Chasing Moments

On new beginnings and confidence

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 08:13:00 +0000

Remember in my last post I mentioned that I was working on something that would take our photography ambition to the next level? Well, I’ve finally finished working on a portfolio of work that represents the boo and I, and I am so so excited to share it with everyone! I have this good ol’ warm feeling in my tummy from finally being able to say that I have a portfolio of work, and that what I want to do is actually going somewhere.

The setting up of this portfolio was tiring, both mentally and physically. It was tiring physically because I’m such an amateur at coding that I looked high and low for the best host for our website before finally settling on Squarespace (one thing I really like about Squarespace is their responsive and clean templates, which are highly customisable). Squarespace sometimes gets buggy and when something went wrong, I had to fix it and test it and fix it again to make sure the issue was ironed out. Then came the problem of a .com (we couldn’t afford to pay a year’s worth of subscription fee to Squarespace) but thank god Jovi came to the rescue and we got our .com just in time. It was tiring especially because of the crisis in confidence that I had whilst setting it up.

As research, I tasked myself to look through other photographer’s (side note: I still have trouble referring to myself or seeing myself as a photographer, because I constantly feel that I’m not good enough yet to consider myself as one) portfolios, to see how they categorized their photos, how the organized and lay them out, as well as little ideas I could adapt into our own site. I’ve always had an issue with insecurity and the more I looked at photographer’s portfolios, the more I became convinced that my work was nowhere as good as theirs, and what the hell was I doing, trying to set up a portfolio when I had barely anything GOOD or SUBSTANTIAL to show for myself.
As such, I spent many hours on a vicious cycle of taking down photos and putting photos up, convinced that my set showed no cohesiveness (that’s probably still true though) and that there was nothing worth looking at at all. I would constantly ask the boo, what do you think of our stuff? Do you think its ok? It was horrible, all these thoughts would be circling inside my mind, the insecurity and worry that we were overreaching ourselves, and that would eat away at me and question my capabilities.

I now realise that that sort of thinking was dangerous, that those were the sort of thoughts that broke a person and broke a person’s dreams and ambitions; leading to them giving up on something that they really loved and that they really wanted to spend the rest of their lives doing. As Jovi puts it very well, creators syndrome is harmful because it always makes us think that we’re not good enough. I remembered reading snippets from photographer interviews, that it was important to have confidence in the work that you create, and never sell yourself short. That it was important to take pictures for yourself and not for anyone else. And that photography is an art form, and is subjective in that a photo shows how the person behind the camera interpreted the scene, and it shows their aesthetics. There is no right and wrong answer in photography.
I don’t think I would ever stop having little confidence attacks (I’m was a very very insecure person growing up) but I now learn that I should stop comparing myself to other people, and start doing what I feel is right, and shoot for myself so that my natural style and my personality shows through in all my work.

This post marks a transition from this blog to my new one: www.wilsonsharon.com/blog. I will no longer be posting on this blog, but will keep it open for posterity’s sake (and because I’m getting a lot of traffic for my restaurant posts :p).

I do hope that if you’ve been following my blog all this while that you will come by once in a while at my new space and continue to follow me in my journey of reaching my dream.

Click through for our new portfolio.

Coming back to reality

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 08:52:00 +0000

I took a six day leave from work during Chinese New Year and just got back last Thursday. Coming back to work after such a long leave was definitely difficult especially after all the festivity of Chinese New Year. Not to mention management has just changed hands at my place of work and we have new procedures, new bosses, new manager, new everything. I've always been a very constant person, and this job is anything but constant. That probably explains why I’ve been dreading work with such fervour for the past few days.

I haven’t managed to snatch any time to update this space either, which explains the severe lack of posts (sorry!) Also, the boo and I are working hard on something that will hopefully take our photography ambition to the next level in the coming months. Looking forward to launching that soon!

The boo’s whole family celebrated Grandpa Siew’s birthday last week at Oriental Pavilion. The place was packed to the brim and noise level resembled a fish market, but that’s how it’ll be because the food is wonderful there. I shot a lot of candid photos, which is my favourite type of photography; I just love that unguarded moment of true emotion and reflection of personality.

There should be more CNY photos coming up soon.. can’t believe I still haven’t completed the Christmas batch of photos argh! And I just finished the makeup trial shoot photos from the other day. Feeling super inefficient right now. :(

Jam and Kaya Café, PJ Palm Sports Centre

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:24:00 +0000

We were just at Jam and Kaya Café yesterday for brunch, and I can’t believe I’m so efficient for once and already blogging about it. Then again, it has been awhile since my last food post, and I’m starting to run out of things to post…

Jam and Kaya Café is a relatively new offering located in PJ Palm Sports Centre. The café overlooks a community pool and on the Sunday that we were there, a lot of young children and expats were there soaking up the sun and catching up with their friends, so it felt really relaxing and peaceful.

