernation reflex in my system. However, listening to him talking about all the hallucinogenic dreams of wise investment in wind power energy does strike me that he could be a likely green party supporter. Despite all these uninvited stimulus on a cold afternoon, this made my day...

The tender brachiradialus muscle released endorphine for my extremely addictive nature. That came unexpectedly.

The wet thigh from osmosis of water deriving from bottom of the canoe gave me that spinothalamic tract seizure. I did feel alive.

The familiar nagging and hassling from an old time friend really made the experience worthwhile.

This picture was a snap look on how I remembered about him from many years ago.

Though you were on the flight back home. Leonid, you are home to my lost soul.

Moth Macro by Pentax A 200mm f4 macro

Spotted this the wall. Thanks to stun gun to flash this baby delirious. 

Eggman

This is one of the wall graffiti photo

The light abstract

A back lit photo. Yet, it does create that mundane feeling about it.

I was with Leonid and the weather allows great conversation to take place.

Leonid, stop nagging me about driving too fast or give way to L platers. I know how to drive :P

Leonid - My friend

My good friend for many years. Haematologist!

We were inseparable in medical schools. He then left for US without any news ever since. Now a dad of 4 children. Good that he is now back in touch!

In participation for the art blog meme face off Art Blog Link

Lobster Paela

Good food never fails to imrpove depression scale :)

Toro- adbomen part of the fish

Beautiful dish tried at Nobu. Refreshing and wonderful tasting.

:)

A glimpse of Sun

A little gap in the cloud reveals the arid nature of Australian landscape

Love Lamb

Delicious food :)

Beef Tendon Stew Soup

Tendon is good for skin and repair :)

This Greek lamb stew is beautiful

What a smile!

The smile is priceless.

King Salmon

This dish is so luxuriously seasoned. It made my day

Brighten Beach View

The image is taken by Voigtlander 58mm f1.4 SLII

The view was spetacular though lacking colour and high contrast. However, the flare in the distance is coped very well with such a medium priced range lens.

Great Wall of China

The undulating view of the wall always gives that feel of geometrical wonder.

Pergola

This is taken by Pentax Fish Eye 10-16mm

Who says Fish Eye lens being quite bizarre and obsolete in photography?

I love twisted view just like how I view almost everything else in life.

Bewildered! What a view!

Temple via fish eye view

This is a high contrast image out of Voigtlander 12mm f5.6 which has that dramatic effect of wide perspective. The two people included in the image were my old photography pals. The image is a little desaturated to enhance that feeling of aged old look.

ONE in four Victorians think driving 10km over the speed limit in a 100km zone is socially acceptable.

Porcelain Doll

Quite a lot happened to my life last few days. This shot was taken to reveal the bokeh performance of Voigtlander 40mm f2 SL

You can see that the specular highlights turn out quite nastily...

I really want to get a Leica 50mm f1.4 now...

Foreground bokeh

The weather has been rather bad. This image was really just a messing around with foreground bokeh. Why?

Pentax lenses are usually better in the foreground bokeh department than background one...

Japanese Dishes

The images are all taken by Canon 50mm f1.2 L

The last couple of days are characterised by "happy go lucky" sentiment. Strolling the city without a purpose is a bit of fun really.

Joel and I tried out the many gourmet places to indulge ourselves. This dish is described as semi fried tuna abdomen with special sauce. It was very tender to taste melting at the tip of my tongue. Very nice in deed.

Seafood fried udon. It was a substitute for rice to improve satiety. But we really ordered too much...

Asparagus and bacon rolls. Very appetitising in deed. The sauce was too salty in fact. Joel spit out all the fat bits lol.

Good old sashimi to improve the fatty acid intake. There was this "oil" fish that gave us diarrhoea all day afterwards...

A bit of wine to colour the day. What a fulfilling day!

:)

Spider Macro

This image is taken by Voigtlander 125mm f2.5 macro APO Lanthar

Life is busy at the moment. Good to be occupied in fact.  This photo was taken a while back when I still had that obsession with insects in general. Sometimes it is amazing to see the extent I really want to get this sort of image spending hours of tracking and snapping to get this desirable outcome. You might not be aware that this macro lens is legendary. Yet, I have sold it to a Melbourne enthusiastist. This lens has absolute no fringeing and smoothest bokeh among all macro lenses. The colour rendition is clean and clear. Very mesmerising lens in deed.

Street photography is still my thing. Yet, it is so hard to pick this up after 3 years of non shooting. Somehow I am confident that I will pick it with the help of friends :)

The top name for boy baby is Jack and girl baby is Ruby last year.

Another McDonald is robbed in Melbourne. This is very spooky.

