Canon: Be Empowered Campaign Behind the Scenes Video

I hate seeing and listening to myself in videos, but I think the gorgeous girls make up for my fail. :D

Will try to find time to post photos from the shoot later on, I'm still having this terrible headache that makes me feel like I don't have enough oxygen in my brain or something. Argh, why's the flight from L.A. so horrendously long. T_T

Los Angeles Meetup

I felt a little bad about not doing a meetup the last time I was in L.A., so I thought I had to do a session this time round no matter what. The turnout came to be much more than I'd expected, I think we had 21 or 22 people altogether.

The Griffith Observatory was wonderful, a bit of a pain to get to, but the view was breathtaking. 

We got a little bit lost on our way coming in from Irvine and the L.A. traffic wasn't helping it at all, I was super worried about being late. Upon my arrival however we found the attendees gathered together already, they supposedly magnetized each other somehow, hahaha. And so we took half a dozen tables in a corner at The Café at the End of the Universe and commenced. 

In my usual meetups I talk for about half the time, and the other half I reserve it for the others to talk about themselves for sometimes I find it quite inspiring to hear from others too. But I guess because the group is bigger this time everyone was kinda shy with it, so we ended up doing Q&A and me speaking for the most of it.

Was still ample fun though. Everyone was really sweet. We had people who came down from San Francisco and San Diego. I was so so touched.

And I got gifts again too. Thank you all. T__T

Happy shiny people :D

The whole group~

That little bit of white on the hilltop in the middle at the back is actually the Hollywood sign, only visible if I view this pic at 100% though.

After the meetup we headed downtown for dinner and a couple of the CGHUB peeps who came over from San Fran joined us.

It was awesome meeting everyone, and I think (hopefully? haha) we all had a good time.

I really should try to do a meetup in Singapore some day... Some day.

Some other entries on the meetup:
Hikaru-Jan
marqelexsis


Heading back home tonight, I'm down with a cold and horrible migraine so I'm dreading the flight. But alas, work awaits, can't stay any longer as much as I'd love to.

Thank you L.A., and all you wonderful people who made my trip so amazing and beautiful. <3

Irvine

One week to go before I head back to Singapore.

Stayed in Irvine for most of the trip so far, it's been a good time for my recovery and at the same time for sorting out plans for the year.

The project I was working day and night on more or less wrapped just before I left. It was a campaign for Canon Singapore. I'd meant to blog about it a little sooner to talk about the seminar I'd be speaking for them, but before I had the chance the signup was already full. For that I want to apologize... I feel pretty fail about it. But I guess there'll be other opportunities in the future. ^^;

You can check out the images, some behind the scenes and an interview here.


Watched A Prophet's screening at the Writers Guild Theatre in L.A.. Good film, crime films aren't usually my thing, but I enjoyed it. There was a certain subtlety in the storytelling that gave it a lot of strength. The cast was strong, scores apt, nothing that sticks out negatively or lacking except somewhere towards the end there was a part where I found slightly lengthy.

Also did an interview yesterday afternoon where we actually finished a whole tape. I was told that I should talk about anything I felt like talking about so I can look back 20 years down the road and laugh at the myself from today. I thought it was a good idea.

And for the first time I wasn't told some 1208345 times during filming to brush my hair out of my eyes. It made me happy.

I received cake, cream puffs, soundtracks and even a thank you card. I love the fans here. Thank you for making me feel so loved.

Visited Blizzard Entertainment's HQ today. Saw some production stuff from Diablo III and StarCraft II (beta started today and looks great!). Diablo seems massively promising, there were some amazing sculptures that reminded me of Beksinski's artworks so I got really excited for a while. And Brom's artworks for WoW look so so badass.

I'd been looking forward to Saturday's meetup. A lot of people had been telling me great things about Griffith Observatory. Today I found out that the weather forecast says there'd be rain. Alas, it seems like a trademark for my meetup days to have high chances of rainfall somehow. I guess we'll just have to spend more time indoors and forego the outdoor photos... T_T

RIP McQueen.

The magic you've created will remain, forever, in our hearts.

Lara.

RIP McQueen.

Managed to get together with the super gorgeous and talented Lara Jade during my short stay in London last October.

I personally don't like being in front of the camera for people and I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. I guess it's because we're photographers, that we tend to get pretty conscious about how we'd be portrayed by somebody else.

It was really flattering for me when Lara agreed to pose for me, and in the usual bleakly cold weather I so like to torture my models in no less.

I'm sorry for the pain I put you through, thank you dear for putting up with me, and also to Skye who came by to assist. It was fun hanging out with you girls. <3

For those who're curious, Lara did take some photographs of me too, but seems like the files got lost before she had a chance to back them up. (The funny thing is this exact thing happened when I shot with seafairy a few years ago too, haha) So... I guess next time, if there's another opportunity for us to meet again. ^^;

P.S.: My L.A. meetup will be at the Griffith Observatory next Saturday the 20th. I'm doing it right before the CGHUB meetup, those who wanna hang around are welcomed to. More info later~

Christmas and New Year in Tokyo

I know these are kind of belated, but better late than never right? :D :D

Pre X'mas

I had the blessings to try like, the best brownies in my life.

Freshly baked one unsuspecting morning. The smell was so amazing I couldn't go back to sleep after it woke me up. So I went out of my room and stared at my host Glenn till he offered me three pieces. I'd never felt sadder about finishing my food when the last piece was gone. T_T

Met up with Kiem and had okonomiyaki and monjayaki, one of those things I must have each time I'm back in Japan, just like... First Kitchen. 

Walked around a little afterwards and saw these beautiful illuminations at Shinjuku.

Tokyo Midtown.

I thought these huge hanging paper cut-out decorations were brilliant. Simple and beautiful, fit perfectly with the aesthetics of the interiors.

We then chanced upon these US$160 strawberries, I'm kinda curious how they taste like.


Christmas

Glenn prepared a feast of a dinner for his X'mas home party.

I'm out of alternatives for the word awesome, so yeah, awesome, it was. :D


Shopped too at some point of time. Absolutely heartable new pieces:

From top: Helmut Lang soft leather & wool top, Alice Auaa cropped jacket and h.Naoto Dark Red Rum H.Jelly dress.


New Year

Sawaka working on our New Year's eve dinner <3

Brandon, Chris, Sawaka and her friends.

Don't know why the boys are unhappy-ish. Guess I kinda fail at homely-photo attempts.

The dishes on the table all have their own meanings (except for the nachos), I can't remember 'em all, but soba is supposed to signify the wishing for a happy long life. (Eat more soba™)

We watched Dead Poets Society. I cried, and absolutely loved it. It was actually a recommended film to watch in my Lit class in Secondary one, I somehow never got around to it, and I'm so so glad I got to finally.

"The human race is filled with passion." -- There was something amazingly powerful to the lines in the film that was motivating and touching. Extremely inspirational.


We made our way to Meiji Shrine a short while after dinner for hatsumode, the first shrine visit of the new year.

There were.... I don't know how many thousands of people. So instead of the usual money box inside the shrine, a humongous wooden container was instead built in the empty clearing just before reaching the inner shrine for people to throw their coins when praying. (Huge like, it stretches almost across the width of the clearing, between the two large trees, if you'd been to Meiji Jingu you'd get a rough idea...)

After saying our prayers we stayed around and ate around the food stalls that were set up along the stretch on the way out of the temple, before heading to the Telecom Center Building in Odaiba to watch the sunrise.

It was an extremely beautiful experience, and the first time I can recall actually spending new year's with friends. I was happy, so thank you my dears for the wonderful company, may 2010 be full of wonders. <3