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Portrait photography – meeting Pansy

By Photography
Pansy, the model who gave her time to us for portraiture photography

Pansy, the model who gave her time to us for portraiture photography

After the Starbizz’s Shooting Date event at Dataran Pahlawan last Sunday, Kenn-Wai, Angel and I went for a coffee at the Old Town Cafe. We shared the shots we took for the event with each other, and taking advices from others to improve our shots.

Kenn-Wai, who does a lot of portrait photography, shared his valuable portraiture photography experience with us. We were so motivated and wanted to put this into practical. While brainstorming for a subject to shoot, Angel’s friend, Pansy came and joined us for the coffee session. Straight away we invited her to be our model.

We then moved to an open area of Dataran Pahlawan, and the four of us had a short discussion of our camera, the area and atmosphere, light sources, and the posture of model. It’s essential to study this before shooting. Although this was not a planned photography session but it was so fun to learn and to spend time with friends.

We had to thank Pansy for sparing her time with us, and of course being patient with us. Special thanks to Kenn-Wai and Angel for their company and sharing their experience which benefits me so much. May everyone be happy. Sharing some shots after the jump:

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Japan’s Shark Fin Capital, Kesen-numa City

By Compassion
Japan's Shark Fin Capital, Kesen-numa City. This is the picture that sparked a global outcry. (by Alex Hofford)

Japan's Shark Fin Capital, Kesen-numa City. This is the picture that sparked a global outcry. (by Alex Hofford)

KESEN-NUMA CITY, JAPAN – It’s 5am on the the north eastern tip of Japan’s main island of Honshu, and 75 tons of dead shark is being meticulously arranged into a neat grid of tidy piles, of twenty sharks per pile.

If you thought shark finning was exclusively a Chinese problem, think again. Welcome to Kesen-numa City, Japan’s shark fin capital.

Here, six days a week, small teams of Japanese workers go about the hushed business of industrial shark-finning.

By 6.30am, with piles arranged, the sharks are disemboweled first. Hearts are ripped efficiently from bodies by men wearing brightly coloured rubber boots and aprons. At 7am, shark corpses are cleaned of their blood by workers wielding water hoses. And by 8am, small teams are silently moving up and down aisles and rows like robots in a Japanese car factory, quickly slicing off every dorsal, pectoral and tail fin from the lifeless, grey lumps. Big hungry black crows squawk in the shadows, looking for bloody morsels. And shark fins plop with regularity into small yellow plastic baskets. The baskets fill up fast, are then weighed, and finally carried to a nearby truck, where a man with a notepad strikes a deal. At 9.30am, it’s all over for another day. Fork lift trucks scoop up tons of limbless carcasses, then dump them into a high-sided truck. The process is a brutal sight to behold, and not for the faint-hearted.

Cutting the fins (Alex Hofford)

Cutting the fins (Alex Hofford)

The fishing port of Kesen-numa City is located in Miyagi Prefecture in North East Japan, and is the country’s only port dedicated to catching sharks.

Over two days in early July this year, I saw 119 tons of blue shark (Prionace glaucaof), ten tons of salmon shark (Lamna ditropis), and three tons of short fin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus)  landed on the dock at Kesen-numa. Not to mention several tons of endangered bluefin tuna, (Thunnus thynnus), but that’s a whole other story. Taking government transparency to another level, landed shark tonnage numbers are provided daily by the port of Kesen-numa’s Japanese only website, which is publicly, (and apparently unashamedly), available.

About half of the shark fin that is processed in Kesen-numa City is destined for China, mainly Hong Kong and Shanghai. For wealthy Chinese, shark fin from Kesen-numa is seen as a premium, or luxury, brand. Mr Hatakeyama, 45, a shark fin processor from Kesen-numa, said, “Quite a bit of shark fin is sent to Shanghai from here as there are many rich people there. Our shark fin here can command higher prices than Chinese shark fin sourced from elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East or Africa. Even though the Chinese have their own shark fin, they prefer Japanese brands”.

