Some of my stuffs in Urbanscapes.com.my

Was surfing while waiting for Irfan to tire out. He was still watching his DVD. I then noticed traffic coming into my blog from urbanscapes.com.my when looking at my stats. It turned out that my pics and blog was mentioned at the website.

 

KLicker photoshoot

090708 KLickr Meetup 7 - Let's go!, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

For my birthday tomorrow, I have decided to take an early weekend. I am off both today and tomorrow but spent the whole day sorting out things for my maid. She is flying home tomorrow for a 10-day break. I went to the Indonesian embassy this afternoon since I was told that there are special forms needed to be filled and I needed to get her passport chopped. Otherwise she will need to pay a levy on returning to Malaysia later.

I arrived there around 12.45 since I was busy with both Idlan and Irfan going to school in the morning. When we arrived, I was told that the office is closed for lunch and will only be opened after 2 pm. Then I will need to queue to pick up a form and take a number before meeting the officer. The line then was already 150 people long. I decided that I would rather pay the levy instead. I also did not have a spare N95 mask on me. Catching TB is not nice from what I've seen in hospital .... hehehe. The queue was full of migrant workers.

Since I'm off today, I said yes to the invite to join the KLickrs (KL flickr) for a photoshoot on top of one of my friend's condo in Bukit Bintang. It overlooks the twin tower and KL tower. We first met up for dinner, and started filing up the stairs by 9. We took the lift to the 33rd floor, then climbed a few flights of stairs to the rooftop at 37th. Weather was pretty clear. We brought with us the lighting equipments for the shoot.

View at the rooftopJav doing the rigging for the strobesWhen we were about to unload our gear, the security guard came up. Apparently, our mate that is a resident there did not ask for permission to climb up the roof. For security reasons, they did not want us there. Luckily, he is English and you know how Malaysians treat 'Mat Salleh'. The can get away scott-free even if they murder somebody, let alone climb up to the roof. We offered to take their pictures ... hehehe! Anyway, he gave us 5 minutes, and the 5 minute stretched from 9.30 to just after 10.

Shafina starting the solo photoshootWe got our group shot, and then we went down to street level for our individual pix. We wrapped just before 11. Organising pictures in group is not easy, but luckily there were a few pros in the group. I left the setting up to them, and I just took my LX3 along rather than my EOS. The shoot is for next month's Junk magazine. For some reason they wanted to feature the KLickr group. So, we'll wait and watch.

Yes! We went up this building for the shoot!The end result of the solo shoots. That's me, second row, second from the left. Picture courtesy of Javad Tizmaghz and Prakash Daniel.You can also see Javad's and Prakash's pictures by following the link.

Another unexpected email

Arley House, Cheshire, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

It looks like Lady Luck is upon me lately when it comes to my photos. I received an email - a flickrmail rather - from an editor just now enquiring about this particular photo. She is from Schmap Guide, an online city guide. They are drawing out their next edition in the next few weeks and have shortlisted my photo above to be included. Although there will be no monetary payment involved, they have made it clear that I will be credited with the image and there will be a link to my page in flickr, which can only be good. The guide itself is free. In fact you can have a look at the previous editions on http://www.schmap.com.

Since my photos were published in the Malay Mail, a few of my friends from KLickr - KL flickr group - warned me to make sure that I was not taken advantage of. Apparently in Malaysia, it is standard practice for the newspaper to request to use photos, did so, with no acknowledgment of the source. Should you insist on credit - we are not talking about money here, just credit - they will say thank you very much and go for another photo. Since I don't earn my living from photography, I don't really mind my photo being used, but the professionals do. I can clearly see their point of view, and I respect that. That is not saying if in the future should somebody politely ask me to use my photo, I will refuse. Far from it. What I am saying is, it would be much better if credit is given to the photographer rather than not.

As for me, I have literally thousands of photos I took during my UK days, but since most of them were rather in negatives or slides, it is rather tedious for me to share them online.

Would Somebody Like Roger be a Success if he is Malaysian?

In half an hour or so, everyone in my household will be glued to the TV to watch Mr Federer (Roger to his friends) will take on the A Rod in the Winbledon Men's Singles Final. That got me thinking. Should Malaysia for some reason were to be blessed with similar talents, will we be able to polish it into a gem?

As far as I can see, there are a few hurdles, both traditional and current. We have, especially amongst Malays this mindset that sports are only for those academically challenged. Those that are talented would have been institutionally discourage from pursuing sports for fear of not doing well in their exams. I am proud to say that I went to MRSM Terendak during my formative years and benefited greatly. I am not going to pretend that sports are my forte, but the school management were so unhelpful when it come to us excelling in sports it was untrue. We were told off when we asked to take our monthly tests early because it clashed with our football games. The answer straight out of the bat was, "Did you come here to study or to play football?". Mind you, that was for state Finals! And yes, we won.

How sad to see some of our promising youngsters in sports such as gymnastics and bowling came to a head having to decide between going to University or pursuing their Sports? The problem is just not mindset, it is infrastructure as well. Our University were just not able to accommodate talented sportmans, and should they be pushed to decide between sports and education in the Universities, the same age old question will crop up again. "Did you come to University to play sports or to get a degree?". No wonder our graduates did not fare well in the job market. Mind you, I am a University Lecturer!

God knows how many world class sportmen and women Malaysia has missed out on, just down to this mindset and infrastructure.

Idlan's Concert

Idlan's Concert 1 - The Preparation, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

Yesterday, I sneaked home early to attend Idlan's piano recital. Since the beginning of the year, Idlan has been attending a nearby Yamaha Music School. He has been making progress, and with his piano that he got for his birthday he has been knocking them away almost everyday.

Idlan delivering his piecePresent from teacherThere were a few other children in his group. They sang a couple of tunes at the beginning. After that each of them introduced themselves and play a couple of pieces solo. Idlan did fine. After that, we had some snacks. All the parents brought something along. Anita got some cupcakes from the The Curve earlier in the day and it was gone in double quick time!