The world thru my lens

Late Night @ Esplanade with The Great Spy Experiment

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:46:09 GMT

And so I got home not too long ago from GSE's show at the esplanade and what a great show it was. :)

Arrived at about 4pm for the soundcheck and already there was a couple of other photogs shooting and saw 2 familiar faces. :) I was kinda intimidated by the huge stage in the recital studio. I think this was the 1st time I've been to a show in the recital studio with such a huge stage erected.

Just as the show ended, I spoke with another photog and told her that she had a nice bag. I recognised the bag because I was also considering in getting one. Ha. Turned out that she was a friend of Eugene and she's also on LJ. (Hi Joan if you're reading this. Ha)

Nice to see so many friends, fans and relatives of the band coming to give their support and making it a sold out gig. Everyone was so supportive and this is how local music should be. All the hard work has paid off and kudos to the esplanade crew who worked very hard and staying back till we all left to clear up.

Photos soon. :)

Lazy Saturday Morning

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:27:32 GMT

Felt sick yesterday and think I had a case of mild food poisoning which cause me to visit the toilet a couple of times in as many hours and had a bodyache together with feeling lethargic and restless.

Woke up this morning to a phonecall otherwise I think I might still be sleeping now and went for breakfast with the wifey to Macdonalds. If we have Macs on the weekend, I'm the one who usually goes down to get it but today she said she wanted to go down for a walk. :)

I'm supposed to be joining some photographers gathering and sharing today but I still don't feel so good plus there's housework to be done. Also had to reject a last minute shoot in the even for the same reason, actually it's more of the bodyache and feeling tired.

So I was just checking out the new single from Weezer which would be launched on Thursday and 2 months later, their new album would be out. I really love Weezer for their catchy tunes and lyrics. I really hope to be able to catch them live one day.

Here's a video which never fails to put a smile on my face. :)

Some updates & The Police

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:14:24 GMT

Good Day everyone,

I'm not sure who still reads my livejournal actually and the thought of switching to another userid isn't really helping me post on a regular basis. Of course there is work and couple of backlogs of photos to clear. Then there's household chores to be done and actually my study room is pretty much of a mess. There's so much to do that I think 24hrs isn't really enough lately. Ha. I think it just boils down to bad time management.

There have been a couple of ad-hoc shoots lately and a couple of enquiries for my services which is a good thing. :) I think people are beginning to appreciate my work and it does make me want to work even harder at it.

Couple of gigs coming up which I should be shooting.
25th April : The Great Spy Experiment @ Esplanade. (Confirmed)
28th April : Stereophonics @ Fort Canning. (Pending)
7th May : Elton John @ Indoor Stadium. (Pending)
13th May : James Blunt @ Indoor Stadium. (Confirmed)

There's also gonna be an event shoot for a relaunch of a magazine sometime in May and I guess it's gonna be fun. :)

I mentioned that I would be posting some of The Police photos I shot in Feb so here they are. I also just found out that some of the photos are in April's issue of LIME.

Oh, did I mentioned that I met the band backstage? :)
If only I had the time to take a photo with them!

Save Rajah the dog!

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:10:37 GMT

How could they do such a thing?!
*angry*

Fiction Plane Live In Singapore

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:42:10 GMT

So a couple of days later after the Switchfoot gig, I received a very last minute confirmation telling me that I'll be able to shoot The Police gig. I had given up hope actually as I didn't get any news the day before the gig. Of course, I was very excited the hours before the gig I had butterflies in my stomach as this should be the biggest gig for 2008 for me.

Fiction Plane opened for The Police and we were only allowed to shoot the last 3 songs of their set before moving out for awhile to the holding area and coming back into the pit for The Police. Fiction Plane is a band from England and is fronted by Joe Sumner who is also the son of Sting. Joe Sumner also plays the bass just like his dad and also sings like him.

Anyway, here are a couple of shots from their set that I like.

