We’re currently studying portrait photography for one of our modules. lighting set-up by our lecturer and shot taken by Isabel. I was well, touching my hair. I do love the lighting though, really neat and clean.

Loads more shots but I was laughing too hard that my eyes were all almost unnoticeable. I am so not model material it seems.

I promise I’d be writing something more decent the next time I blog and use more of my brain too. But bye for now!

Note: Comments are closed for this post.

Assignments are actually starting to pile up like mad. At the end of our third week, I have 8 assignments not done yet and there I was, thinking of going to KL for the short holidays this weekend since it’s Singapore’s national day on Monday.

I’ll share with readers a bunch of shots I took in hope of getting some stuff for one of my photography assignments due next week so that this post wouldn’t look too boring. More of these have been uploaded on Facebook but I’ll just post a few up here.

As dumb and silly as it may sound, I was really happy to get this real flare from the sun shot (unlike my fake tutorial here).

Ain’t I looong?

An adorable but hurt kitty in the park near my place.

I took countless shots of this cat as it willingly posed a lot for me a few evenings ago.

Took a lot of vertical shots again it seems. As I’ve said, a very insignificant and irrelevant update of my life. As of now, I’m seeing lots of stars, working on my creative process assignment of developing visually dynamic symbols that evolves from the inherent geometric structure found in a five-point star. Yeah……you get what I mean.

Tata for now as I end this meaningless post! Oh, and an early Happy National Day to Singaporeans!

Assignment 1 (Design & Element) Dots & Lines

First week of classes are over. Finished one assignment and going on to the next. It was a long break for me since my SPM examinations so it does feel great, being able to start studying and working with assignments again. For us 1st year students at NAFA, we are touching more on the fundamentals and basics so there are almost no use of computers at all but more of traditional work.

Assignment 1 (Design & Element) Dots & Lines - Nonidentical fat and older versions of Einstein

Honestly speaking, I was a bit afraid to touch on all these traditional media because It’s been years since I’ve done so. I do lack the confidence but I’m willing to learn and practice more. Workload is still fine for the first week and we’re already starting to visit “Art Friend” a lot to buy materials for classes.

The title of this blog post derived from the music video below:

“Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie” — one of the many video clips shown during my intro to video production elective module a few days back. Beautifully directed. 2096 still frames to make this. Don’t you love stop motion?

Besides Video Production class, I like photography and creative process a lot since they’re modules that are more inclined towards doing fun things and not too much of just talking. However overall, I do like this course I chose in general since technically, there aren’t any memorizing of facts and data, unlike high school. (Not saying it’s bad but just not something I’d like to continue doing for years). In short, I believe I’ve taken the right direction, life’s great thus far, so no regrets on this I say.

Back in May, I had been approached by one of the admins from Berryberryeasy.com to do an interview as one of their role models. Surprisingly, back in the days when I was studying hard for the upcoming SPM examinations, Berry Berry Easy was one of my favorite sites to get some tips and notes to study mainly for my Chemistry, Biology and Physics papers. As stated in their header, Berry Berry Easy is your one-stop resource centre for SPM and STPM – for students and for teachers. (did I mention for free? No need to pay hundreds for tips and notes)

Their site isn’t even a year old and it has grew tremendously since it first started thanks to the dedicating Berry Berry teacher and contributors. I’d recommend anyone who is taking SPM and STPM examinations to check out their site occasionally since they have rich and resourceful content which I’m sure would be helpful for all.

I’ll keep this post short. If you’re interested in reading this interview I had, do check it out HERE.

On a side note: I now have an internet connection setup in my new home. So I’ll try to blog on more relevant information on my new life here in Singapore. I’m adapting well and have met great friends as of date so I’m enjoying life here though it’s too early to say since classes have not begun (Monday!).

The view from the windows. Nothing much, I live on the 2nd floor.

I’ll try to upload more photos of the place and area I’m living in. I suppose that’s all for now! School begins on the 19th so I have 10 days to go. =)

Level of difficulty: Fairly easy
Image source: Rust Laced by PersephoneStock on DeviantArt.
Program used: Photoshop CS5

Original photograph

I’ve been trying to improve the photoshop tutorials that I’ve written. Hopefully, people would feel that this is better than my past ones. I’ve spent time in this tutorial explaining why I take such steps so hopefully there is a better understanding of my techniques especially in coloring photos. All in all, I do believe it’s practice that makes on get used to coloring images for certain effects they’d like to see in their images.

Final image

I take photographs when I’m free and spend a lot of time browsing the internet seeing the work by other photographers and I always adore photographs with that flare of the sun which gives that really light, soft and soothing effect. Though some photographers feel that a photo should look good based on the skills and techniques of a photographer, I believe there’s no harm done if one wants to make a photo look more beautiful or have a certain effect. So here’s a tutorial for you all which I hope would be liked by most people:

1. I wanted to create an image where the subject (model) is more focused and so firstly, I duplicate the layer and go to “filter” >> “blur” >> “Gaussian blur…” You can alter the pixels of the radius for the Gaussian blur if you like based on the preview on photoshop. It’s okay if your image turns too blurred because you can always reduce the opacity of your layer to reduce the blur-ness you see.

