Photomedia Folio

Anyways, this is just a random entry that I've typed up some time back and prepared to post up just in case I have a hiatus of some sort and the blog seems lacking in pictures. So, this entry will probably be scheduled to be posted during the period I will be back in Brissy for my convocation ceremony - some time in late August.

As you are reading this, I'm probably being all hyped up about my graduation later on in the evening. Woohoo. My graduation from University life at QUT. I'll miss Brissy, hopefully I'll have the chance to come back often (for the food and shopping, and friends of course!). I hope the photos turn out good!

I kinda forgot about posting up pictures from my photomedia module - the ones I submitted for my final folio (worth 70% of the grade). I just thought about it and decided to post it here to share with you guys my folio. There was no set guideline to what images were expected, the folio is supposed to represent whatever you want it to be. So I went with me in mind - my interest in food. (:

I think I got a Distinction (6) for the folio cos my overall grade for the module was 6. Guess the marker liked my work (phew.). This brings to mind a remark the photo printing shop assistant made when I went to collect my prints. When I asked for my photos, she replied, "Oh! So you are the one with all the food photos that made us all hungry when we saw them! Nice photos!" It felt really nice to hear such a comment. (:

This is a thumbnail spreadsheet of my work and how the marker is supposed to view the images:


The Rainbow Series Part I (Food in its natural forms):








I think this is my favourite shot out of the whole folio. I was experimenting with taking water shots and decided that grapes would be a small and hardy enough fruit to keep dropping into the water surface without disintegrating or getting too bruised, unlike say, a strawberry or raspberry. It took me some time and hundreds of photos, to achieve something that I was looking for. Then, the overall look still wasn't perfect enough but heck, I was in a hurry by then cos my folio was due soon. Ha! Jos commented that I should have photographed it against a darker background so the colour contrast of the water splashing would be more obvious. Which makes sense now come to think about it. But it's too late anyway, and I'll just keep that note in mind when experimenting with water shots in future...

The Rainbow Series Part II (Prepped food):

Traveling plans.

Oh, of course I'm all recovered from the diarrhea (I'll be at the hospital if I've not!) and been happily resuming eating normally. My weight loss for that short period is of course, temporary. Hmpf. Ha.

Anyways, I'm flying off tonight to Sydney for some shopping, sightseeing and fun. Then to Brisbane for my convocation. Then staying on for a week more after my graduation to just catch up with friends and stuff. Then back to Singapore for three days before I fly off again, this time to Bangkok (FINALLY!) with my girlfriends. I'm so anticipating the Thailand trip. Afterall, I've been saying I want to go Bangkok since like last year December! My last trip there was like two years back! Aww I miss Platinum Mall and Chatuchak Market. (:

So in summary:

Singapore >> Sydney >> Brisbane >> Singapore >> Bangkok. I can't wait.

New Moon

And you know what? I'm still stuck at home recuperating. After about a week, I think I'm best friends with my toilet now. The diarrhea has eased a little, leaving me to just go to the toilet to do my thang. At about an average of four to five times daily (which is still highly abnormal rate for an average person - I reckon). Add that my stomach is still protesting violently (to what I have no clue since I'm mostly on a porridge diet anyways - I swear once I get well I would not touch porridge for like a month or something, I'm that sick of it.), I paid another visit to the doc to get additional medication.

To sum it up in short, I've been bored out of my mind, reduced to sticking myself to the computer for videos, net surfing and job looking. There IS a limit to how long one can glue oneself to the computer without feeling depressed. I think I've just about reached my limit.

Yesterday, being the National Day and all, my dad invited his uncle friends over for a potluck/bbq dinner. There was a table spread of cheese broccoli, satay, curry chicken and bread, KFC-like popcorn chicken, egg mayo sandwiches, barbecued chicken and sausages, fried beehoon, fishballs, some fish dish and of course, good alcohol - scotch (with its intoxicating seducing smell) and red wine (which I'm not a fan of anyway). Guess what I could eat? Bee hoon, a few fish balls, chicken pops, and plain bread. How depressing.

Okay, enough of whining. As I was bored of videos, I decided that some reading was long overdue. It's been months since I've sat down to read a proper book (okay not that many months but still.), thus I finally opened the plastic wrappings of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga that I bought a couple weeks back. I've already completed all four books but as I watched Twilight (again) in the afternoon, I grabbed New Moon and settled in to read. Halfway, I ended up in front of the television watching 18g of Love, a local film on the okto channel. After the show ended, my tummyache came back with a huge vengeance and after a visit to my best friend, I lay on my bed, spent. Popping in the diarrhea pills and stomachache pills that I had neglected to take after dinner, I was too drained of strength to contemplate taking a shower. I just went to bed straight (whoopsie me for being all smelly or whatever).

