The Magical Pixel

H1N1 Fashion

H1N1 is a serious pandemic now. Everyone is affected either by the disease or by the influence of the disease. Something crossed my mind today when I see many people at my workplace are wearing a mask. But not as many as people who ignoring the pandemic disease.

Why do this people doesnt want to wear mask? I asked one of the cleaner lady, she said that it makes her suffocate. I ask another person, he said that he doesnt like it. This makes me think of Fashion. People sacrifice a lot for fashion these days. Either its a suffocating dress or unconfortable style, people still go for it.

The H1N1 Fashion

This idea come to my head. Why not do a print on the masks? like the handyplast printed with cartoon character or striking stripes. Kids love to wear the handyplast plaster even they dont get any cut. So why not do the same with mask. Print a funny faces on it, or pattern, or design or anything that makes people wear it for the sake of attention. This way the manufacturer can create huge income on the selling since H1N1 is here to promote it and people wears it just for the reason of H1N1.. not really, they wear it because of current fashion.

Mr. Moustache

This will help prevent the disease to spread out.  If I can find the manufacturer of the mask and ask them to print for me this kind of mask. I think I will make fortune. As for now, why not do some drawing on your mask just to have fun with it and give a smile to everyone who sees you.

Funny mask

The Jimbo

I have a cat, his name is Jimbo. He is 2 month old. He has a strong furr, very playfull. Sometimes Jimbo thinks he is a Hamster. He can hang on his claw to the cage ceiling for a few minutes. He also likes to pretend as a camel on the desert. When he become camel, he will play inside his shitbox and pretend all the sand are desert. Every night, my wife will take him inside to play with the children. Favorite spot to sharpen his claw is my leg. While in the house, he likes to play with the TV antenna cable. He will not stop until the TV is out of signal.

Now I’m offering anybody who would like to adopt Jimbo to make a trade with me. I would like to have a Nikon D700 for exchange of Jimbo. Doesnt matter i’ts a new camera or used.

Anyone interested?

Another kind of project that challenge my ability in photography this year is this Photo Essay project. It’s another project granted by Pahang State Museum to me. The photo will be put in the Tenun Pahang Diraja (Royal Hand Woven of Pahang) book which planned to be launched on September this year.

The Museum team lead by the author of the book Mr. Ahmad Farid who is also the Director of Pahang State Museum are now on heavy task force trying to complete the 400 pages book on schedule.

Myself as the contributor of image are also being dragged in this busyness. Of course busyness means business. So I took the challenge. They require me to produce a set images like Annie Leibovitz, the famous Rolling Stone Magazine photographer who now working with Vanity Fair Magazine. Her photo was amazing. I have to spend time researching her starting from her video interview, books, productions and her post production style and method just to make sure I can get the same result.

You can check out here some of Annie’s work.

Annie's work for Disney Dream Portrait

Annie's work for Disney Dream Portrait

Amazed? yess.. Me too. All of her picture for this Disney’s set are telling us a story. In a single image, we know what’s the story is about. That is Photo Essay and sometime, photo essay come in series of images. It’s like a HDMI quality of comic book. The power of Annie’s photo come from the actor inside the photo are real celebrities besides her angle and post processing.

So, what story did I get fro my photo essay? I have been given a scene by the director of the book Ms. Kassandra Kassim. The scene title is “Girl & her Dragon”… The girl in my photo will dress like a princess in Tenun Pahang Diraja dress and inside the same photo there will be a dragon. The girl is easy.. The background is easy.. The lighting is easy.. But the dragon is a pain in my ass.

Where the heck can I find a dragon? is it like an English dragon? or more like Chinese snakey dragon? So, I’m confused. I ask her and she just asked me to put in an Iguana as a replacement of the dragon.  I tried, but the Iguana looks very.. hmm “manja”.  Well, lets try..

So I called up my friends, Tom Ramzul for lighting, Kirin for Make-up artist and the model Fiza. I also managed to borrow a few Tenun dress from the Tenun Pahang Diraja Butique. We do a photoshoot around Kuantan area. and the result came out like this… oh.. the word “This” can also be scrambled into SHIT!

The Girl & Her Dragon 1st trial..shit!

I have placed this image on a few forum for critique.. and I get a lot. The lighting on the dragon head is not right, the model pose is awkward, the mood is not helping.. btw, I get the dragon from google images.

I’m frustrated. I again do some research on Annie Leibovitz post processing and I had a discovery. A discovery that will change my way of post processing. Maybe it’s not the same like Annie’s but I like it more and the client loved it.

For my 2nd trial, I have again gather my helpfull friends. This time is different, I called it “Punk Tribal” theme. I have again called Tom Ramzul the Lighting expert, Dyana Sofia – a model from Dyana Beauty Academy, Gezzeg – The owner of Gezzeg Photography Studio and two of my bodybuilder buddy Saufi & Zam. I aslo called Wan Ermie to borrow his guitar and amp for props.

This time I shoot 100% in the studio with a controlled lighting.  After the photoshoot (thanks to all my friends) I sat and keep fine tuning the post processing technique and finally… a new achievement for me in post processing.

Scene 1 - Punk Tribal

Scene 1 - Punk Tribal B&W

So, yesterday I show this images to the client and they loved it. So now.. I have to record all the editing steps since I did not follow any tutorial to achieve this. My recce date for location have been set. I’ll go to Aryani next week to look at the location before the actual photoshoot.

So.. it’s worth it. Really worth it. oh I forgot to mention the models name that I will shoot for the photo essay. I’m not sure if it’s confirmed or not but there will be 3 model to model the dress in my photoshoot. It’s Nini Ramlan, Devakhi Nathan and The legendary Iman Abdul Majid.. David Bowie’s wife.