What I like about this place is the clean and comfortable interior that isn’t too pretentious (too many hipster cafes trying too hard lately) and the menu is small and simple but will appeal to everyone I’m sure. Breakfast is all-day – I love these places. The boo had eggs benedict while I had the mushroom omelette which was sufficiently fluffy and soft. Only gripe was that their menu wasn’t properly updated so there was a bit of a kerfuffle with my order.
The hot chocolate was good as well (much better than that silly over-hyped Coffee Stain), probably on par with the Varlhona hot chocolate we had at Yeast. Too bad we’re not coffee fans so we can’t speak for the coffee over here. :p

Merlvyn and Joy get engaged

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 06:03:00 +0000

First of all, you’ll notice that I’ve given my blog template some little tweaks. I’ve had this template for more than 6 months (and I’m the sort of person that gets bored with things almost instantly), so I’ve recently been eyeing a few cleaner and more minimalistic templates to change into. The unfortunate thing is, the best template that I’ve seen so far costs a whole lot of money… so I am left with no choice but to just change my current one a little bit to better suit my tastes. Anyway, how are you finding it? Leave a comment below this post!

Photographing a surprise engagement is exactly my kind of thing: lots of crying, smiling, laughing and emotions that make great photos and great memories for a lifetime. Merlvyn and Joy got engaged on New Year’s Eve of 2013 which in Merlvyn’s words, made counting the number of days that they had been engaged super easy. We were seated right across from their table and tasked with sneakily taking photos of them during the meal. Sorry to say my sneaky skills aren’t that good and I was so afraid that Joy was going to smell something fishy going on!

Here are some of my favourite shots from the night. Photos were taken with a mixture of 100mm f/2.8L Macro USM and 50mm f/1.8 II. See whether you can differentiate which photos are taken by me and which by the boo (the lighting is pretty obvious haha!)

Congratulations again Merlvyn and Joy, already looking forward to your wedding! :)

First week with the 50mm f/1.4 USM

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:44:00 +0000

So it’s been almost a week since I acquired the Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM and although I haven’t had a lot of time to seriously play with it, I thought I’d write a bit on how I feel about it. Of course, this isn’t going to be a technical review (no pixel-peepings, spectro chromatism, aperture, sharpness tests) and if you need one, you should be going to Ken Rockwell who has the best and most comprehensive technical reviews of lenses ever.

The internet is full of comparisons for the Canon 50mm f1.8 II and this Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM, and the general opinion is that the 50mm f1.8 has downright shitty build quality – which may not be a bad thing sometimes because the plastic barrel makes the lens super light and portable – but gives superb image quality for the price. I’ve always felt that my 50mm f1.8 was a bit iffy with the focus and horrible in low light. The lens constantly hunts for focus and is slow doing it too. The 50mm f/1.4 USM however, is three times the price but has better build quality, wider aperture, manual focus override, and USM motor for quiet and quick focusing.

1/1600, f2.2, ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/400, f2.2,ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/40, f1.8, ISO 320, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/60, f1.4, ISO 800, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/100, f1.4, ISO 800, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/500, f1.4, ISO 4000, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/30, f1.4, ISO 2000, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/60, f1.6, ISO 400, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/100, f2.8, ISO 800, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/2500, f1.4, ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/1000, f1.8, ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/2500, f1.4, ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/1000, f1.4, ISO 500, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/2500, f1.4, ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/1600, f1.8, ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

1/1000, f1.8, ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

At f1.4, the 50mm USM is not the sharpest lens in the land but as you stop the aperture down, sharpness improves across the frame (as is common with wide aperture prime lenses). Because the focus is so narrow at f1.4, the slightest mistake could make you lose focus or focus on the wrong thing. About a third of the shots I got back were out of focus, and I’m usually tempted to blame the lens in this case but after looking at more sample shots from other photographers, I’m inclined to think that it’s all human error here.

For the pixel peepers, here’s a 100% crop (no grain added so there’s nothing in the way of sharpness) at f/1.4:

1/640, f1.4, ISO 100, 50mm f/1.4 USM

100% crop at center of the frame

Not so bad at f1.4 when used properly after all. If you’re looking really closely, the bokeh of this lens is much better than the one from 50mm f1.8 because the USM model has 8 aperture blades whilst the cheaper one only has 5, which sometimes results in pentagonal bokeh and harsher backgrounds (which this image illustrates very well). The bokeh I’m getting from this one is creamier, smoother and not as distracting as with the 50mm f1.8. At f1.4, it works really well to add a dreamy swirl to the background (as I tried to do with the black and white leaf shots at the beginning of the post).