And awoke at a bloody timing of 450am cos I felt all hot and dirty. While waiting for the heater to heat up, I opened up New Moon and continued where I left off. I must say that I like the book more now that it's my second time reading it. I always thought I preferred the third and forth book more compared to the first two books and I realised that the second book is actually quite good too.

Guess what I'm doing today? Plugging in my earphones to the beats of Muse - Supermassive Black Hole on repeat mode, and reading Eclipse. I spied in the ending of New Moon that Stephanie Meyer wrote the books with Muse songs as inspiration, and I can totally link them together. Especially this particular song, which was used in the Twilight movie during the baseball game. Sweet. I'm off for some more Edward and Bella. Ciao.

Peach galettes

It should be peaches season currently, for I had been spying all these lovely pink round fruits in the local supermarts since a few weeks back. As I was busy baking other goodies, I made a note to get some peaches while they are available to make a peach dessert.

Last week, my dad bought back some lusciously looking white peaches, and after the few days of offering to the gods, the peaches were finally ready for consumption. A slight rinse later, I took one and took a smell. Oh my. Peaches have this really intoxicating scent that I really like. In fact, if I could, I probably would love to perfume myself with all the natural fruits smells such as - lemon sugar, peaches, strawberries, honeydew, grapefruit, raspberries... it's a never ending list of how many fruits I actually love. In fact, I'm currently using Body Shop's Raspberry Body Butter (smells so much like the real thing that I feel hungry whenever I apply it. Ha!).

Back to the peaches, since I knew there were some in the house, I prepared some dough, which recipe called for lemon zest (I know! I mean, lemon zest? The recipe totally screamed my name...) and prepped it in the fridge while I waited patiently for dad to give the okay for eating the peaches. When the go-ahead was given, I already knew what I was going to make - peach galettes.

Insides of a peach is oh-so-pink.

Rolling out the dough, slicing the peaches thinly and placing in the middle of the dough, a slight sprinkling of sugar, pinching the sides together, a cut of butter atop, and it was ready for the oven. Easy peasy recipe that produced a sweet treat within a short period of time. Just in time for a lazy afternoon snack during the weekend, while chilling out watching videos with the sister.


When I removed the galettes from the oven, the peach juices, together with the melted butter and sugar were bubbling excitedly. It made me all excited too just to see those bubbly bits bubbling happily away and I made a lunge for my camera. I tried to snap some shots of the bubbly juices, but once out of the oven, it took mere seconds to bubble a few times more before the juices settled contently down. By then, my camera only captured the dessert with the quiet juices being all sedated and all. Darn.

Small floral artificial bouquet from Jia ages ago; sprinkling of sugar on the galettes; more peaches.

Crunchy tart + Sweet juicy fruit = Enjoyment.

Shorts

I think most girls can empathise with me when I say that I have clothes that range from a size XXS to a size L. Sometimes, this is due to the cutting of the clothes (especially those I buy from Australia - it explains why my range starts from the XXS cos as you know, I obviously DO NOT look like I am a size XXS. snigger.), while sometimes (in most cases) in fact, you know your body fluctuates and you need clothes that fit you when you are fit, and clothes that fit you when you are, *ahem, not so fit.

In fact, talking about the above point, I must bring up an annoying fact. It is so unfair that my sis (who I bet will surely read this anyway...) is a size smaller, and so, when she has her so-called "fat moments", she can just swing by my wardrobe and select stuff that catch her fancy. Thereby ensuring that she has two wardrobes to choose from! Whereas poor (fat) me, even on my skinniest moments (not that I have many hmpf), cannot actually pick anything from her wardrobe to wear. Boo!

Okay, I digress. Anyways, what I wanted to say was, when I first came back from Brissy, I was digging through my wardrobe and found an old pair of black shorts that I couldn't fit anymore. Then again, you know, as I said above, girls bodies tend to expand and contract like nobody's business , so holy moly, I tried it on today and it actually fits! Whoo. Women out there can really understand what I'm trying to say yes? That feeling of, oh my god, this old thing actually fits now?? I wore it out today. (:

Could be the diarrhea working its magic... snorts. But whatever the reason, I feel good! (*humming the "I feel good dadadadadada" song...)

Diarrhea

I've been having diarrhea since Monday. So it's been what, three days now? Had been to see the Doc yesterday, but somehow, I'm still having it. Hmmmm. Looking at it at another perspective, my stomach's slightly flatter than usual after all those frequent toilet trips... But I'm puzzled at why my weight's not dropping. *grumbles.

Oh I think I havn't mention it on the blog before, but I'm currently learning my driving (it's been a couple weeks back already) and I'm learning Manual (what a pain in the arse). I passed my FTT yesterday! It was easy as most of the questions were pretty similiar to the practice questions at BBDC. And I've been on the roads for like, four lessons already? I still remember my first driving lesson...what an unnerving experience it was. snigger. Had a lesson today and I was praying fervantly that I would not require the use of a toilet while having my lessons. Phew I didn't. I even went for a movie after - Fighting, which wasn't a very good movie in my opinion, with Wenli and lunch at PS.