Happy lot

This image is taken by Canon 135mm f2

Sometimes it is that magic moment that makes the image tick. I have never seen so many ladies smiling at me at once. What a feat :)

Nothing to say about work today. Just plain tough to start working after a long new year break!

Williamstown

This image is taken by Tokina 11-16mm f2.8

Yes, another day of freedom to waste. Strolling along the Williamstown port where there are many restaurants open and Gelatti shops for enjoyment.

The ship museum is as old as it can be with nothing new added to the actual diel engine ship. HMAS Castlemain. Amazed how this ancient piece of crap survived WWI at all...

Oh yes. I felt so patriotic after seeing the flag. That really works for me.

This piece of artefact is not child proof. In a time frame of 30 min, I saw two kids being hurt after the whole set spinning around by some other children. Kids and weapons are a no no combination.

This man was over enthusiastic about reliving the days of WWI. It was funny to see that everyone has a story to tell.

I just cannot resist to do some bokeh shot. Lacking meaning but love the ambiguity of the background blurr.

What a day. It was time to get some Chinese dumplings :)

Scooter

This image was taken by Leica 25mm f1.4

There is an emerging trend for people to ride scooters these days. It is a practice considered green and environmentally friendly. However, scooter shared the same mortality rate as people who ride motorcycles in which the mortality rate was being reported up to 50% in 2 years riding time.

Being a Leica lens owner, any image I took has to be converted to black and white, with high punchy contrast and harsh grain added to look like a piece of Leica work. Tha is a generalising statement but that is my view of Leica shooters in general.

Good to see that I have finally managed to utilise my holidays for something worthwhile.

New Year Boredom

This image is taken by Canon 50mm f1.2L

It was a very boring day. No shops were open and there were no festivities except rubbish on the ground everywhere. Lucky, there were shops that were usually open 24 hours a day that ended up closed on New Year's Day. So I got to see the actual graffiti on these store facades.

Then I accompanied Joel for trialing out his new camera and range finder lenses. Good to see him paying so much concentration into these mundane objects of the streets.

When I spotted this lady walking pass me, I had a chill. I thought I was revisiting the scenes of Lord of the Rings. She really made me frighten for my life today...

A little trialing with bokeh shot: Damn harsh and ugly. But why not? There was nothing else to photograph.

Yes, luckily this cafe was located. We had the daily dose of Latte before terminating this boring New Year's Day!!!!

Happy New Year!

This image is taken by Pentax Da* 16-50mm f2.8 SDM.

After continuous of shifts throughout the naughty Christmas, New Year will hopefully bring more peace and happiness for me. I managed to pass my exam and made many on line friends :)

No more work throughout the new year break. It is finally a good relaxation time for me :)

P.S. Gordon Ramsay was reported to have 26 million dollouar debt from my local newspaper today!

Spring of Christmas Macro

This image is taken by A 200mm f4 Macro

4 seasons in one day. Melbourne is having a tantrum like a lady in menopause. With all friends leaving for festive season holidays (None of us really celebrate christmas), I managed to do 2 overseas shifts as well as reading a novel that I have made up my mind not finishing it. LOL.

Again, I think a photograph from the dying plant in my backyard would suffice for my blog. At least this is something!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Macro of a bug

This image is taken by Pentax A 200mm f4 macro

Guess where this shot was taken?

Yes, on the wall of my filthy room. The amazing thing about this bug was that it did not even bother to move while I wag the big camera all over it. I guess I did not have to spray Mortein all over it.

However, I did use 2 flash guns to stun it pretty well. It was captured head on on my camera creating that good impact I liked.

This is less than 5 mm in length and I could not name what this insect was. Thanks to a dull and uneventful Thursday - this shot really made my day. Soon I would say good bye to Pentax system pretty much. Still some gears did make me a little uneasy to let go.

Merry Christmas Everyone :)

p.s. I just read from News Week magazine that 17% of Americans who are unemployed, are no longer looking for work or even looking for part time based jobs.

Quote of the day


Serious sport, according to George Orwell, is a war minus the shootings.

Steamed Shark, Lake Entrance, Victoria, Australia

This image is taken by Voigtlander 40mm f2 SL

This is a dish hard to forget. The reason being so unforgettable is the way it is discovered in a tourist coastal town of Victoria - Lake Entrance.

This place is reknown for its estuary exit of a river called Murray. The place is nothing but wattle trees. Yet most of the shop keepers liked to consider me as a Japanese speaking the twisted Japanese to me "O denki Deska?" Whatever. I even treated your regional health director in your regional hospital and stopped generalising me as a tourist!

This dish is sampled locally from the local fish market. Usually shark cannot be steamed for the very reason that it has contained high urea concentration within the flesh. The taste is not really pleasant if not deep fried like the good old time fish n chips.

