No Way Out

Sometimes luck is just beyond our will.

I need a JOB!!!

After a long time doing nothing with my Olympus E300, it's time to shoot again. But not with my camera. This time my cousin has asked me to show a thing or two on how to light with off-camera flash and play with lightings. So we're using his gear which is a Nikon D80 with a thing they called CLS (google it, i don't know what it stands for). So, after half an hour trying to figure out how to adjust his speedlight, we gave up and adjust the position instead.

Jali the Cousin

Then came an emerging Malaysian actor to the studio. Wan Raja!!! Actually it's my friend's painting studio and he came to visit him. He asked us to shoot him for his thing so Jali with the camera and I was the light stand.

Wan Raja the Actorrrr

And also something for myself of course. A sandwiched type lighting.

Arip the Great

Happy Eid ul Fitr 1430 (عيد فطر مبارك)

Wishing all Muslim a Happy Eid ul Fitr 1430. May we all get fat and happy.

Raja Lope

Singer/Illustrator

GELAGAT by ROHAIZAD SHAARI

Recently, I was asked to shoot a portrait of one of a few Malaysian watercolor artist, Rohaizad Shaari for his upcoming solo exhibition GELAGAT. I was pleased to do it and came up with outrageous idea in my head that happened to be a crap.

Rohaizad is a simple man and great watercolor artist. He has been making his living by doing watercolor paintings. His subject are mainly landscape of a Malaysian village with his favorite 'gerek' or an 'old bicycle' appeared in nearly every of his paintings. This is a continuance from his first solo exhibition, GEREK (2003), which was more of a reflection of his village life (living in Kedah), apparently became a huge success.

Bebanan
(2006)

With much and rapid 'happenings' in recent years, he couldn't turn away from being affected. In his recent paintings, he has injected his idea of contradiction that has been taken over his surroundings. With an old bicycle again as the main character in his works, the landscape has changed. Social criticism arise obviously as the new environment interjects. But he remains simple. We can see it in the title of his works. Mostly 1 word, the rest of it 2 words.

Krisis
(2008)

Enough of him, lets talk about me. Why did i said my outrageous idea turns into crap?

Most of his paintings are large scale watercolor. Nearly 2 meter width. So I think it would be cool if I can take a picture of him holding a mop soaked in rose syrup getting ready to bash his large paintings. Right? Right?!! wrong.... So I just took a low-key portrait of him for presumably his catalogue cover which end up in the inner page. It looks cool.

Anyway back to him...

Be sure you be there to check out Rohaizad's recent large scale watercolor paintings.
The details are as follows:

Date: 15th August 2009(Sat) | 5pm
Venue: Metro Fine Art, Legend Hotel (The Mall)
Exhibition runs until 29th August 2009

This is how I do shit!

Credit: Latfy Anuar Latif

Fellow friends often asked me what equipment I use, do you have a special lightings, profoto, elinchrome, bla bla... For most of the time i just admit it and say yes and enjoy their look in their face when i brought out my gear.... My cheap gear. Yes, I'm cheap. I don't like (read: afford) buying the real high quality, no fuss, no risk strobes or lightings. All i have in my bag is 2 manual 1pin flashgun, 2 China made radio remote and few DIY light modifier. As you can see at the pictures above, the thing i held above is my trusty salad bowl beauty dish. There's one more light out of frame I am using straw grid to give a rounded highlight for the background. It was a shoot for a catalogue of an exhibition of a woman artists.

Sometimes I do get sarcasm here and there, but what's life without it? It's fuckin rock n' roll! But what's next in my cheap agenda is to upgrade my salad bowl into a more neater, more professional look beauty dish. Beware!!

Besides the salad bowl and the straw grid, I also have the essential softbox for a smooth lighting that comes with a pvc pipe lightstand. All DIY. But recently I have upgrade the lightstand with a halogen lamp stand. Not bad at all.

Anyway, this is how i do shit. But what's with the cheap talk without the result right ~(_8?þ)

Dikalajingga: dari kerana mata....