OH. Something amusing - last night, while having teochew porridge supper with Wenli and Jia along the Chun Tin area, out of the blue, Wenli just asked me about my JJ eyecandy. And as usual, me being shy, I just refused to divulge who he was. AND that night. I had a dream! HOHOHOHOHO. I woke up still remembering bits and pieces of it - which was pretty amusing. I dreamt that he and another crush I used to have on, were seated at the same table. We were apparently all students (decked in some standard uniforms or whatnots). Wenli and Jia were in the dream too!!!

So the dream roughly goes like, Wen, Jia and the another crush were sitting at the table already. I was late, and arrived, and was happy to see him beside them, and was going to sit opposite them, but I have no freakin' idea why I ended up sitting beside Wen and Jia (not beside the crushie). Then he came bearing some flowers that he was going to give to someone else and he was all smiley and stuff (which is weird cos I can't imagine him with that expression). Then I have no idea why a box of chocolates also happened to be in my hands, and the another crush was all happy as he wanted to grab some from me, and then there he was also clamouring for chocolates too as ya know, people are generally mad over chocolates. And then I woke up. Talk about anti-climatic.

It was a really weird dream cos both crushes were like crushes from different schools and it was so freaking funny to see them both in a dream together. Must be Wen's fault for bringing up eyecandies. Tsk. haha.

Family weekend. And small tea cakes and financiers.

It's been a great and unusual weekend. Family weekend. Went shopping at Ion with Sista on Saturday. We didn't manage to walk alot cos it was nearing lunch time and we were starving. Yet, in that short span of time we were walking around, I got a pair of shoes from Rubi (Sis got 2 pairs!) and she also got 2 dresses. Bah.

The original plan was to lunch at Ion, but the queues during lunch time at the dining places were atrocious, so we walked over to Wheelock for good ole Sun & Moon. Since it's the weekend, everyone in Singapore must have been in town, cos everywhere was crowded. Gah. Our wait for a table took twenty minutes. Over lunch, Daddy and I made a date to watch Overheard together later on at night (Sis had plans), just the two of us. haha. So rare can. Anyway, the dessert we ordered was really interesting, I like - some Japanese sweet potato cream cream atop a bed of almond cream tart? Japanese food love.

Overheard was not bad I suppose, I mean, there's eyecandy - Daniel Wu, whose mere presence makes any movie a more enjoyable experience. ;) Interesting plot, which literally relates back to the movie's title.

Popo came over to teach me how to bake pandan cake today, and I must say it was seriously a hilarious affair. Popo, being popo, was being her typical amusing popo self. If you get what I mean. (: And, I must say, I used to read about food bloggers who spoke about it - getting hand-me-down recipes, but never understood the real meaning, until I actually experienced it first hand. When you are used to measuring everything out clearly down to the very gram required, learning baking from your elders can be exasperating when they actually do not use a measuring scale! Haha. It was really an eye opening experience to see Popo teaching me how to make a pandan chiffon using a traditional chinese bowl (the blue kind with little designs around it) as a measuring "cup". Amazing. The end result was a little sinky chiffon (but still yummy), I think I underbeat the egg whites :( It's okay, I can try again another day. (:

Then I went Ion again with Sis to continue part 2 of our shopping trip there. I got myself really nice shoes from Mitju (in fact I wished I could buy half the shop back with me, they have this series of shoes that scream "GIRLY", "FEMININE" and "CUTE".) and a pair of formal knee shorts. Happy.

After dinner, Dad, Sis and I went to NTUC for groceries shopping. I am one happy happy girl. Blueberries have been on sale for $3.95 for 2 punnets for the past few days. We had 2 and a half packets at home. We bought another 4 punnets. I may snap a photo of the 7 punnets of blueberries currently waiting to be eaten in our fridge tomorrow just for the sake of it. I mean, who knows when else can you find so many punnets of these babies in my fridge again? And I found black sesame paste in the Japanese section of the NTUC! (WOONLI!!!!!!!!!!!! Smiles.)

I think this has been a great weekend. Although we don't normally spend a lot of time together as a family. I reckon within this short three days period, we probably used up a month's worth of family time together or something. snigger.

Anyway, I made apricot tea cakes and raspberry brown butter coconut financiers for our last picnic, and here they are. I must say I rather prefer the raspberry financiers more to the apricot tea cakes. They were much moister and softer to nibble on than the tea cakes. ;)














I love the new camera Canon EOS 500D I'm using now. I have the normal lens and a macro lens and I just love using the macro for my food photos. It is so fun playing around with the focus. Love the comparisons between the two in the shot above. (: And the macro is superb for taking textures upclose. Flours, fruits and what nots, you can totally see everything clearly. Have I already mentioned how much I love the macro lens? ;)