Photoblog — Tatter Scoops

Falling in Love Again

27 Dec posted by Maureen

With my old camera that is…

Since I was alone for Christmas because my son was over at his Dad’s, I decided to go ahead with my friend to watch the Grand Prix Marching Band Indonesia 2011 held on Christmas Eve here in Jakarta. She coaxed me saying I could take some really cool pictures.

For the records, I knew nothing about marching band and never watch them exclusively.

We got to the big stadium and got front row seats where I quickly took some pictures. After lunch break we went back inside and it was packed! We had to kiss our seats goodbye and stand by the edge. Were difficult taking pictures so I went down, positioned myself right next to this guy who carried the big white lens. His big camera and lenses made me feel so small hah but what the heck, I was determined to take lots of pictures.

I was blown away by these marching bands performances. Before, I would think “Ah, so what they’re just bunch of kids playing musical instruments.” But what I didn’t know was, they are pretty much theatricals, there are storylines even characters brought to life with the music pieces they are playing. It was so much fun.

My two favorite marching bands were from BCK Duri their theme was Harry Potter. So brilliantly done and the music they played were out of this world.

Here’s an amateur video of their performance I found on YouTube.

The other favorite was from Pupuk Kaltim (Bontang PKT) – which by the way is already a household name for Marching Band in Indonesia. How on earth they made the sounds came out to be in perfect stereo is beyond me.

And here’s another YouTube video of their performance:

After the loud day at the stadium – I went to one of the newly opened mall where my family was then headed home.

It is our family tradition here that on Christmas Eve and New Year Eve to have my uncle + his family also my aunt and her family to come over just before midnight. With my mother being the eldest, they always gathered here. We would be praying before midnight followed by midnight meals. Yes, we would eat! Then my mom would call her mother who is in another town.

We stayed up late on Christmas Eve not to open presents but to pray and just be together. Granted, everyone was in mad dash to wake up the next day and get to church for our 10am service.

Before having the families over I decided to play around with my camera some more. Object of experiment? Bokeh lights. Using the Christmas tree and some props I came up with these shots. Of course me being the worst critique of myself, I wasn’t very satisfied with them but for a first try some actually came pretty good. What do you think?

So that is how I spent my Christmas Eve, falling back in love with my old camera. How did you spent yours?

PS: You can check out the rest of the pictures on my Flickr page.

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Filed Under: Photoblog, Uncategorized

Faith, Hope & Love

6 Dec posted by Maureen

When you put faith, hope and love together, you can raise positive kids in a negative world. - Zig Ziglar

Faith is holding your father’s hand before his surgery and telling him with all self-assurance you can muster that everything will be alright. Faith believes that God is good at all times even when life seems at its bleakest moment.

Hope is like the never ending hugs and kisses coming from that little person that is your child, the sky may darken but hope prevails and sun will finally shines again. Hope believes that good things will come your way that your sweats and tears will be paid off tenth folds.

Love is people whom you never met in persons yet manage to say prayers for your family in times of troubles. Love is a family that sticks together no matter what.

I’m linking up with Alison from Mama Wants This and Galit from These Little Waves for their brilliant Moments Captured. Come join the fun.

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Filed Under: Photoblog

Weekly Roundup – SAHM Edition

4 Sep posted by Maureen

So, I’ve been out of work on my break for a week now and I haven’t done this Weekly Roundup in ages.

Here are some things that I’ve been doing in the past 8 days:

Spending lots of cuddles and one-on-one time with Lil’ A. The first few days he was attaching himself to me all the time. Good signs because it shows how happy he is to have me home, to wake up every morning and Mommy is home with him. Never once he asked for his Nanny who is still at her home town for Eid holiday. Kind of funny looking back now how I was a bit jealous with her because Lil’ A has been pushing me away just wanting to do stuffs with his Nanny and it stings deep inside. The boy is still out of school and now spending a 3 days weekend with his Daddy.

Picked up my dusty old DSLR camera and began taking pictures again. Of what you asked? Well, of these (Click on the tumbnails to see a bigger picture):

Back to blogging. Incase you haven’t noticed I’ve been blogging daily now and trying to hop back into the blogsphere bandwagon by visiting and commenting on other blogs that I’ve missed since I dived into the corporate world back in October last year.

Cooking! Gasp! Yes, me who basically not a big fan of cooking and used to do it merely to survive. So far I’ve cooked two dishes and since it was still the Eid holiday (read: no domestic helpers) cooking helps my mom a bit. I’ve made simple stuffs really like my Speedy Pork Chops and the biggest hit was my Beef Stew – which sadly has to be eaten with rice since my Mom’s oven is pretty messed up.

I’m still keeping up with my powerwalk but haven’t lose any more weight.

Oh and I’ve been doing a lot of this:

Life is good and I couldn’t be happier! Have a great weekend, everyone!

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Filed Under: Fun things

My 10 Favorite Photography Apps For iPhone

29 Jun posted by Maureen

I’m no expert and in my less-than-a-year love affair with iPhone, I had fallen madly in love with the many applications specifically geared for photography lover. The new word iPhonography lured me in, although quality wisely, there’s no beating DSLR camera. Still, these apps are lovely and fun to use.

Showcasing photos has never been easier with Instagram (psst, did you know you can use Webstagram to view Instagram pictures?) and the below Apps comes in handy when it comes to editing and post-processing.

