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Photojournal for Chinese New Year - Part II

I have selected and uploaded pictures taken during the festive Chinese New Year which falls on Feb 14, which is also Valentine's day, and a Sunday. The CNY lasts for 15 days and will end on Feb 27. This year is year of the Tiger; and very auspicious for me, as this day was the birthday of my wife, who is born on Feb 14. I was told this comes once every 60 years! Anyway, the family had a great celebration at a hotel in Petaling Jaya, which used to be Asia Jaya, many years back. The location brought back good memories, as I spent quite a few years in this location.

With the planning as written in my last article, I have focused on using the appropriate lens (18-55mm and 40m f2.8 for close up shorts); while the 50-200mm was used for shots in the shopping malls and on my way to Bentong, which is just about 20 min away from Genting Highland.

In my picasa web album, http://picasaweb.google.com/ys.leong under the title "Moods and Foods" - I tried to depict the atmosphere of the festive season. With that writing, my shots were focused on the moods of people - usually jovial and many in portrait forms. On the food, I took the shots as per normal and did not try to do so creatively.

I wrote tag lines to demonstrate that "moods and foods" (even if grammatically, incorrect) of people eating and interacting over food and red packets (angpows, as in Cantonese). I think with thinking ahead of the action of taking photos, I was conditioned to concentrate on scenes that I wanted, instead of being imprompto.

The experiment is a success in my opinion, as thinking ahead on what those scenes will be like, and then determining which lens will be more used; ensured that I am well prepared for the photo. Unfortunately, the exchange of angpows still remains difficult as the exchange is done too quickly for me to get any good candid shots!

The CNY is not over yet; so I am adding more photos into my web album. The photo journalism is just a great experience for me this year!

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