The 50mm focal length will always stay in my lens collection because of it’s versatility, and therefore this USM lens will definitely be staying with me permanently (the next best 50mm would be Canon’s crazy heavy and expensive 50mm f1.2L which isn’t that much better). No more of this use-few-months-then-sell nonsense anymore. Next up, I’ll put up a field review of the 100mm f2.8L Macro which I no longer own (sob). Also, special thanks to Jane for being my test model! :D

A good ol’ sandwich with the boys

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 10:02:00 +0000

Last year (or rather 3 weeks ago) we brought Mike and Jovi for sandwiches at Pickle and Fig and we had a ball of a time (or rather I did) forgetting that Mike carries a pen drive around his neck. The Christmas special sandwich that we had was a miss, so I think we’d better stick to their warm panini offerings in future. That weekend was full of meeting up with friends (same week as the Christmas BBQ at the boo’s place) and I remembered feeling all buzzed seeing my friends and catching up with what was going on in their lives. There’s almost never a serious moment with these two.

On a more recent note, I am still very busy, and I am also very sad to say that I’ve sold my 100mm macro lens because I was feeling extremely broke. In Jovi’s words I was near “starving on the streets” lol. In hindsight, I probably made the right decision anyway since the lens was heavy and was always focus hunting BUT that doesn’t mean that I don’t dearly miss the sharpness, the fact that I could shoot macro if I wanted to and that red ring (sorry I’m such a snob).

I’ve recently acquired the 50mm f1.4 USM (which was on my wishlist yay) and I’m learning to use the lens properly. For some odd reason I’m not getting the sharpness that I’m expecting out of this lens. Anyhow, I’m glad I managed to take the 100mm on a macro test run, so I’ll hopefully be posting up some photos from that (when I’ve got some free time) doing a sort of field-review, and also doing a short review of the 50mm f1.4. Till then!

Best chocolate chip cookie recipe!

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 03:37:00 +0000

I was kind of obsessed some time ago with finding the perfect cookie recipe, and essentially baking one that wasn’t cakey, soft or shaped like little mountains. For some odd reason, every cookie I have made since the start of baking journey has failed to spread (except for the first ever cookie I made with the boo which spread nice and far but ended up so soft that just picking it up made it bend and break) so I was determined to make one that was flat as cookies should be, crispy on the edges and soft on the inside.

I started out with Laura Vitale’s recipe, but found that the cookies were still cakey and lacked any sort of punch to make it stand out from the crowd. The cakey part was probably not the recipe’s fault as I found out, but more about that later. After that, I scoured the internet for a better cookie recipe and came across one by Izy at Top With Cinnamon. This one was definitely different as not only brown butter was used, the butter was infused with basil leaves and verbena (lemon zest for us who can’t get verbena) to give the dough more flavour and the dough was chilled for 24-72 hours. I t sounded like a long-winded recipe for me to follow (I’m extremely impatient) but I decided to just suck it up anyway because how often do you come across such a unique recipe?

Anyway, the first attempt was royal failure; the cookies ended up so cakey it wasn’t even funny, and the cookies stayed in the mound shape of the cookie scoop even after I had baked it for longer than the recommended cooking time. However, the flavour was great so I wasn’t giving up yet.

Second time round, I decided to do it properly and took the weighing machine out, weighed every single ingredient to the dot, refrigerated it for 72 (!!) hours and turned the oven from fan setting to just heat setting. Finally, the cookies lost the cakey texture and were crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. My best guess is that the fan setting dried out the cookies too much and ended up ruining the texture completely which is why I never use the fan setting anymore. It. Was. The. Best. Cookie. I. Ever. Had! Izy is a genius. Seriously, who would’ve thought to infuse the butter with basil and lemon flavours?

I was so protective of these cookies I kept them all to myself, squirreling them away day after day at the office. Here’s the recipe for anyone who’s interested in trying it out!

Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Top with Cinnamon

1/4 cup (4 tbsp) fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp lemon zest
10 tbsp (5 oz / 140 g) butter
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup (230 g) all purpose flour (I used half whole wheat and half all purpose)
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup + 3 tbsp (140 g) light brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp kosher salt / fleur de sel (plus more for sprinkling)
1 egg
7 oz (200 g) bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Roughly chop the basil add to a small saucepan with the butter and lemon zest. Heat continuously on medium-low on the stove until it foams up and smells nutty, then stir in the vanilla extract.
Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then strain it through a sieve (push through as much of the browned butter bits as possible)
Meanwhile, either in a stand mixer or a large bowl combine the next 6 ingredients (flour through to salt). Pour in the butter and mix until it looks like moist clumpy sand with no floury patches.
Add the egg and mix in for a few seconds, then the chopped chocolate and pecans and mix until well distributed - but not for too long!
Using a 1/4 cup cookie scoop, scoop up some of the dough and smoosh it into the scoop until it's just full. Turn out onto a lined cookie tray, spacing each mound 3" apart. Repeat with all of the cookie dough.
Cover with cling film and refrigerate for anywhere between 1 - 72 hours (the longer you wait, the better the texture and flavour!).
When ready to bake preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). When ready, sprinkle the cold cookie dough with fleur de sel and shove into the oven immediately!
Bake for 8-12 minutes, until browned, with set edges, and a puffy, soft center. Let cool on the baking tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