Switchfoot Live In Singapore

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:33:09 GMT

Switchfoot visited our shores in last month and I was there to capture the band in action.
I don't really like the venue as it's very far for me and the acoustics there don't really do justice to any band.
The turnout wasn't that great but to those who were there, it was definately an enjoyable show. Switchfoot has always been an entertaining band live and indeed it was. They interacted with the crowd, jumped around and leaped from the amps and drumkit. Frontman Jon Foreman even came down from the stage twice and climb onto the barricades to mingle with the fans.
Lighting for the show was pretty bad for us photographers as there was very little lights on the band members faces. Excessive smoke made it more difficult as well as the dim red lightings that the band employed during parts of the show.
One of the best part of the show was when the band suddenly froze with their rockstar poses with strobe lights beaming down on them. I'm pretty sure they stood still in their poses for more then 2mins. As the stage was a little too big for my lens, I wasn't able to capture the whole band in that glorious moment.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the show even more as the band management as well as the promoter let us photographers stay in the pit throughout the whole show. Kudos to the band for letting us do our job better and of course we have to return the favour by getting good shots and trying best not to distract the band.

Here's some photos to share..

MTVasia review can be read here : http://www.mtvasia.com/Review/Event/E20080204001632.html

More photos from me here : http://www.aloysiuslim.com/switchfoot

Happy Lunar New Year!

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 06:28:13 GMT

Happy Lunar New Year to all Chinese friends and those who are celebrating. :)
This is the first year and I've to give out red packets. Ha.
It's also the first year that I drove the family out to visiting and it was quite a stressful experience as there were so many vehicles on the road.
On the expressway we saw 2 accidents, one of which involved 8 cars in a collision. I was also quite lucky to be able to find parking space easily at each stop we made.

Photography wise, I've recently covered various shows of Dream Theater, Switchfoot and I think the biggest show of 2008 will be The Police last week.
Switchfoot's show was a nice change from all the heavy hard rock and the atmosphere was good. I enjoyed their set and the band put on a good show on stage. There was a huge photopit for the photographers and video crew which made moving around easier but the best part was that the band's management as well as the organisers let us stay in the photopit throughout the whole show.

The Police live in Singapore was a pretty intense experience. I had actually given up on getting credentials for the gig and was only on the morning of their show that I had gotten confirmation that I've been given the green light. I had to be there 2 hours before the show for a short brief which lasted only 5mins and I had like 2 hrs to kill. Luckily I bumped into some friends and we went to have a drink and chit chat nearby.

We were allowed to shoot the last 3 songs of the opening band's, Fiction Plane, set. Fiction Plane is fronted by Sting's son who also plays the bass. He sings and plays just like his Dad. While waiting for The Police to come on I turned around to look at the crowd and never in my life have I seen the Indoor Stadium filled to the brim. Official numbers was 10,700 which was a capacity crowd. The back of the stage was also opened up and it was full as well. In other words, people paid to see the back view of Sting and band. Hehe. The band came on much to the cheers of everyone and 2 songs was all I had so I had to make full use of it. 2 songs later and I came out happy 'cos I got the shots I wanted and also 'cos I had a brief meeting with Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland backstage.

Photos soon and Gong Xi Fa Cai once again. :)

My first post for 2008!

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:40:59 GMT

Oh wow, my last post was in Sept last year! Ha.
I guess I've been busy as well as lazy. More lazy I guess. :p

Anyway me and the wifey went to Bintan some time in October last year for a short break. It had been raining for the first 2 days and the sun only came out on the morning that we had to leave. Managed to grab some shots and took a nice dive in the cool waters.

All shot on the LCA+.
Fuji Astia 100 slide film.
Xpro.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:59:27 GMT

Some old ones which I recently got processed.
Am glad that the film is still ok. :)
Expired Fuji Astia 100.
LCA+

To Aussie We go!

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:35:51 GMT

Well, not exactly we..more like a photo of mine. :)
If all goes well, a pic of Nic Cester of Aussie band JET, would be in a magazine in Australia and 50 copies of a limited edition signed poster of Nic. I would also be getting a signed copy of the poster with the pic I took on it.
How cool is that? :)

Time to work out details. Wish me luck!

My Virgin Pinhole Experience

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:54:44 GMT

These were taken some time back.
Only found time recently to process them and scan.

8 Banners Pinhole Camera.
Lucky 100 120film.

Everything We Had - The Academy Is

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 07:30:31 GMT

I'm hooked on this song now! I think it's a great song. :)

SINGfest Day 1 - 08/08/2007

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:07:59 GMT

And now let the photos do the talking..

