Rapturous! Inspirational & Interesting Photography

TV at local pasta place, originally uploaded by ozlady.

Killing 2 birds with one stone here – this is a television used to advertise the local pasta place near my home. Photo taken and edited completely on my Nokia N86 8MP for both the 2009 Photo Challenge and the November Challenge 2009!

Busy day, so sometimes you have to take the shots where you can find them!

Grapefruit Juice is a favourite of mine, and when the topic ‘liquid’ came up, I thought of this just as I was pouring the last of the juice that I had in the fridge.

It wasn’t an overly striking photo, so I decided to highlight the liquid – to be more in theme with the challenge, and to practice my spot colour skills.

See other photos for Day 96 by other photographers here.

Hacks are a black sweet that I have only seen in Singapore and Malaysia. They are traditionally black, however there are newer flavours including lemon and blueberry.

They have the traditional sweet / candy-style wrapper.

I was in Ho Chi Minh City on Valentine’s Day – sadly, without my Valentine. To top it off, I was working!

We received these cocktails with our meals for our working lunch. Kinda corny, but cute. You should see the desserts they gave out! Chocolate and Coconut jellies! Ha! AND they were bright purple in colour – where were they on my purple photo day??

This was a non-alcoholic cocktail.

Fortunately, my Valentine’s Day ended up OK – I got TWO massages! A foot and a back massage! Hooray!

I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on the day of this word – wine – and do you think I could find any in the places I went to?? Obviously I wasn’t going anywhere very high class, however I was tired and went to be on the 13th without a wine photo.

HOWEVER, on streaks of light day (Day 46), I was in a bar, having a class of Savignon Blanc, and fiddling with shutter speeds on my camera, and pulled this one off.

I am actually in this shot on the left, but you can’t see me as I was so blurred as to be invisible. I was swinging the glass back and forth by the stem.

Don’t you love the mix of hues in the bowl of the glass?

What a totally flukey shot, however I think I can reproduce it (given the same sort of lighting), and will try and remember this technique for next time!

My Sri Lankan teapot – This teapot is a pot and has a cup which nestles underneath it, so that it warms the cup as you wait for the tea to brew.

This is my first successful attempt of framing a shot with another object.

I decided to crop the teacup as the handles did not align well if I framed the entire teacup in the handle of the teapot.

I think that since I’ve started this challenge my use of DOF has improved, which also enabled me to frame this shot better.

Still a lot of improve on – I could have used a better background, however this was all I had in the time available. I’m also not sure if it would have looked better without the shadow of the teacup handle underneath it.

More information on Day 43 of the 2009 Photo Challenge is available here.

I had taken some unsatisfactory photos earlier in the day (I just can’t seem to take a decent photo of a cup of liquid), and as seems to be the trend for this challenge, I was preparing dinner and this photo opportunity popped out at me.

The tomatoes were rather juicy, and the light was quite good under the ceiling light and cooker hood.

One of the things that I am noticing with this challenge is that I am learning a lot more about the capabilities of my camera, and white balance has been a massive lesson over the last week as I have often been shooting at night, under different lighting conditions. The resulting hues in the photos have been all over the place, and it has been necessary for me to rely less on the automatic white balance mechanism in the camera, and set it manually.

Anyway, more on Day 41 of the Photo Challenge can be found here, and I hope you are all enjoying the challenge. I know I am!

One of the things about this site is that I love to post links to other people’s photos to show my appreciation for them.

Today I’m resuming that through recognising fellow Photochallengers and the ones that pop out at me from the daily 2009 Photo Challenge.

My fave for Day 36 is from terrencecollins who took the shot included with this post.

Click the image itself to see a larger version. Leave a comment on the Flickr page to let the photographer know how much you appreciate it.

I love the composition and the reflection of the turnips in the shot. This really grabbed my eye and I want to say well done!!

If you have a favourite photo from Day 36 of the Challenge (Purple), please post a link to it in the comments. Make sure the photo is from Flickr and tagged with 2009challenge.

I was out for dinner having crab – specifically pepper crab and chili crab – and what better way to wash it down that with a mug of beer!??

My shot was a little predictable, but I guess I couldn’t expect too much after drinking the beer

I was looking through a different kind of lens, I guess

More information on the Photo Challenge can be found here.

There is no shortage of red around at the moment. It’s Singapore, it’s a week after Chinese New Year, and 80% of the population is Chinese. Red is everywhere!

Sometimes, however, nature provides the best shots, and when out with the family for lunch, this shot presented itself and turned out to be the better one among the myriad of Chinese lanterns and slashing red banners!

I love the red of the chilli, and the store owner at Maxwell Market was kind enough to let me photograph it!

More information about the 2009 Challenge can be found here.