I know this recipe seems like a lot of work and time-consuming, but if you’re a cookie fan then you need to try this because it is that good. Use only good quality chocolate chips though (bittersweet or dark chocolate chips work the best) because the flavour of chocolate makes all the difference!

Christmas BBQ

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 08:07:00 +0000

Happy New Year! It’s already the 3rd day of January and I’m not feeling much different than when it was December and 2013, except that I miss the feeling of holidays and festivities and knowing that I have many plans lined up. The start of a new year is supposed to be like the turn of a new leaf or something. I’m supposed to be super efficient and organized from this year onwards, but the pile of paperwork on my right is getting higher instead of diminishing. Some things don’t change I suppose. Also, I’m so terribly backlogged on photos to edit and sift through that my head hurts just thinking about it. Doesn’t help that more than half the photos were taken in horrendous conditions, either yellow or mixed light, and in dark conditions.
Oh well, challenge accepted!

For Christmas, the boo hosted a BBQ party at his place, with our favourite marinated ribs and chicken wings taking center stage. A small group of close friends turned up and helped out with the grilling (my contribution was Joy the Baker’s Dark Chocolate Brownies which I accidentally under baked but everyone still loved) and we had a great time sharing delicious food and good conversation. I (as usual) had a ball of a time taking candids of everybody.

New Year’s Eve for me this year was very special, because the boo and I had the opportunity to witness and photograph his close friend’s proposal to his long-time girlfriend. I’m halfway through editing the photos and I’m having a lot of feels. Working very hard on those photos right now because I want to give them the best photos possible for them to remember this once-in-a-lifetime moment by. There’s just something so fulfilling in recording such an important moment in someone’s life, and I was walking on clouds for the rest of the day. :)

Quick (word-y) update

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 09:27:00 +0000

Merry Christmas everyone! I realize it’s been almost 10 days since my last update (I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without updating) and I’m not going to abandon this space. Rather, I’ve been too busy to sit down and properly edit all the photos from the last week. This is the first year that both the boo and I are celebrating Christmas together in KL (first year he was in New York and second year we were at Disneyland (!!)) so we spent it pretty much with his family. Lots of family birthdays during December.

My Christmas week – I like to drag all occasions into week-long celebrations – can basically be summed up in one sentence: lots of good food! Seriously, in the last week alone, I had turkey, roast lamb, ribs, international buffet, nyonya food, italian food, and lots and lots of pasta and yummy home-cooked meals. Seriously, for a foodie like me what more can I ask for?
For the boo’s birthday we had an amazing buffet lunch at Mosaic Mandarin Oriental which is highly raved about as one of the best buffets in the city. For winter solstice we had the boo’s favourite nyonya food (that Portuguese Devil Curry is still on my mind…) and the squid ink pasta with anchovies and prawns from Midi 57 was the best squid ink ever.

Coming back to work from a 6-day holiday is a bit of a reality check, but all is well as my bosses (yes I have SEVEN bosses) are all going overseas one by one nyehehehe. However, my manager is having a sort of hissy fit about my leave and complained to my colleague about me being missing from work…. I think he’s the one missing the festive gene hmph.

Coming up next: Christmas party at the boo’s place tomorrow night (I’m making brownies!) and meeting up with some school friends on Sunday. Bring on the festivities because I’m still in the holiday mood!

On a final note, we’re now on a downhill journey for the rest of the year. 2014 is coming up just next week and the next few days will be a time for me to reflect on this year, and what I want from myself for the coming year.

Faces of Pudu

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 07:29:00 +0000

I don’t usually use my 35mm for street photography because it gives me too wide of a field-of-view, and I like street portraits. We were just buying food from Pudu after collecting my 100mm macro lens and just so happened that the 35mm was attached to my camera. The wider angle gave me a different perspective than usual and forced me to think of more interesting compositions and subjects. The thing about long lenses is that it lets you take a photo of just about anyone or anything without even moving around much since you can pretty reach everything just by standing in one spot.

That last photo there is a little special to me because it sort of marks a personal milestone, that’s why I saved it even though the composition isn’t really that great (chopped off head and everything). What happened was, after I took the shot he started yelling at me about taking photos without permission. Then the nice old man (the one who’s head is disembodied in the frame) tried to calm him down while he continued yelling away. Oh well, I knew this was going to happen some day and I suppose it’s a life experience amirite?