Sasha Bach Band

Shaggy

Cyndi Lauper + Shaggy

Sugar Ray

Pet Shop Boys

The Fans

SINGfest-ed and WOMAD-ed

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:52:01 GMT

Alright, so it has been a rather happening month of August for me. :)
Firstly I shot the very first of it's kind here, SINGfest, over 2 days and missed the National Day parade totally. All I saw was little glimpse of the fireworks over at Fort Canning. Music at SINGfest was awesome. I managed to get backstage and saw many of the artists that were performing. I spoke to Shaggy and Cyndi Lauper and show them a pic I took of them together during their duet of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". Cyndi loved the pic and mumbled an email address which I totally forgot and I didn't have a pen with me! Oh well, I'll email it to her somehow. Said Hi to Travis from Gym Class Heroes and William Beckett from The Academy Is. William's such a nice guy and down to earth. Kudos to him for spending more than an hour signing autographs and chatting to the fans right after the show. Could tell he was really tired (the band touched down 5am and went straight for soundcheck and played the show later in the afternoon) and sweaty but that didn't stop him.
Despite the incident during Avenged Sevenfold's set, I would say that the overall experience was great. :) I really hope the organisers would have another SINGfest next year even after the reported losses over the whole event.

WOMAD just ended over the weekend and I went for all 3 days. Well, wasn't really there from start till end. Day 1 I arrived only for Asian Dub Foundation. Somehow WOMAD just wasn't my kind of music and I only wanted to grab some pix of ADF. They were alright although I felt that the crowd wanted more from them. Left the venue as soon as their set ended to avoid the traffic. Day 2 wasn't that bad even though it was a little wet from the drizzle. I had better vibes then day 1 and enjoyed the music a little more. During my short duration during the 1st day, all I saw was many hugging and kissing going on. Hmm, it seem that the music was secondary for those people. Particulary enjoyed The Mohetalla Queens from South Africa. 3 grannies who are still very much into the craft and passion. Respect to them. I also enjoyed David D'or from Israel. He was energetic and knew how to work the crowd. Oh yes, his voice was amazing too! Day 3 highlight for me was Darra J. Even though I've not heard their music before but they were pretty amazing. Lively, dancing up and down, jumping and working the crowd. Good music as well. All in all it was my 1st WOMAD experience and it wasn't too bad if not for the excess hugging and kissing I saw. Ha.

Alrite, photos soon. Cheers.

JET photos on official site!

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:16:09 GMT

Oh, what a nice surprise. :)

Self Portraits

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 05:11:21 GMT

And so I got bored while waiting for the apparent fireworks from last Saturday's combined NDP rehearsal (which didn't take place). I gave up 3hrs of Baybeats for it! Arrgh! A friend of ours had a beautiful spot for us to catch the fireworks from 23 storeys high and the place gave me so many ideas for a photoshoot but I don't think I'll be able to make use of that place.

Nonetheless, we were still able to see the chinooks, apaches and F16s pretty close which was cool. :)

Anyway, was just fooling around with the camera and some flashes. I recently bought the ringflash from Lomography and I must say it's a pretty cool flash. :)

My meeting with Jay Chou

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 07:42:35 GMT

And so Jay Chou arrived on our shores just a couple of days ago and I was there at the "Secret" Dance Party held at Dragonfly to take some pix.

The stage

Fans brought their own hand made posters

The stars of the show with the host of the afternoon

Oh look, he smiled at me

Autograph session

Jay giving a call to one lucky person to win a prize but that person didn't pick up the phone so he called someone else.

Goodbye!

I'm baaaaaack!

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:35:40 GMT

Back! Back! Have not posted in ages 'cos I've been so busy! Finally have some time now to update this little journal of mine. So what has happened in the past few months since my last post you may ask?

I shot a couple more gigs..got an apartment to call my own..settled the renovations and got married to a lovely and beautiful lady. I am now blogging in my new home. :) We've moved in for exactly one month now and slowly getting used to living our lives together.

Some long awaited photos..

Concave Scream, Live @ Esplanade. All acoustic set! What a treat. :)

Close Apart & The Great Spy Experiment opened for UK Band, Bugs In The Attic.