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免费早餐

By Photography, Rambling
Meng-Hong at a coffee shop in Ipoh (photo credit: Cinda)

Meng-Hong at a coffee shop in Ipoh (photo credit: Cinda)

巴刹楼上的食肆都各自为政,就连桌椅都形形色色,务必要让客人一眼认出,仅此一家,别无分号的吸引力。当我们选择了要吃的食物后,就必须坐在有该档子记号的位子,否则,他是不会帮你把食物送到别的“地盘”去。

公公爱坐在一间点心档享用早餐。偶尔我和妈妈去巴刹,就会遇到公公一盅两件,手舞足蹈地和朋友们聊天。然后他会唤我们过去,说是要请我们,免费吃早餐。有免费的早餐吃我固然开心,所以刚开始遇到公公时,心里都很雀跃。但后来渐渐发现,那间点心档附近没有我爱吃的面,跑到老远去叫了食物,老板却摇手拧头地不愿送去那里,害我只能闷着吃糯米鸡,喝着不搭配的普洱。

自此之后,我都在心里偷偷默许着,希望下次再去巴刹时,不会和公公碰上。这样,我就能坐在那些面摊前,吃着我要吃的食物。荏苒,我逐渐长大,鲜少陪妈妈去巴刹,也没碰上公公,直到公公去世,我想到再也没机会和他吃早餐,心里不免悲戚。

而今早,我和外子到久违的巴刹去,踏上楼梯的那一刻,仿佛瞥见一个熟悉的老人恣意地喝着普洱,高谈阔论,然后唤我过去,情切如故。

瞬间,眼泪婆娑。

文:刘美君(芙蓉),刊登于星洲日报副刊

Sunset photography at Pulau Melaka

By Beautiful Melaka, Photography
sunset view at the north side of Pulau Melaka

sunset view at the north side of Pulau Melaka

After doing the sunset photography at the Portuguese Settlement last week, I decided to try again yesterday. The weather was acceptable during evening, clear sky yet windy. I traveled to Pulau Melaka, a man-made island in Melaka and headed to the north side of the island. Driving into the bush and I found a good spot to view the sunset. 

dusk arrived and two men were fishing at the beach of Pulau Melaka

dusk arrived and two men were fishing at the beach of Pulau Melaka

The spot seems like a small bay where the beach is partially surrounded by rocks and concretes. There were only a few people fishing there when I arrived. It was high tide and the tide was flowing which left me a little room of the beach to setup the gears. Shame to say that the beach was full of rubbish such as plastic bags, bottles, straws, and food wrappers, which I had to clear those junks to obtain clean shots.

The precious golden hour was short and luckily I managed to try some shots with different settings. The shots turned up to be alright but not quite what I expected. I wish to try the shots again during low tide. Soon after dusk, I headed back home.

Please beware if you go to the north side of the island: when the tide set in, part of the drive way will be flooded and your vehicle will get stuck in that area for hours before the tide ebbs.

Sharing some of the shots I took. May all being be happy.

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Picturesque protest over running of the bulls

By Compassion
2010 anti-bullfighting demonstration in Pamplona (photograph by Matt Goldsmith)

2010 anti-bullfighting demonstration in Pamplona (photograph by Matt Goldsmith)

Before the drunken partiers filled Pamplona’s streets today (6th July 2010) to kick off the annual Running of the Bulls tormenting of bulls, scores of animal defenders from PETA U.K. and the Spanish animal rights group AnimaNaturalis creatively banded together to put the bulls’ perspective in the picture.

During this annual celebration of torture, bulls are jabbed with prods and sharp sticks to whip them into a frenzy. Then the panicking animals are stampeded through crowds of people, slipping and stumbling on the wine-soaked cobblestone streets. The exhausted bulls are later prodded into the bullring, where they are stabbed to death.

The majority of the Spanish population no longer supports this cruelty. In 2004, the Barcelona City Council declared Barcelona an anti-bullfighting city, and 40 other Spanish towns have followed suit. State-run Spanish television has also stopped televising the violence.

Let’s call the Running of the Bulls what it really is—sickening cruelty to animals—and call on Pamplona’s mayor to ban it.

Posted by Karin Bennett
[source: http://blog.peta.org/archives/2010/07/picturesque_protest.php]

 

cruel facts of ‘running of the bulls’ (by Matt Goldsmith):

Bulls are not accustomed to the noise of the crowd or being surrounded by people. Prior to the event, they are kept in crowded, dark enclosures, and when they are prodded onto the streets with electric shocks, they are momentarily blinded by the sunlight. During the run, participants hit the terrified bulls with rolled up newspapers. Because the corners of the route are quite sharp, many animals lose their footing and slide into walls, breaking bones and injuring themselves. All the bulls who slip and slide on the streets of Pamplona are running towards a bloody and horrific death in the bullring.