Speaking of which, the coming week is going to be parties and celebrations (Christmas, Winter Solstice and the boo’s birthday) and I’m taking 4 days off from work so yay! Oh, and today is Jason’s birthday so big shout-out to him. Happy Birthday if you’re reading this!

O Banh Mi, Damansara Uptown

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 03:12:00 +0000

We’ve fallen in love with O Banh Mi. The fluffy and light home-made baguettes are just love and who knew that copious amounts of cilantro with pickled carrots, onions, lemongrass minced chicken and Vietnamese chili sauce could end up the freshest and yummiest sandwich I’ve had (forgive me if I haven’t tried the original banh mi in Vietnam)? The original banh mi had a swipe of pork liver pate but I skipped that (organs are not my cup of tea) and it still tasted amazing. The coffee is great as well even though it put me in a state of shivers and headaches for a whole day (I’m caffeine intolerant sadly).

We’re hoping that more stuff will be added to the menu soon (they had a teriyaki chicken banh mi the last time we went). My current favourite is the O School banh mi, whilst the boo’s changes with his mood.

O Banh Mi
33, Jalan SS21/56b, Damansara Utama,
47400 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Christmas is just around the corner

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 07:13:00 +0000

1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Wishlists are like my guilty pleasure, I love making them but I know I shouldn’t because the chances that I actually get anything on the list are usually nil.

I’m looking for a new backpack for travel/photography usage since I’m seriously limiting myself by carrying around a handbag every time I’m taking photos. Herschel carries a pretty nice looking line of canvas backpacks that aren’t explosion-in-your-pocket expensive (think below RM300), but some reviews say that the quality is a little lacking. I’m looking to upgrade my 50mm f1.8 to the better-built 50mm f1.4 USM but that obviously isn’t going to happen soon. Hopefully it’ll happen by my birthday next year… :D

Kate Spade had a site-wide 30% sale and I so wanted to get an iPhone casing (always wanted one) except, no shipping to Malaysia. Great. The Kinfolk Table is more of an eye-candy book for me rather than a bona fide cookbook, as I’ve had first hand experiences with Kinfolk recipes – vague instructions and missing ingredients.

Anyone want to be my secret santa?

Lemon and Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Sat, 07 Dec 2013 11:04:00 +0000

I was a little adventurous and tried this Lemon and Rosemary Shortbread Cookie recipe the other day. I came across this on My Baking Addiction and was intrigued with the notion of adding herbs in baking. I realize that the herb in the pictures are thyme and not rosemary, but I accidentally got a little too carried away, chopped up all the rosemary and plonked them into the cookie dough when the recipe only specifically called for one tablespoon. I must have added 2 and a half tablespoons of the stuff, and the cookies ended up a bit overpowered by the rosemary sigh.

But don’t get me wrong, the texture was great especially with the addition of wholemeal flour! The recipe called for freezing the cookie dough, which made it stiffer and crispier than my usual cakey-textured cookie. This experience taught me to read the instructions twice over, and today when I used herbs in baking, I made sure that I chopped up exactly the amount of leaves the recipe asked for – double and triple checking!

Lemon and Rosemary Shortbread Cookies
My Baking Addiction

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
3/4 teaspoon salt
Sanding sugar for rolling (optional)

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add lemon zest, vanilla and egg and beat until incorporated.
In a medium bowl, whisk together both kinds of flour, salt and rosemary.
With the mixer on low, gently add dry ingredients into butter mixture. Mix until ingredients are well combined and a stiff dough is formed.
Cut two 12x16 inch pieces of plastic wrap. Divide dough in half placing one half of the dough on each piece of plastic wrap. Use your hands to form two 1 ½ inch diameter logs. Open the plastic wrap and sprinkle logs with sanding sugar (if using) and roll a bit more to coat the logs well in the sugar. Wrap logs tightly in the plastic wrap, place on baking sheet and freeze logs for 1 hour or until firm.
Preheat oven to 375°. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Remove dough logs from the freezer and remove the plastic wrap. Slice dough into ¼ inch thick slices and place on prepared baking sheets 1 inch apart.
Bake until cookies are just golden at the edges, about 16-18 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on wire racks. Store cookies in an air tight container for up to 4 days.

Foodie Fest 2013 by Food Bites

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 06:36:00 +0000

Last weekend, the boo and I were at the 2013 Foodie Fest, organized by Food Bites at Publika. Being absolute foodies, of course we were there for the food, but mostly we just wanted to wield our camera a bit and stalk some candid street photos.

