Words find themselves hard to stick in one piece as they escape his mouth riding on a heavy Middle-eastern accent. Incomprehensible syllables collapse into hypnotic murmurs that mutes the world into a muffled silence as I resorted to lip-read his 350-WPM bullet-train of sentences. All the awhile drawing my dreamy gaze onto every silent flap, sway and whirl of his arms.

I shifted my focus to the projection screen in front of the class that’s supposed to show figures and formulas and notes but nothing came into clarity. I squinted, but my weary eyes did the opposite — the world around warped into blurriness as my eyelids fell shut at the opportunity.

Large. Blank. Void. Nothing.

Clueless in the morning light.

The mid-term break right now does little to slow down what I feel is our toughest semester yet. Yes, it’s been a whole half of a semester since I wrote anything or uploaded any photos. Speaking of which, I guess I have been taking my liberation off Project 365 a little too heavily.

Endless piles of assignment, tutorial and lab work dictates firing up Adobe Lightroom an unnecessary luxury. What more clicking around with my dSLR. Not that I feel great about it. I left behind readers of my now-dormant photoblog and if I may say so, a following on Flickr that accompanied me through my 365 journey. Danbo’s lying beside my laptop enveloped in a thin but unmistakable layer of dust. Comments such as the one ejana left on my 365 finale shot broke my heart.

Lost in a sea of sand.

My inner shutterbug wants more than anything to get out.

But as they always say: desperate times, desperate measures.

Done!

I started this project without much expectations, with only the desire to observe the limits of photography with a dSLR. I was brimming with excitement with my new dSLR camera then — though I wasn’t new to photography – but what better way to do that than to dive head-first into this project?

Fast forward a year later, as I hit the upload button on my final shot; hitting the red ‘X’ on Photoshop and then closing my Project 365 folder, I felt a rush of joy that accompanies the sense of liberation. An immense weight dragged off my back. Nothing was more gratifying than seeing the auto-generated completion counter on my photoblog showing a proud, ‘100% done!’ I blinked, for a moment, this is it?

Then the sadness sets in. The shoot-process-upload routine has become a ritual I perform every day to please the 365 gods I’ve devoted myself to for a whole year. Project 365 has become a part of my life. I wake up worrying about what to shoot; space out in lectures thinking of a setup and go to bed relieved that I have the day’s shot done and uploaded. Now a mere click puts all that behind in a blink of an eye.

This is going to take some getting used to, I thought.

Day 183/365: Reaching the halfway point.

Emoness aside, the project is by far, the lengthiest self-motivated long-term endeavour I’ve ever successfully completed in my life. That’s why it’s gonna deserve a good, hard look back on how I did it and the obstacles that plagued it’s entire duration.

Getting that shot

Taking my camera everywhere I go

When I started Project 365, I knew I had to bring my camera everywhere I go. Tugging my camera around during outings are okay, the real obstacle was when I had to inevitably bring it to campus — daily. The last thing I wanted was being labelled a show-off who just can’t help showing off his shiny new dSLR every single day. And let’s face it – a dSLR, even the tiny 1000D – isn’t as unobtrusive. The moment you yank it out, a good number of people within eyeshot would definitely look your way. There are times you’d wish to have a big banner above your ahead bearing the words, ‘I’m on Project 365! Suemeifyoucanttakeit.’

DSLRs are way more obtrusive compared to compacts.

So yes, I brought my camera with me to campus every single day for the past year. It spends most of the day tumbling around in my backpack, only seeing daylight when I’m with my close friends – who’re fully aware of my project – when I see a shot or feel comfortable enough to whip my camera out.

The creative spark

Maintaining a Project 365 stream requires a daily dose of creativity I didn’t have. While there are days chock full of activities and events that ends up in a post-processing nightmare, more often than not there were those boring and uninspiring days that beg of you to give up.

The first thing I’d do when the clock strikes – literally – at the eleventh-hour, is to quickly browse through Flickr’s Explore photos. Granted, not all Explore photos are great ones. Computer algorithms can only do so much to compile a collection of ‘good’ photos every day from the Flickr archive, but there are quite a few legitimately good shots out there daily that might give just that spark.

Then there’s the 100-steps challenge. The idea is to drag yourself and your camera outdoors, walk a hundred steps and start taking photos of anything at the end of your path. I don’t follow the hundred-steps rule that strictly, but I often find myself taking strolls in the garden snapping high and low so I can be done with the day’s photo. There are also days after classes where I take a detour somewhere for a short solo photowalk that can be very rewarding at times.

