First and foremost I want to thank SMFCollective for inviting me to share on tips to taking great pictures. Truth be told, I’m not some great photographer as there are many others out there who takes far better images than I do but I really love taking pictures and sharing them with others gives me a great deal of satisfaction. During the question and answer session (SMFCollective event), I couldn’t really share as much as I wanted to, due to the beautiful pictures showcased by other two renowned photographers; MONOSG and AsyariPhotography. Also, I was trying to be a tad bit sensitive to the time and my purpose there is to learn as much as I can. Lastly, I will be giving away a preset in light to the event so that bloggers and photographers alike can use them in their photo editing.

Tools & Edits

Now I’ll jump straight into the topic of how to capture beautiful images for your blog or portfolio – in 3 simple steps. There are currently 2 simplest way in creating an image. First, by using a camera such as the DSLR (Nikon/Canon) or mirrorless cameras (Olympus/Lumix) etc. Second, you can use the smartphone. Now you will think that with a smartphone, the image quality of your pictures aren’t going to be sharp and clear but to be honest, I’ve seen people selling off their pictures taken by the iPhone and some have been featured and are known to be famous with their pictures taken by the iPhone. I’m not pro-iPhone but if you google on Samsung and the pictures taken, they are even sharper than the iPhone but I won’t be touching on this debate and we’ll save it for another post.

Additionally, with these two tools, there comes the editing of the image. For the cameras be it DSLR or mirrorless, you can use computer based softwares such as Lightroom and Photoshop. Of course there are other softwares which enables you to edit and beautify the image but in general, these 2 softwares are frequently used.

In contrast, ‘applications or apps’ are used for images captured on your smartphones, which includes the Lightroom and Photoshop apps. So in short, the Lightroom and Photoshop softwares can be found in both computers (in a form of software) and in smartphones (in a form of an app). Now, there are a variety of great apps to use but for me, I only limit myself to 2-3 apps if I’m doing editing on the go. The apps that I normally use would be the VSCOcam, Priime and SKRWT.

Lighting

Next up, lighting. In order to capture a great image, you need to obtain great lighting. I’m still a student of light but from my experience, I’m able to edit photos beautifully from photo-shoots that are held between 1630hrs to the golden hour.

The golden hour is where the sun is about 4-6 degrees above horizon and that’s where you get variations of pink and red hues. Sometimes, depending on the weather, you’ll get awesome hues of peony to crepe pink.

Then, wait for a few moments after the sun has set, which is another roughly 4-6 degrees below horizon, you’ll be experiencing the blue hour. Now I’ve experienced ‘bad weather blue hour’ and I call this the “purple hour” (I don’t know if there’s a scientific term for it but as I’ve mentioned, I’m still a student of light). Usually after a bad weather and the sun’s about to set, the hues of pink and blue sort of get into this special twilight mix and the sky will have patches or rays of purplish violet. It’s gorgeous to look at and if you’re able to do a shoot, especially portrait or certain product shoots (which is one of my projects soon), you’ll be able to achieve nice lighting.

Golden hour

Blue hour

Blue hour

“Purple” hour after an evening rain.

Story

Last but not least, story. Every image needs to send some form of message across. A great friend of mine once asks or intends to quote; Are you a picture-taker or a photographer?

To me this quote of his, sets me thinking and I perceive it as some food for thought. In my opinion, a photographer is one who goes through some trouble in weaving concepts through his or her images. A picture-taker is someone who simply, takes pictures. What you see is what he or she will take. A great image doesn’t necessarily has to be controversial (though most awesome images are) but it’ll set a certain kind of mood and thinking. In short, to create an impactful and beautiful image, one needs to incorporate a story in the image. It can come in a form of series or single shots. There are instances whereby a series of one concept or story do “harmonise” the message across as the shots may work into a climax and generate several ideas in one’s head. Whereas single shots are usually close ended, emphasising on a single idea. Hopefully these images that I’ve taken would humbly serve as an inspiration to your next projects!

Centre of attention.

Nothing comes easy.

Holding on.

Whatcha lookin’ at?