There were quite a few stalls set up, mainly indie food vendors. My favourite of the day was The Crab Factory, which served Louisiana-style seafood (shrimp and crawfish)! They will be opening up a restaurant somewhere in January at SS2 and I can’t wait. Our favourite Crumbs that closed earlier this year (now Yay, Sammich!) also ran a stall there, but sadly we ended up too stuffed to have any of the Salted Caramel Brownie we loved so much. The boo’s pick of the day was the beef wrap by Las Vacas, and he’s pretty hyped up to go to the restaurant to try their other stuff.

There were hits and misses at the fest (more misses than hits to be honest but maybe we went for all the wrong food), but I had a great time shooting paparazzi style with the 100mm f2.8L macro which I just got back a week or so ago. I am so in love with the sharpness and colour rendition of this lens that I never want to be parted with it! Except the weight is a little hard to manage… maybe it really is time to invest in a good quality backpack or camera bag.

Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 07:17:00 +0000

These pictures have been sitting in my hard disk for a full year (I haven’t uploaded these pictures on Facebook before) and I just pulled them out to edit a couple of weeks back. We were at Rodeo Drive on Christmas Day and every shop was closed. This was the first time I ever spent Christmas away from KL and I was surprised at how shops closed early on Christmas Eve and almost everything was closed on Christmas Day. Christmas in Western countries is like Chinese New Year to us heh. It was quite sad that everything was closed as we didn’t get to wander around in the shops and see the snooty salespeople (I’m guessing), and the window displays were all cleared out (especially the Harry Winston ones and the Cartier ones which I so badly wanted to see!). I didn’t see any celebrities either as they had all gone somewhere hot and sunny for winter, though I did see someone sort of famous (Melrose from America’s Next Top Model) but nobody else recognized her.

The December holiday season has arrived! It’s my favourite time of the year because everyone’s in a festive mood, there’s lots of Christmas lights and festive food, and I’m starting to count the remaining leave days that I still have for the rest of the year. :D

Lima Blas, Jalan Mesui

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 04:14:00 +0000

We came across the most charming and vintage restaurant the other day while exploring the hidden roads of KL. The boo loves his nyonya food so he was very excited, and I was more excited by the photographic opportunities that I could get with the vintage setup. The décor was made up of old-school things like tiffin carriers, typewriters, steel fans, and rusted window panes. The décor is so well put-together and curated that even TimeOutKL named it as one of their 5 choice places for wedding photography. As for food, my favourite of the day was the sambal petai prawn, it’s the best I’ve come across so far! Price is a little on the high side but the food is good and the head chef is really friendly.

Lima Blas
15 Jalan Mesui, Off Jalan Nagasari,
50200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Soaking up the sun on Santa Monica Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 03:27:00 +0000

Beaches always leave the most lasting impressions on me during my travels and Santa Monica is no different. The pier on Santa Monica was charming and whimsy (its a 100-year old landmark!), with a tiny roller coaster and Ferris wheel which we took of course.

We took the roller coaster twice and it looked deceiving; we thought it would be a mild ride but turned out it wasn’t mild at all. The Ferris wheel was such a tourist thing to do, but it let us have a better view of the city and the sea, and it was my very first time on a Ferris wheel. The clam chowder was one of the best we had on the trip (somehow all clam chowders taste amazing there and I may have mentioned this before) but other seafood was forgettable. There was also a Bubba Gump there serving food priced the same as back in KL but in USD instead so we didn’t bother going for that.

My only regret was not being able to walk on the beach on account of wearing fur boots on the day we visited.

Recently | Freezing the rain, a photo-study of sorts

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 03:36:00 +0000

It’s been raining a lot in KL these few weeks and I’ve become obsessed with freezing rain with my camera. I wanted to see the individual drops of rain static in mid-air, and the shapes and textures they made when they splashed on the ground.

I like to think that these photos let a drop of rain that otherwise would have evaporated away in mere minutes, live indefinitely. :)

Blueberry and Lime Muffins

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 03:36:00 +0000

Muffins are my go-to when I’m feeling lazy and just want to make something simple yet hearty. I always take my muffins to work since essentially they are a little bit like a quickbread. I found this recipe for Blueberry and Lime Muffins and I was intrigued by using lime zest (haven’t used lime in baking before hehe) with blueberries.

Blueberry-Lime Muffins
My Baking Addiction

YIELD: 12 muffins

1 cup sugar
zest of two limes
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
coarse sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper muffin liners.
In a small bowl, combine sugar and lime zest. Mix with clean fingertips until sugar is moistened and fragrant. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.
In large bowl, beat eggs and sugar until thoroughly incorporated. Continue beating while slowly pouring in the oil. Add in vanilla.
Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with sour cream. Gently fold in blueberries. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups and if desired, top with a sprinkling of coarse sugar.
Bake in preheated oven for 20-22 minutes.

My naked limes!