2. Now on the top layer (one where you applied your Gaussian blur to), erase your subject using the eraser tool. Notice how I did not set the opacity of the 2nd layer to a “100%” because I thought it was too out of focus? Now that you’re done with that, merge the two layers together.

3. It’s time to lighten your image to make it more bright as if there is a huge ray of sun on the day the image was taken. Do so by going to “image” >> “Adjustments” >> “Curves…” and follow the settings above.

4. On to my favorite part in editing photos, selective coloring. “image” >> “Adjustments” >> “Selective color…” The main color I wanted to get rid off was the blue in the sky as it was too blue for a photograph where there is a huge ray of sun shining in. Therefore, I reduced the cyans in the cyans (if that makes much sense) to create this dull and light sky. I repeated this step as I felt that once wasn’t enough to decrease the blue-ness.

5. Now for the “Neutrals”. I gave the settings above to give a more yellow and reddish tone to the image. Besides, I reduced the black to make the image more lighter than before.

6. Realizing that my previous settings weren’t enough for me to get the look I want, I applied Selective coloring onto my “Neutrals” once more.

7. On to the “Blacks” which is also in selective coloring. Here, I increased the “yellow” and decreased the “black” to give the effect of the flare of the sun which one can see in photographs.

8. Using the gradient tool on the side, set a gradient with the colors above and on a new layer, sweep it across your image from the bottom to the top. Now set it to “soft light” to give the effect that the direction of the sun is coming from the top left corner of your image. Opacity remained “100%” for this image of mine. Always remember these settings only apply to certain images so apply them based on what you feel looks good.

9. Now create another layer with the same directions as step 8 but with the layer style as “Screen” and opacity of around “30%”.

10. Create a new layer, fill it black with your paint bucket tool and set the layer style to “Screen”. I do so because I feel that it is easier to move my soon to be lens flare around, just in case I did not like the position I first had on the image itself. Add a lens flare by going to “Filter” >> “Render” >> “Lens Flare…”. As you can see, there are many choices of lens flare you can choose from. I picked the 35mm prime and there you have it, my final image below:

Final image

What do you think? Was this tutorial helpful?
Comments and thoughts are always appreciated so I can improve myself in the future tutorials to come.

Blogging used to be so easy for me in the past and yet it feels much different now when I feel that every blog post should reflect who I am or has some sort of significant meaning behind it. Funny it is, but it seems that I spend more time thinking of what to blog than working on a single blog post. Guess it isn’t easy, finding a direction for where this blog should be heading and you can see it’s why I’m having huge time gaps in between each post for a month or so and they do not even have that substance that I want to see in my writing, besides occasionally being that random girl I am.

I do hope that I can soon be able to know what I want to actually focus in my blog. Then I ask myself, what if I never do? I can’t just let this blog die can I?

So here’s a post to say that Cheryl is still alive and kicking. 2 weeks to leaving Kuching, this beautiful city that holds much meaning and memories to me. I’ve been labeled as being a patriotic Malaysian due to my silly shot in my about page HERE (Not to mention being laughed at by certain friends). I do love my home country in many many ways, minus all those bogus issues that seem to pop up in the news once in a while that forces me to hide in a small, dark corner. However, I do still feel contented and grateful at the end of the day when I appreciate those little and sometimes seem to be less significant things that actually makes this place remarkable.

Silly Kevin, you’re not normal… you’re special.

I suppose I’ve been and will be spending weeks roaming little ol’ Kuching for places to hang out and not to mention hunt for lots of scrumptious, mouthwatering and not to mention (I just used not to mention twice in a sentence, bleh) rare food that I cannot find when I’m in Singapore to satisfy my taste buds. At this pace where we’re going, I do hope we can complete our food list in time.

Found this randomly while clearing my bedroom the other day. I’m fine too! Do miss you Qi Wen, lol.
I edited the above with a single click on photoshop (the “cross-processing effect” in curves). It looks pretty and awesome because it’s something I never knew until my little sister, Joan discovered it. I do feel like a kid in a candy store now, lol.

I think my brain seems to function better late at night because, I finally blogged! I’m alive, happy and going to bed now. c:

Now this is one freaking random post. Tried on mild smokey eyes today for the first time. Yay or Nay?? (Ignore my poses)

View from Fort Margherita, Kuching

City view from a Kuching sampan.

Path towards kuching's Fort Margherita and Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN)

I’ve heard many stories of how our Peninsular counterparts assumed that Kuching is a little town with little buildings and having lots of trees and well, more trees. Sure it isn’t a huge buzzing city like how Kuala Lumpur is, but we aren’t as rural as how many would think we are. I think that Kuching is beautiful and I like it the way it is. (Though it would be great if there were more huge pretty fields and less telephone lines hanging around everywhere. Nothing wrong for some wishful thinking eh?)

I do deeply apologize for the lack of updates. I’d prefer to write meaningful blog posts than random things at times though this may end up into one. I have been tied up with “work” lately (this is not an excuse, lol!) and yes, I do have a very boring life.

Happy holidays to everyone celebrating!