I hope you find this post useful and if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comment section or email me and I’ll reply as soon as I can. Do drop by the store within the next 48 hours to download your free ‘Portrait Lightroom Preset‘ and have fun beautifying your shots! Here are 3 sample pictures of the preset’s outlook.

Here’s another week for another sharing. I got to know that one of the pictures I’ve posted on Picfair got selected 5th place in this week’s theme; Afloat. Tried to achieve a clean edit on this one and guess it paid off. Alhamdullilah~ (all praises and thanks be to Allah).

Afloat – 5th

On a side note, here is this week’s instagram posts. Do click on the link and check them out. Give ’em likes if you think they’re awesome!

Before I begin to share, let me just wish to all the Muslims in the world a very blessed Ramadhan! And may Allah shower His blessings and baraqah onto the whole Ummah and may our sins be washed away in this purifying month! Aameen~

Morning everyone! I’m here to publicise a piece of wonderful news (at least for me that is) that one of my pictures entitled The Rhine had gotten 5th in Picfair’s June weekly picks – A Sense of Scale. Do click on the link below and have a look!

The Rhine by Ad1 – A Sense of Scale

The Rhine by Ad1

Follow their twitter for other beautiful weekly and monthly picks!

Also, check out my chosen picture for their June 2015 Drifting Away theme.

Chinatown by Ad1 – Drifting Away

Latest pictures on instagram!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGOgWF6EFnX/?taken-by=ad1_sufyan

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGJov_rEFgz/?taken-by=ad1_sufyan

with Outfit Of The Day (OOTD) for the weekend.

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged and have been on hiatus for close to a year. Well things have been pretty busy with side projects and stuffs but I shall do my best to update from now on. I will be doing a monthly urban exploration series, featuring of some casual fashion coverage just in case you’re interested in some of the outfits. If you’re interested in showcasing some of your unique and fashionable attire, do drop me an email and I’ll be glad to have a photo shoot session with you.

Yesterday’s Friday’s urban exploration initially started out as a photo shoot “reconnaissance” or recce as some may call it, which slowly evolved to be a photo shoot itself alongside with some outfit of the day out-takes. We decided to check out the Golden Mile Complex rooftop and also Golden Mile Tower. Now don’t be confused with these two buildings as they are of separate places, however just next to each other. We started out at the Golden Mile Complex, heading towards the office lifts, then all the way to the 9th floor. We were amazed at the complementary colors used; blue and yellow and how the ceiling has got some weird inception motives going on; upside down stairs. 

The right side of the building is where the residents of Golden Mile Complex live and unfortunately, this place is banned. If you want to get good captures of this place, you have to move swiftly. My estimation is that you’d have a solid 2 minutes before the security guard approaches (pssst, he’ll be coming from the other end) and chase you away. He was quite polite when he escorted us out to the lift. And yes, he did wait till we got on the lift and really made sure we don’t come back.

So, we made a trip to the other side. The dark side. And I mean literally the dark side. Mostly due to the dark clouds and how covered the rooftop car-park was at Golden Mile Tower. To get here, you need to take the office lifts all the way to the 5th floor. The car-park is simply there once you walk out of the lift. For further explorations, you may want to take the lift nearest to the bar up to the 22nd floor for a good city view. Here are some of the shots:

The striped blinds appears to be somewhat a cafe or bar.

Hosni in burst mode.

If you walk towards the bar or cafe, you will have a city view alongside the Concourse building.

Hosni in his white long fit from H&M.

Hosni wearing a black long fit hoody also from H&M.

Getting a good balance on the whole shot.

More shots around the car-park aka rooftop:

Ewan in his yellow T-shirt from Bangkok Market, ตลาดรถไฟ ศรีนครินทร์

Ewan in his sleek harem sweatpants from Cotton On.

Ewan’s Pony shoes from Shoe Plaza Rinku Outlet, Osaka.

Hosni in his sleek Nike Roshe Run Japan Spring Edition.

Black pants by H&M kids.

Ewan’s shades are from Bangkok.

Ewan wears the MVMT Classic watch.

Some shots taken from the 22nd floor (Office Tower).

https://www.instagram.com/adi_sufyan/

You might want to bring a telephoto lens when you’re up here for some good detailed close-ups. For these shots, I used the Canon 100mm F2.8 L lens.