But this plate of food was one of the best dishes I had in the region. Cost like 39 dollars but it was well worth it. Again, this type of refreshing bright colour can only derive from Voigtlander lens. So much clarity and rich intense colour.

Well, the restaurant had a chef that was originally working in a French restaurant in France. My question to the chef was why the heck he wanted to move to such a coastal town at all?

Poppy Flower Wonder

This image is taken by Voigtlander 40mm f2 SL

This picture reminds me of a time that I would not buy any lens but voigtlander. That was a period where I was addicted to the build quality of Voigtlander lenses and their image rendering characteristics.

Yes, the brand is not all perfect and its own lens production line had been taken over by Cosina in Japan. The lenses are just so good to hold in my hands... Truely addictive.
Speaking of the bokeh, I used to have a set of criteria for assessing them. Then I looked at this image taken almost 3 years ago. I had second thoughts.

How on earth do I like the harsh edge bokeh with distracting specular highlights? I guess I have a growing up period with photography in general. Now this pair of critical eyes are very hard to please. I dreaded the day I would become even more grumpy and critical when I got even older. God helps me.

Natasha

This image is taken by Canon EF 24mm f1.4 L at f1.4

It is always a challenge to photograph someone who needs to be placed in the most comfortable state. It takes that mutual understanding between subject and photographer as well as the total trust. Yet, it is really about getting a female subject to flirt with the camera.

Hang on, flirt with camera? a metal alloy object?

It sounds like a fetish already. It is just so hard to look into a dark hollow space through a lens. Yet, behind that lens, there is a sensor that allows a million possibilities how the image would be rendered, edited and distributed. So that thought of uncertainty is enough to freak the subject out.

So everytime I heard a friend's friend needing a portrait done. I went, "No thanks. Find someone else who is a womaniser."

My average time to get a satisfactory portrait on a stranger is often requiring a minimum of 30 minute crap shoots. Until the sound of clicking and myself as a photographer becoming less intimidating, the tension in subject's facial muscles would reduce and the atmosphere of the portrait shoot becomes more casual. This is in deed hard work. Yet, trying to find something in common to chat is really a tiresome but important task.

So why is it so daunting to do portrait business for living? It is not just for good looks and visual satisfaction. It is all about social skill exhaustion...

Now my whining session finishes. Heading back to work! Beeeeeeeeeeee !!!!

Roe

Blue Fairy Wren - a thought

The image is taken by Pentax A* 300 f2.8 with 2 teleconverters in King lake national park.

For some years, I had been an avid bird watcher and photographer. Apart from the usual boring exotic myenas and native rosella, a lot of the native Victorian birds were rarely spotted.

Due to real life commitment to various daunting chores, this hobby had been neglected for a number of years. However, I spotted blue fairy wren every now and then after a plentiful raindrop this year. Yeah, thanks to El Nina that these wrens were somewhat more prevalent in my local reserve parks!

Therefore, I googled a bit of information on superb fairy wren and discovered something very interesting shown below...

"The Superb Fairywren is notable for several peculiar behavioural characteristics; the birds are socially monogamous and sexually promiscuous, meaning that although they form pairs between one male and one female, each partner will mate with other individuals and even assist in raising the young from such pairings. Male wrens pluck yellow petals and display them to females as part of a courtship display."

So what does it mean by socially monogamous and sexually promiscuous? It seems to apply to male gender in general after all. I do love that phrase "socially monogamous" being socially isolated? Then "sexually promiscuous" as animal instinct disinhibited?

No wonder male wrens look very colourful while females look very dull. Again, male wrens tend to hop around in a very agile fashion. Any photographers in South Eastern Australia would know photographying wrens is an incredible task even with autofocus lens. So this image has been something like a milestone after I could get some clarity out of this image using manual focus ring!!

Now I am hesistating about micro 4/3 system where there is little range of telephoto selection for an avid bird photographer.

Birds are really interesting entities where all their organs are packed inside that tiny bodies and move so quickly that make it almost impossible to capture them on cameras.

Roe

Talking about 4/3s with Joel

My friend, Joel, has been convincing me to switch to the new camera system to experiment. Apart from the skilled preaching on his behalf, this new system does excite me a little.

While we were talking about the limitless possibilities of various lenses of different register distance used on the mirrorless camera bodies, I took out my old camera and canon 24mm f1.4 for some casual snapping.

Not too bad for a lens whose design dated back to 1982...

The day ended with a good nice pasta soup and rich choclate cream. Thank you, Joel.

Inparticipation with the link event Face Off Link

Olympus ZD 150mm f2 gallery

This lens has been my companion for a long time. This lens has produced some pleasant images throughout my university years.

Here are the example shots taken by this lens.

Hope You enjoy browsing them.