A group exhibition will be held today (7th June 09) by the group Dikalajingga with an eye catching paintings and drawing entitled Dikalajingga: Dari Kerana Mata.... The show will be held at RA Fine Arts, Jalan Aman, Ampang (Near City Square). The exhibition, that consist of 5 artists Nurazmal Yusoff, Zulkiflee Zainul Abidin, Khairina Khairuddin, Haris Ahmad Hamsani and Samsuddin Lappo will be presenting with their identical artworks, some are quite cheeky with their deliverance, some are bold and the rest of it are contented. There will be a musical performance by the artists and guest performers. Be sure to check it out today at 8pm. For more info, click here. If you missed it, you lose it! mbbhakkk cekkidot!!

at the Press Conference in RA Fine Arts

Rockers / Rockerz

Johan a.k.a Joe(top) Rockers vocalist and Jumat(bottom), Rockerz vocalist
(Same band basically)

Shooting Rockers

So, last Thursday a friend of mine told me that there's a band from the late 80's are going to perform in a small venue in Kg. Pandan. Not knowing what band will perform that night, I went on hoping that there will be familiar head to shoot. The show starts at 10pm, but we (forcing a friend to come along) got there quite early to fill up with dinner. There's a stage at the venue for their usual dangdut karaoke session, but the only 'kutu' with long hair was us. Tried to call the person that informed this, I got no answer.

Something's not right, there....

Then I remembered that he went with the guys from Sayap2 Wings and gave one of them a call. Luckily, the real venue is only beside the dangdut. Problem solved.

Rockers
(Photo taken from muzikrock.com)

Only then I knew that the band that are going to perform is 'Rockers', a late 80's band that I'm not really familiar with. I tried my best not to look like a fool when I approach them, but coolness is not what usually happen to me. First, I talked about guitar with the vocalist Johan(Joe). But thankfully he's a really really nice soft spoken guy, that tries to explain that he haven't 'sang' for nearly 20 years.... ouch*......before i kidnapped him somewhere for a cool background. Second, to make it fast & comfortable for him, I rushed and dropped my light twice before i even shoot! China made product can be really solid sometimes. He then end up calm me down.... But the shoot must go on.


Video by Zul
*Note that hair... that's a lot of years

Joe(middle) with me and Kirin(informer/lightstand)

During the break of their performance, I then approached Jumat (another vocal) also plays guitar that night and guess what? He's a nice guy too. But this time the background is the dark night so I decided to put a backlight to separate him from the darkness. Turned out just ok for me. But I missed to shoot one more member of Rockers that came that night, Rashid(guitar). Will track him down later.

Rashid

Jumat & Rashid

A century year-old birthday boy

A friend of a friend of mine asked me to shoot an event. It was a birthday party for her pops. He was borned on 10th of May 1909. I couldn't afford to miss the chance taking her 100 years old grandfather's portrait.

Satire in Paint (a solo exhibition by Ali)

Little big fan Amin (his son)

Nurazmal’s paintings are quiet; still, the colours are soft thinned out layers capturing comical situations, in one, a seated conversation, another a an overheard conversation each with overtones of humour seated clown dolls and hand puppets are painted into what are otherwise mundane events.

Larger than life painted faced self portraits laughingly stare out of the canvas, enticingly drawing you in.

The refreshing difference here is the works are far removed from what one is usually confronted with in the art world, no torturous painful images or politically loaded instruction, and out is the intellectual high brow deep meaning we are often made to believe exists in art.

As on stage comedy is played out, so too here, in these paintings, a theatre for a jester.

-Kakiseni.com

Title :	Satire in Paint
Venue :	Pace Gallery 64 Jalan Kemajuan, Section 12 Petaling Jaya Opening Hours : Daily: 11am - 7pm
Date & Time :	Wed 6 - Sun 24 May 2009
Tickets :	Free Admission
Phone :	03-7954 6069

I'm fined

Sevilla's striker Frederic Kanoute was fined for the alleged 'political' celebration after scoring a penalty. But he said 'no problem'! The Palestinian Embassy in Spain then thanked him for the support.
Submission for a charity exhibition in National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.

Cool Band 2

Remember the cool band in the previous post? I just found out about this band's name, Jam Band. They are so cool! The solos are on fire! And also they asked me if anybody interested on being on vocal. If you think u are cool, feel free to contact me.







If anybody wondering(IF), why the hell this blog is so slow on posting, I just moved in to a new house and have to go to ani sup utara to steal internet from mcdonald's wifi. To watch more Jam Band jam session, click here

Ali - Memo

A new album is on the way by singer/painter (the first in Malaysia!!!) Ali of Dikala Jingga entitled Memo. Check out the sample song on this album here and if you like the song be a fan and when the album comes out, buy.

Memo

A promo shoot for his music project he's been working on. Will update on it later on.