After the whole rooftop adventure, we decided to walk down to Rochor Centre for another session of “rooftop” exploration. It took us about 20-30 minutes of leisurely walk to Rochor Centre. Upon reaching our destination, it was by great chance that we stumbled upon a group of Polytechnic students, who’ve shot their color-themed project whereby they had thrown lots of colored paints all over the floor. Whatever their project was, I’m pretty sure they did a great job as the colors were vibrant and they had used some cool HD camera to record the whole process. My guess is that they made a project to commemorate a colorful tribute to the Rochor Centre landmark itself, since it’s due for some tear down. So here are some of my shots of the Rochor Centre “rooftop”:

Hosni with his man scarf – The Art to Manliness.

Hosni adorning his Luminox watch.

Rochor Centre is vibrant and colorful however it’s such a loss that it’s nearing it’s abolition. Do drop by and have a few captures of the scenic and old school place before it’s all gone. 

Now for today’s yesterday’s urban exploration, I went to explore the People’s Park Complex in Chinatown. To get there, you can alight at Chinatown MRT station and head out towards Exit C. From the 7-Eleven store, just enter the complex itself and take the cargo lift. The residential lifts or normal lifts are only permitted to residents. Furthermore, you need a card to ride them. SO just proceed straight to the cargo lifts and head to the 5th storey. From the 5th floor, simply walk towards the car-park.

You will enter from this place.

To your right.

To your left.

A nice scenic view of Singapore’s cityscape.

The space is quite open and options for a good backdrop is diverse so move around and pick the perfect spot in accordance to your focal length. Here are some of my shots with model, Max.

A self-reflective moment.

Max against the world.

Max is wearing a pink Egyptian cotton from Perth, Australia. His black pants are from G2000 & black suit or blazer from Malacca.

The cityscape offers clean great shots for those who are looking out to shoot a great professional portfolio. Some views from the top:

It can be crowded in the complex during the weekends, however once you’ve reached the top, it’s spaciously desolated. It can get quite windy and you definitely need an umbrella for bad weather due to the absence of proper shelter. For those with camera gears, trust me on this one – umbrella. I’ll end my post here with other random shots and hope to see you on my next adventure!

Preppy Max!

The Muslim Quarter in Xi’an, China, is an amazingly huge food hub! Lot’s of tantalising meat, fresh fruits and whimsical tidbits all ready to be served and feast upon. Upon our arrival in Xi’an, my buddy and I stopped overnight at the airport (which I will cover in the next post) and cabbed down a distance of about 30km to Alley Youth Hostel the very next morning. Now I have to emphasise that we made this trip in December and it was exorbitantly cold. It was my first winter experience and typically having to blow out smoke from the mouth was our frequent gesture in Xi’an. All I could think of while we were in the cab was, the itinerary planned for the days ahead and how thrilling the winter cold can be.

Now Alley Youth Hostel is placed at a district with great atmosphere, whereby considerable walks can be taken to visit the famous Xi’an Mosque, various subway stations, the Xi’an Bell Tower, alluring cafes, and many other incredible sights and sounds for the taking. The first thing we had to do was eat and breakfast was a LARGE piece of handmade bread, served alongside a steaming hot spicy beef soup! It was HEAVENLY~

Another version of Xi’an’s famous bread. However, the one we had for breakfast was fluffier~

The bread was tasteless and powdery on its own but as I observe how the locals eat it, they tear that brown fluff into pieces and throw it into the soup. We did just that and that’s where it hits the sweet spot in your tongue! So, here’s a traveller’s tip: Be perceptive and willing to engage in (what seems to be an) unorthodox savoir-faire – as long as it doesn’t go against your religious practices or own set of beliefs.  Because from where I come from, we do eat bread with soup by dipping or swabbing but never throw it all into pieces at once down the hot broth. Resultantly, due to our brave “endeavour” the bread soaked up all the flavours and seasonings to blend with the existent handmade flour which induces an elated satiation to the tummies of two famished travellers.

Here’s my buddy after breakfast.