Rivermaya Live In Singapore.

NOFX Live In Singapore. (What a hot and sweaty but fun gig to shoot!)

The Observatory New Album Launch at Zouk.

"I will love and honour you all the days of my life" She's the love of my life. :)

Jose Villa Wedding Photography Workshop. Learnt a hell lot from Jose and it was so much fun. Will try to put into practice what I've learnt.

Jet, Live In Singapore. These guys are pretty good live!

Rock For Wayne. A Tribute To Wayne Thunder.
"Remember The Thunder". We miss you Wayne.

Gracious..NOT!

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 03:08:40 GMT

Lately I've been irked or should I say disgusted with our fellow Singaporeans actions. Sometimes it's things like these that makes me ashamed to be called a Singaporean. I don't know..maybe I'm just too sensitive but still disgusting if you ask me.

Just to quote a few examples I noticed recently that irked me.

1. MRT. Yes, many disgusting things happen in the train. From the usual people wanting to rush in and not letting the passangers get out first. That really irks me and if I push my way thru and you get hit, don't blame me. Couple of days ago, empty seat next to me and there was this guy next to the empty seat with his leg wide open and then later one leg up on his knee. In comes an elderly lady and he still doesn't want to make some space for her. You could argue why I didn't give up my seat, there wasn't a need to. The elderly lady couldn't seat due to his selfish and stupid legs. Luckily she got a seat awhile later.

2. MRT again. Just yesterday I was on my way to City Hall. Few stations later in comes in a man carry his infant in his hands. No pram/stroller. Just in his hands with his maid carrying the bag. He stands in front of a young lady. She was seated on the double seat near the door. The ones where the sign says "PLEASE GIVE UP YOUR SEAT TO SOMEONE WHO NEEDS IT MORE..along those lines". She looks at him and continues reading her book. WTF man! If the train takes a sudden jerk, the dad will lose his balance 'cos he has no hands to hold the railings and the possibility that the baby will fall is pretty high.

3. Esplanade Hawker Center. I think it's called Glutton's Bay. Anyway, dinner crowd and lack of cleaners. Normal for a busy Saturday evening. This man found an empty table but it was not cleared and so he just took the plates and utensils and simply threw them on the floor creating some amount of noise and went to buy his food. What kind of an idiot is that? Is that the example he wants to set for his kid?

I could go on and on but oh well..so much for courtesy campaigns and what have you. I've told people off before on trains and buses so ya..I will not hesitate to do it again. Ha. Gracious society? I think NOT!

Busy Busy Month!

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:29:53 GMT

March has been a really busy and crazy month!
I need more rest! Hehe. :p

1st March - Had a memorable birthday. Why? I celebrated my birthday and went for the wedding photoshoot on the same day. Ha. Although it was raining, we still had fun in the studio and managed to go to one of our outdoor destination. We had the wonderful and the excellent, Mr Eugene from Chris Ling as our photographer. Eh Eugene, you just caused me and Jess to have a big hole in our pockets. Haha. But it's a good problem to have! Thank you!

2nd March - Electrico's Live In New Wave Concert.

More photos from their show soon.

In the next couple of days, had to settle the admin issues for our renovations and all.

Now there's the Mosaic Music Festival to work on. It's been tiring so far but I really learnt quite abit. There's just so much different genres of music to listen to and of course shoot. Each performance has it's own special moments and I've gotta try and capture that. :p Gotta learn from the pros.

This has gotta be one of my favourites from the past few nights. I've been capturing so much of the musicians themselves then I've neglected the audience.

Few more days of Mosaic to go. House reno starting soon. It's about time to buy the household stuff. Oh man, it's gonna be quite stressful! Hehe. :p

[Electrico] : Live @ Good Vibrations Festival, Singapore

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:14:10 GMT

;

Just some photos of Electrico I took during their Good Vibrations gig. :)

Do go for their next and last Singapore show! Details in the flyer.

[Electrico] : Live In New Wave Concert. Last Singapore show.

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:19:38 GMT

The guys will be taking a well deserved break after they are back from their USA tour.
This is the last Singapore show.
Lets go!