Everybody loved this for a change, and my mum actually said it was the best thing I’ve ever made so far. Which kinda makes me feel like everything I’ve made so far is crap.
Anyway, these are definitely worth trying out on a baking weekend. They are moist (thanks to the sour cream), have a kick (thanks to the lime zest), are super easy to make and so healthy for breakfast! You can skip the topping sugar if you don’t like your baked goods to be too sweet.

On another note, I’ve recently discovered wholemeal flour and I super love the texture. Next round I’m going to try substituting some of the all-purpose flour for some wholemeal flour instead and see how it turns out. :)

Hollywood Boulevard and Madame Tussauds Hollywood

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 09:00:00 +0000

A quick one today as I’m nodding off from lack of sleep. Recently discovered the joys of Desperate Housewives all over again so instead of sleeping early I’m hooked on the TV every night knowing that the next day I have to get up early and survive 8 hours at work urgh.

The few things I remember most about Hollywood Boulevard after one whole year was that it was crowded, there was bits of trash everywhere and it was full of street performers. Other than that, there wasn’t really that much to look. We got to see the iconic Roosevelt Hotel and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre so all was not lost. Did you know that apparently the Roosevelt Hotel is allegedly super haunted by the ghosts of deceased celebrities?

Photos by the GF1 again.

This is my first time at any sort of wax museum, and I was actually a little creeped out by the wax figures. For one thing, most of them looked quite different from the real person and had some sort of creepy thing going on behind the eyes and smile. Maybe it was just me, and memories of House of Wax.
On the way back we stopped by this charming bakery by the name of Crumbs. Jason bought his huge M&M cookie and we bought two massive cupcakes to nom on back at the hotel. They were so moist! Why can’t cupcakes in KL be as good as these?

Grafa Cafe, Subang; and some thoughts on shooting raw for the first time

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 04:29:00 +0000

This past weekend we headed all the way to Subang for Grafa, after running seemingly unending errands for the house. I will never underestimate the time my mum puts into the upkeep of the house since I think I’m doing only about one quarter of the total upkeep.

Anyway, I quite liked Grafa the first time we went because they had good honest food that didn’t put too much of a strain on our wallet. Then I found out that it’s actually a collaboration with Williams which explains the huge portions and reasonable pricing. This post is actually a combination of the two occasions we were at Grafa, and has pictures with my not-so-old-but-now-sold 60D (shot in jpeg) and my newest camera. See whether you can guess which ones were which. :P

The front part of Grafa is also house to Pattern Store, where I got my first Kinfolk and various other interesting curated items.

Okay, I’m going to talk shop now so look away if you’re not into this sort of thing. I am so so bowled over by the quality of raw versus jpeg! The first five minutes I sat down to edit these pictures, I just sat there playing with the highlights and exposure sliders absolutely mesmerised. I can’t believe what I’ve been missing out on all these years and even if one photo is 20mb and I’m seriously going to clog up all my hard disks, I don’t think I could ever go back to shooting jpeg. One of these days I’m going to do a raw versus jpeg post just to highlight the ease of editing and recovering lost shadows or blown highlights, and WHITE BALANCE (!!!). I’m still learning how to do it properly and accurately but already I can see the huge difference compared to jpeg!

It helps that with raw files, Lightroom has so many useful tools like lens correction and camera profiles (the vsco filters have never looked this good) that just require a click. Seriously, I am in love.

More from Disneyland, California Adventure; and some overexcitement

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 04:26:00 +0000

After a day (and a half) spent at Disneyland Resort, we headed opposite to Disneyland California Adventure. It’s newer than Disneyland Resort and has more of the updated characters from later Disney animations. I was kind of reluctant to leave Disneyland Resort and actually begged the boo for us to spend our last day there instead of California Adventure (the naivete of me to think that California Adventure would be boring) and I’m glad he didn’t cave in as we got to visit Cars Land which was amazing! I don’t care that people think that Cars is the Disney underdog, I still enjoyed the movie very much and the world that it was set in.

I realize this may be a little boring for those who have me on Facebook, since I’ve already posted all these on Facebook about a year ago, just updating them with new editing. These photos were all taken with the GF1. I kind of miss that little companion of mine; small but packed a real punch and one of the original Micro Four-Thirds to cause a stir back in the DSLR-toting days.

We ended up having the best time ever at California Adventure, the best peppermint ice-cream ever and the best ride ever! The Cars Land experience was amazing. As usual, since the parks are so big, we didn’t have time to explore the whole place. I can’t wait to go again!

Anyway, I can’t believe how excited I am feeling about this weekend, because I’ve finally decided to try shooting in raw. I know I know, I can’t believe that I haven’t even tried shooting raw for real before. I stumbled onto Alice Gao’s blog a few days ago and have been happily stalking her archives, when I noticed that she’s a whiz with white balance. She actually shared a collage of some seriously orange shots before posting the after-processing shots on her blog. White as the paper on my desk. I don’t know how she did it, other than the fact that she shot in raw and everybody knows that white balance is most easily adjusted in raw format.