We were greeted by a cat named Chunlou or Chunliu (at least that’s what the lady at the reception says – the cat was named after some famous mountain in China) at Alley Youth Hostel, and the whole interior was pleasingly warm and welcoming as they furnished a book cafe right next to a pool table, which is just beside a bar and has got a mini internet surfing spot by the entrance window.

I call this shot ‘Chunlou by the Windou’. She was observing some birds on a tree by the way.

As we got lost along our retraced steps back to Rotterdam Central Station from Spido B.V., we stumbled across a tube mall known as Markthal Rotterdam aka Market Hall Rotterdam. As you’ve seen in the first post, a simple Scandinavian pushcart selling cheeseys makes the whole surrounding less intimidating and more patronising. The overall look of the mall is also cosy with a variety of products to choose from. You name it, they have it!

Well the one on the right is a blue cheese but isn’t the Blue Cheese.

I’m extremely fascinated with the cheese shops over there. They looked irresistibly delicious and exotic. There’s something about the pushcart’s aesthetics. Now, Dutch people are friendly by nature. In fact, throughout our whole entire journey in the Netherlands, people have been helping us out with directions and halal food hunt even to the point of using their own GPS to pinpoint locations and provide instructions for easier navigations. I really want to thank them so much for the kind hospitality and warm gestures given.

However, in the mall, we wanted to purchase a few items but had a large 500Euro note and apparently, none were willing to accept it. Almost all vendors scrutinised at the note and decided not to accept our purchase. Of course, till we came to a pushcart selling figs and dates. An Egyptian (I think, or could be Moroccan) bald man roughly in his 40s decided to accept our intentions of breaking the note to smaller change and the need to taste his mouthwatering figs (no pun intended). We were delighted. It was as if God has embraced us with His Mercy (which He really did) and made our detour worthwhile. Due to this incident, I deduced that Europeans find it hard to accept huge notes for a few reasons. 1) Fake touristy notes are rampant. Many scammers pretend to be tourists and go around in a ‘fake note exchange’ spree. 2) The bald man had to inspect our note under the light multiple times, to affirm that we had given genuine cash. This goes to show that for some itsy bitsy small microscopic reason, discerning between the real and fake notes may have been unclear either because the real ones are arduously distinguishable or pirates or counterfeiters producing counterfeits are exceedingly professional. 3) or simply that Europeans don’t hold much change to accommodate to such big notes. 1 point to VISA!  But all these points are just my assumptions and I guess there’s no real reason to this as everyone has their own belief in not wanting to accept big notes.

So traveller’s tip: Don’t carry huge notes. Break them down at the airport or secured establishments such as money changers or banks, especially in European countries. Of course VISA provides the convenience but most street markets don’t cater such services. In addition, such establishments offer a sense of security in a sense that you know what you’re getting and where you’re getting it from. There is no way you’ll receive a counterfeit from a public or main bank for instance. So, break your cash up once you’ve touched down from the plane. It’ll benefit you in terms of time and energy.

Here’s the interior outlook of the mall from a 2nd storey halal Mediterranean restaurant.

I really love it’s elaborated designs and comprehensive architecture. It’s really a nice “steal” coming from being lost and to stumble upon an unplanned location from our travel itinerary. I’m really glad we got lost. As the saying goes, ‘it feels good to be lost in the right direction’ and it truly is! Here’s a few more pictures to sum up Markthal Rotterdam, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this post~

How we chanced upon this mall is by accident or should I say luck? We were kind of lost getting our way back to the Rotterdam Central Station from Spido Boat Tours. We just ferried our way back from Kinderdijk and while tracing our steps back to the Central train station, we kind of detoured and came across this tube-like mall. It was huge and I must say it was extremely aesthetically technical looking. The mall was filled with loads of hipster pushcarts and there were tons of branded merchandises that were seemingly Marc & Spencer-ish looking. I will definitely share more in time to come because there were tons of photos taken around the area.

Anyway, just finished my routined workout – the spartan arms and will also touch on what I’ve learnt so far, at least for the past 29 days of working out and eating clean. As the name of this blog goes, its a “mad hatter’s” world here in my head and things I cover in this blog may or may not make sense but it’s how things flow and how I keep my sanity.