Happy Lunar New Year + Good Vibrations

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 04:21:55 GMT

Happy Lunar New Year to all those celebrating!
Gong Xi Fa Cai! :)

And so today marks the end of the holiday for most and it's back to work.
Oh man, I'm so dreading to go back to work after the past few days of chinese new year celebration.
Hadn't had much rest and there was just so much eating and snacking.
Not much new year mood for me this year but still went about visiting and collecting red packets. Ha.
This is the last year for me to collect. :p

Went to Good Vibrations Festival on Monday. It rained for awhile in the afternoon and after that it was just so hot and humid.
Lots of people, lots of drunk and happy people. Lots of unhappy people too. Ha.
For me, I was just pretty stoned. An alright festival I guess.
Despite the hiccups, I'm sure many went home happy.

The Beastie Boys were definately working the crowd. Despite the white hair and all, they still put on a good show for the fans. :)

Some of my favourite photos from the evening. :)

Daniel Sassoon from Electrico with his trademark jumps. :)

I call him Johnny Greenwood..only thing is that he's from Cut Copy and not Radiohead.

Probably the last show from Jurassic 5. Still they gave it their all despite the sound hiccups. :)

That's all from me. Cheers and have a good one.

It's been a long time..

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:35:15 GMT

Yikes..my last entry was like almost 3 weeks ago!
Things have been moving pretty fast.
I've lots of things to do and so little time to even blog. Ha.
Excuses excuses but really there's not much time to blog.

Anyway, MUSE was a blast! There were so amazing live!
What a way to kickoff 2007! Lots of bands coming out way and we can only hope for more good stuff!
Matt Bellamy set a pretty high standard for the fans. Hehe. Enjoyed the gig as well as the shoot. :)
Met Farhat at the gig and am glad to have bumped into him. Nice pictures from the pro!
I didn't go to Hoobastank. My friend said she enjoyed it alot.
Judging from the online interview I saw, they were pretty annoyed and just pissed!

We've also met up with a couple of IDs/Contractors and we've more or less decided on one already.
We're still deciding on what we want and can do without and then try to get the best price from the ID.
No signature on the dotted line yet means we can bargain and bargain. Hehe.
I don't know but some IDs just don't seem to bother about you! We email them, fax them, call them and they just don't get back to us.
Anyway, that just pretty sums up the service you're gonna get if you sign up with them.
Hopefully we can have our nice and cosy home. I won't say dream home cos we ain't got that kind of money yet. :p

Went to the semi finals of the ASEAN championships at the National Stadium last Saturday. Oh man, what a great match it was!
It was kind of a last minute decision to go and although we got there about half time (due to the stupid jam), we still managed to get tickets from some kids and someone who was trying to make a quick buck out of it.
Good memories from the Malaysia Cup came to mind and the rivalry between the 2 sides is just intense and this all adds up to the fun of watching it live. :)

ASEAN Rocks! kicked off at the Hard Rock Cafe on Sunday and I was there for the opening day. Didn't expect so many people but actually a bulk of them were delegates and VIPs from the ASEAN countries. Anyway, our very own Wicked Aura, Hady Mirza and Electrico gave wonderful performances which everyone enjoyed. :)

I need more sleep! Photoshoot coming up and I still need to lose more weight! Arrrgh.

Busy Busy!

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 06:05:17 GMT

So busy so busy!
There's so many things to do and so little time.
Ha..I'm always complaining about not enough time to do stuff.
I think I have bad time management. (I'm sure my Darling will agree when she sees this :P)

Anyway, hardly have time to blog now and don't know what to blog about.
I've not been shooting for a long time. Not sure how my camera is now man.
I've got lots of undeveloped rolls of film from my lomos and need to find time to get them developed. Hai.

Lotsa gigs coming up. Heh.
You can't have them all can't you?

Eric Clapton. Can't go. :(
Muse. Going!
Hoobastank. Should be going.
Good Vibrations festival coming up..2nd day of CNY! How to go?
Mosiac Festival. Must try to go.
Electrico, Live in New Wave. Must go!

So many gigs. So little money. Heh.

Oh yes, I'm working on a new site as well. :) Hopefully can launch soon.

Now must diet diet cos photoshoot coming up!