That’s going to be my new challenge this weekend. To shoot in raw, and to learn how to adjust for white balance until everything that’s supposed to be white stays white and all other colour remain accurate. Wish me luck!

On being myself

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 08:53:00 +0000

Dear Future Me,

I write this now because I feel empowered and this is intended for you to read when you are feeling insecure (hopefully not as much as you do these days), unsure and lost about whether you’ll reach where you intend to maybe some 5 or so years down the line (hopefully not that long!!).

It is a reminder to you to always stay true to yourself, that being yourself in the art that you create, the words that you write, or the work that you do is the most important thing. On a long work day or even after long weeks of monotonous work doing things that you don’t care for, I know you start to lose track of yourself. Especially when you’re looking at so many photography journals of people who’ve already made it and who are so much better than you.

In times like those, always remember that with hard work you’ll get where you want to be. Good things don’t happen overnight; it takes hard work, dedication, determination, practice. Remember not to despair when you are rejected because with rejection comes learning, and with learning comes improvement. Always strive to become better than you already are and never be lazy and never settle for mediocrity.

Most importantly, it takes being yourself and not trying to emulate somebody else to fully realize your potential. Take photos for yourself, not for anyone else, and never lose confidence or hope in your dream.

Love,
Present-day you.

Pickle and Fig, TTDI

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 05:42:00 +0000

It’s the beginning of another week, but this week we have it a little better off because there’s another public holiday! That probably explains my lack of motivation and incentive to do anything productive today heh. I spent a very tiring weekend running errands (mostly buying things for the house), dropping my lens off for repair (don’t get me started on how pissed I am that the lens I bought had some defects), and baking some delicious blueberry and lime muffins that everyone loved, for once.

I’m digging deep into my photo folders for something to blog about and coming up seriously short. I think I’ve just become so incredibly boring lately that I’m going nowhere interesting, eating nowhere interesting and basically just doing nothing interesting. I’m content these days with just curling up with a good book, or with the boo watching a movie at home. I think I seriously need to get out more.

Pickle & Fig for me is comfort food for rainy nights. Not sure why I associate it with rainy nights, but maybe it has something to do with my first visit being a quiet and somewhat drizzly night after work. What I love about this place is it’s honest food, simple sandwiches and healthy smoothies (there’s an avocado and date smoothie that the boo had and gushed about which I still haven’t tried myself yet) and the fact that it’s one of those places that is always on our list of places to go for dinner since we can avoid the jam on a weekday night.

Go for the hot-pressed paninis; it’ll give you a warm feeling right smack in the middle of your tummy. I haven’t tried any of the cold sandwiches yet but I haven’t heard many good things about it so far, I’ll probably try it for myself one of these days. The fish and chips that we had were also bland and frankly distasteful.

Pickle & Fig
26 Jalan Tun Mohd Fuad 2 Taman Tun Dr Ismail
60000 Taman Tun Dr. Ismail
Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur

Disneyland, Anaheim

noreply@blogger.com (Sharon) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 07:31:00 +0000

I think the most memorable trip of my life so far is my trip to the original Disneyland in Anaheim, LA. Growing up as an only child with little freedom and only my mum as a companion, Disney cartoons played a large part in entertaining me. I loved the quirkiness of Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Donald Duck and would never pass a chance to watch them on TV. I have only ever had public broadcast TV and that one hour of classic Disney cartoon would be my day’s treat. As I grew older, things didn’t change and I loved Disney even more though it was starting to be out of my age group. It is a testament to Walt Disney’s creativity and charm that his characters are some of the most classic and iconic ones in history with masses of fans of all ages.

I took these photos last December with my GF1 at Anaheim.

I bought one of these for the boo and regretted not buying one for myself too.

She was so sweet! She saw us snapping pictures through the window and gave us a smile.

Walt Disney’s vision for Disneyland was a place where children could enjoy themselves with the characters they loved, and adults too. True to his vision, Disneyland was such a beautiful place. It was like stepping into a time machine where most of the buildings and structures had a vintage pin-up feel to them, with themed shops dedicated to everything imaginable; clothes, food, souvenirs, ice-cream. Disneyland’s employees are referred to as cast members instead of the generic staff label, and each one of them have a badge that had their name and nationality on them. They were so so polite as well, and always willing to lend a helping hand or point a lost visitor in the correct direction. It felt strange to be somewhere where everybody was so helpful and polite since as Malaysians we’re quite used to short-tempered and sometimes downright unhelpful service staff.

To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.

—Walter E. Disney, July 17, 1955, 4:43 pm