Camera+ – $0.99: I always use this App to bring the clarity of a photo out before using other apps to do more editing. It’s user friendly and you get some pretty cool effects that I often use. Their borders collection are pretty neat as well.
Filterstorm- $1.99: This App rocks because of it’s more advanced ways to edit your photos taken by iPhone. I am still a novice but loving the ability to play around with Hue/Saturation (with or without layers) and so much more. Most of all I love this App’s clone function. I had successfully wiped out some unwanted items from my picture by using the clone stamp. The Straighten function is also neat for some crooked photos.
Edited using Filterstorm
PhotoForge2- $0.99: This one ties with Filterstorm in my book. It’s totally an awesome App to enhance your photos further than using the pre-made filters. You can do so much with this App and I love the Channel Mixer, Exposure Adjustment and more. Certainly so much to offer in one package. I will have to learn more about using the Layers feature.
I deleted a lamp post on this photo.
iCamera HDR – $0.99: This App made me fell in love with HDR photography. It’s so easy to use and so fun to customize your photo. The only drawback is you will need a steady hands to get a good picture. But overall, great user friendly App. Of course you can load your photos from your Library and turn them HDR but I personally thinks it’s better to use the capture mode and start with a good HDR basic then go from that.
PictureShow- $1.99: This is a fun app for iPhoneographer as it have various toy camera a sample:
Before: Edited with Camera Bag to add clarity

After: Using Picture Show

Hipstamastic – $1.99: One of the legend! This retro App really is a must have. The fun lenses, films and flashes they have makes you think you’re shooting real camera – well almost as real! The results are so unique.
iWatermark - $0.99: Pretty cool App to add some writing or watermarking your photos.
LensFlare – $0.99: How bout adding some nice flares to your picture or some bokeh-look-a-alike flares? This app can do just that easily.
TiltShift- $1.99: Tilt Shift is super cool. You can easily creates a miniature things by using this app. Not only that, you can play around with the lights, colors, etc to create something really unique.
Taken and edited with Tilt Shift
PhotoShake!- $1.99: Shaking your phone to edit some pictures never been so much fun. Aside from the shaking, this app have some of the best photo frames available. Not only that you can also do some minor color enhancing to the photos and creates pretty cool collage.
Created using Photo Shake

If you love taking pictures with your iPhone, what’s your favorite Apps?

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Filed Under: Photoblog

When It Rains…

6 Oct posted by Maureen

Jakarta (and most part of Indonesia really) has been having so much rain. It is predicted that these rain will last until February. That means the traffic will be like this most of the times

Without rain (and flooded streets) traffic in Jakarta is a nightmare already. I just spent about 2.5 hours in traffic and that was ‘pretty fast’ because we took a detour using what Indonesians calls as “Jalan Tikus” (loosely translated means mouse street) that means going through small small street cutting corners.

So what a girl gotta do when she’s bored out of her mind, her butt hurts and knowing she forgot to go to the toilet before leaving? Reached inside her purse, grab a pocket camera and starts taking pictures of course!

and another one:

Check out the other entries and join the fun over at Project Alicia

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Filed Under: Jakarta Livin', Photoblog

Photography From A Mom’s Point of View

26 Aug posted by Maureen

Growing up I don’t remember our family taking lots of pictures.

At least not to the extent that I’ve been snapping pictures of Lil’ A – which reminds me I have to do something with these mountain of digital pictures.

Yes, maybe a few clicks on birthdays or Christmas but nothing that really stood out in my memory. My parents just wasn’t big on taking pictures.

So when I was given my Oma (Grandmother) collection of pictures went back as far as 1920s, I instantly knew where this love of photography came from. She took some amazing pictures in her young age.

Then in 1992, we lost our house in a fire. At the time we were living in a small mining town called Sangatta in East Borneo. We lost everything except for the clothes on our back, an old suitcase where my father kept all of our families important documents and my bible.

It was at the cracked of dawn…it happened way too fast for us to even thinking to safe anything. All of us went out of the house bare footed. My biggest regret is not even thinking to rescue our photo albums.

Old family pictures are important to me because they act as a bridge from one generations to another. I really wish I will have a chance to ask my Oma about some of her old pictures but I fear there isn’t enough time left and some of those pictures will forever be a mystery to me. Since we had lost all of ours, what little that my family have today came from my grandparents or other families.

It’s rather sad to know that I won’t be able to show Lil’ A pictures of his mommy when she was in elementary school…picture of me with my beloved little yellow bike…or my first dancing recital pictures.

Becoming parents, mommy, had changed my way of embracing photography. Not only that it captured and freezes the milestones from the first time I hold my son to the first steps he took but it’s like a little time machine. Time machine that can still transport me back to those early days where I was too sleep deprived and tired to savor each minutes new baby brought. These old pictures can still put tears in my eyes and made me smile.

Granted, there are pictures that would be perfect for blackmailing him in his teenage years and I will keep them too. Going through little old pictures that I have of me when I was a baby it strike me too how much this boy looks like his Mommy. Here, see it for yourself:

In almost 4 years of his lifetime, Lil’ A has only been in a photo studio once and Mr. X told me that he doesn’t need to since his Mommy already has been snapping pictures since day one. With moving around I haven’t had too many pictures printed out tho’ which I should plan on doing soon.

If you’re into taking pictures of your children, how do you manage the pictures? How do you feel about them?

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Filed Under: Musings, Photoblog