Saffron Revolution

The recent uprising in Burma that started off by the Buddhist monks have caught the attentions of the world. It is the biggest rally against the military rule in 45 years!

What causes this protest by the revered monks in the society? It all started with the removal of the fuel subsidies by the military junta. As a result, petrol and diesel prices doubled while compressed gas had gone up 5-folds. This just fits the saying of "The Rich get Richer". The 14 senior members of the junta have assets in foreign countries. This just shows how rich they are when the civilians are living in dire conditions. In fact, the Senior General Than Shwe has chartered a private plane to fly out his family to Vientianne, Laos. That shows how rich he is when his assets in the US have been frozen for years!

In fact, the killing of some of these monks and particularly the Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai at close-range have instigated more supports for the protesters. If such cruelty can be done towards foreigners and the very-much-well-respected monks, I am sure the junta is able to do much worse to the civilians. They probably consider themselves elite and this is no different from the Nazi days.

It's time for the junta to be "house-arrested"! Freeze all their assets, wherever they are and stop supporting them through businesses and trades.

My heart goes to all the monks and protesters out there. They have the courage and determination to keep fighting. Their spirits will not be dampened with the killings. There will always be replacements with renewed spirits.

I suppose this colour is the closest to the saffron/crimson robes wore by the monks. As such, this flower is in support for and a tribute to those involved (and perished) in the Saffron Revolution in Burma.

1st Anniversary

It's been a year since the passing of my beloved swim coach from Beijing. I thought I should put this up as a reminder for myself and a few of those swimming friends who had the opportunities to be under her tutelage.

A year on and life seems to go on for all of us. There were some good news among the swim friends - engagements, marriages, babies. It's very much like flowers (tulips below). Flowers whither and die but new bulbs will bloom.

Taken during a visit to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival in Silvan.

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Busy Weekend

I had a busy weekend, in terms of taking, processing and posting photos. It's all about learning through trial and error as I have never been very good technically.

First, it was getting up around 5am-ish to be in the City and Queen Victoria Market before 6am. What prompted me to for the pre-dawn activity is capturing the atmosphere in the morning. Market is never opened at night, for one, while city life at night is pretty much a norm. So, why not getting up for pre-dawn shoot? The atmosphere, life, emotions in the morning at the market would be different.

On the night itself, we had a small and cosy get-together as well as celebrating the belated birthday for a very good friend of mine. So again, more opportunities to capture the moments. It's even better that they knew I would be bringing my camera and everyone was comfortable with me taking their shots. I bought the birthday cake at the very last minute but it was definitely a very very good cake! For sure, I will get cakes from there again.

What a blast for the weekend though nothing much was pre-planned during the week! It's tiring but it's all worth it.

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RIP: Luciano Pavarotti

Pavarotti passed away at his home in Modena, Italy today after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year. The Maestro was 71. He was one of the Three Tenors, the others being Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras.

Thanks for your voice.

Life-long Learning

For the past few days and weeks, I was (still am) being exposed to lots of new things. With my new job outside of auditing, there are so much to pick up. Lots to come.

Other than my job, I have the opportunity to learn some new techniques in photography through a fellow photographer who does weddings. Shooting into the sun which has always been a problem is something I pick up recently and tried while in Sydney. Another is flash photography which I have been trying out either as balance/fill flash or just creating shadows. I am still trying out BW conversion which has been shared to me. Below are some of the shots.
There also have been some sharing by friends on some historical incidents like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Life is all about learning. The moment we stop learning is the moment we lose our lives!