Singapore Garden Festival 2014

First time rented a Canon macro lens to learn how to shoot macro. I got the lens from Camera Rental Centre ~ EF100mm F2.8L which is really a powerful lens dedicated for macro photography. As a noob, I had a challenging time trying to manual focus hand-held, thou I know that using a tripod is the ideal situation. I spent a total of 6 hours at the biennial Singapore Garden Festival held for the 1st time at Gardens by the Bay. Previously, everything were indoor at Suntec, but this round got to endure some heat (esp i started fr Noon) as part of the exhibits were outdoor. The layout of the air-con pavilions were also abit confusing... nevertheless, i tried to navigate slowly, looking out for potential subjects to shoot. I like the Fantasy Gardens but the darkness there made setting up on tripod a Must and also my sensitive sensor tends to shoot high ISO, garnering RAW files as big as 30MB! *gasp* 

When move over to the Flower Dome, it was easier to do hand-held as there were ample sunlight shining thru' the glass dome. I was already quite tired but I strive on, wanting to understand the ideal depth of field and discovering interesting angles to shoot the same plant that everyone sees thru' my lens. The end result was getting a blurry version but also quite happy that I got some satisfactory shots. Below is a selection of my album & prints are available for sales via http://500px.com/minzstudio 

 

Singapore Garden Festival 2012

The long awaited Singapore Garden Festival (SGF) 2012 is here! I had made a mental note since saw the news about two months ago... Today is my first time doing photography at this biennial affair. I remembered I went to the World Orchid Conference last year & had a 'feel' of what it was like doing indoor nature shoot.  I read from the SGF website that there will be an area similar to the orchid show too... hmm, i want to practice shooting other type of flowers!

Welcome!

After a quick Subway lunch, i headed to Suntec City... due to its renovation, visitors had to walk 1 round to get to its Convention hall. I decided to start from Level 6 which housed the main attractions... The corridor area was nicely decorated & gave one the feel of stepping into Fairy Land! The exhibit's mascots are Mr.Grasshopper with his violin, Ladybird & a Bee! The grand display of a cinderella style carriage at the corridor already WOW the audience! After a brief shoot, I stepped into the exhibition hall....woo! Blasting cold air-con! The thermometer was so much colder than normal to accomodate the plants.

I decided to start my exploration from the right side as I saw a crowd on the left! The first show garden that i saw was the 'Northern Light' ~ a fireplace inside an igloo, with colourful balls hanging from the ceiling. As I moved on, I noticed that every seating area was decked out with white orchids... also worth a shoot while resting your tired feets! When I reached the extreme right side of the hall, I saw colourful balloons tied to bottles of flowers! This proved to be a kids' favourite too!

"I captured light to lit your path at night"

Next, I saw this display titled "I Can Fly'' from Korea... the main flowers didn't catch my attention as much as the tiny 'lantern-like' flowers! This bright yellowish-orange fella simply stole the show! I had to switch to my zoom lens & set up tripod to shoot it. This proved to be my toughest shoot of the day as I spent a long time trying to get it right in-camera! I guess here's the start of over-straining my legs muscles! *geez*

"Fu-Ji-Tei" from Japan ~ will be nice to meditate in such Zen garden!

As I was trying to shoot the dragon floral display, a lady behind me asked me to move aside to let her take a pic of the explanation board. She was using a Canon point & shoot, but kept unable take a proper pic... trying to be nice, i offered to help her. She didn't allow me help her & simply commented that she's not as pro as ME! *faint* I never think I'm Pro ah!

Frame it Up!

Hello! Dwarfs!

"Alice in Wonderland"

After a series of wide angle shots, i decided to switch to my 50mm lens to some macro shots... simply love the bokeh  (blurry background) effects! Subsequently, i walked to the other side of the hall & caught sight of the Best of Show display by Singaporean Damian Tang. Titled "Garden of Tales", each frame is a fairy tale & combined together form an art piece. A crowd-puller for sure! ^o^

Then, i saw some people walking into a 'tunnel', the exterior was like walking into outer space! Upon stepping in, I was amazed by the ''Flora Kaleidoscope''! This was really interesting...

By the time i finished touring level 6, i realised i had spent a whopping 4.5 hours here! No wonder, i felt soooo tired! I proceeded to level 4 & the corridor's theme was 'Mask'. This level turned out to be Orchid Show! I tot that it's just a small area but there's still quite a number of orchids displays....OMG! I strived on to complete the shooting in 1 hour. A total of 5.5 hours of photo marathon at Garden Festival! Lugged home not just 5GB of photos, but left with a blurry vision & extreme muscles ache too!