Danbo saves the day!

Somewhere in the 200’s into the project, I decided to get myself Danbo, an action figure from the manga, Yotsub&! I don’t think I’ve formally introduced Danbo yet, so here goes. In the manga, Danbo is actually a robot costume made of cardboard and was donned by Miura to entertain a curious Yotsuba. Despite appearing only very briefly (a single chapter, to be exact), the robot with geometrical features stole the hearts of many.

Day 334/365: Danbo getting cold feet.

There’s a reason why I thought Danbo would be helpful to my Project. I was intrigued by how expressive — or the lack thereof — Danbo can be. Tilt his head up, he can express anything from being dreamy to excitement. Swing his head back down, he’ll appear downright sad or just simply, afraid. And that sort of flexibility is especially useful when you have to shoot something daily. =)

The Workflow

A typical 365 shot you see posted takes an arm and a leg to produce. Taking the shot itself is just the beginning — the real headache starts in the digital darkroom. The photos go through rigorous polishing work in Lightroom, of which the best of the best are subjected to a stringent selection process before the last photo standing is delivered to you.

Seriously though, there are generally two types of shots I do in my 365 — snapshots and set-ups. Snapshots are usually quick takes of life as it flies by, like that quick moment as a child hands out titbits to a monkey; or candid photos of my friends in the labs. Set-ups are exactly what it means, ideas and subjects that are set-up in advance allowing me to explore different angles and variations in the process.

I use Lightroom for cataloguing and post-processing of my photos. Photos would normally go through adjustments such as white-balance, exposure correction, split toning and curves to name a few. Candidates for posting are then exported in full size and thrown into Photoshop, where sharpening, brushing and any other pixel-level editing are necessary.

The final shot for the day is then exported from Photoshop and uploaded to Flickr via the very useful Flickr Uploadr. While I throw the photo into Uploadr, I’ll do the write-up for the Photoblog post and grab the photo URL from Flickr as it finishes uploading. The moment I hit Publish, the photo would be up fresh on both Flickr and my photoblog.

Number Crunching

I love statistics. Numbers tell a story when presented. And a 365 report wouldn’t be complete without some solid numbers to show off.

I could’ve plotted the following graph off the back of my head:

It shows the time the day’s shot was taken and when it was uploaded. This graph could’ve roughly been my internet-surfing habits for the past year (especially the Postings plot).

While pretty self-explanatory, I like how the graph reflects my love of shooting during the golden hour. Seriously, who could resist taking photos when everything is cast in a shade of gold? The graph also shows evidence of a few (28 days, to be exact) shots that were taken after the day technically ended at midnight (0000-0200hrs). When life got too hectic, I gave myself a little leeway to end the day only when I retire to the sheets, not after the clock hits 12 midnight. If I’d spend a day and gone to bed without a shot, then only it’ll be a missed day.

Another interesting graph to look at is the comments-per-shot plot. I’d take the opportunity to explain why I cross-post my photos to Flickr and my Photoblog. Flickr is a massive photographic community that’s bound to bring recognition to your photos if they’re worthy of it. But not wanting to leave my friends / non-Flickr readers out of the fun, I created the photoblog.

So photos posted to both sites have distinctive sets of audiences. I’ve also found out that the volume of Flickr comments are understandably based mostly on the quality of the images; whereas Photoblog comments can be influenced by my write-up if I occasionally share some thoughts and updates, if not based on how good the photo is. The graph clearly shows how Flickr comments can in-proportionally spike due to Explores but with Photoblog comments hovering about the same average all throughout. Interesting.

I’m actually surprised to find out the type of shots I’ve been taking for the past year are rather healthily spread-out. I thought Nature and Campus would’ve snatched a good chunk of the pie. Of my arsenal of lenses (of two), I clearly show huge bias towards the nifty fifty. One reason that might even remotely affect this was that my kit lens was sentenced to a 61-day stint in the Canon ICU back in May.

The Last Words

I’ve said it on my final 365 post and I’ll say it again. What started out as a project with low-expectations became a fulfilling experience thanks to all of you — readers of my Photoblog, awesome Flickr contacts, fellow coursemates and fellow photographers that made Project 365 a blast. You guys are the catalysts to the completion of this project, no less.

I opened the door committing myself to this project last year without much certainty, it is without doubt that I emerged from the other end of the path a different person today. It’s amazing what a year of photography can do.

A project of a lifetime.

I’m now enjoying life after 365. So much so that I haven’t been shooting for the past week! Haha. While I’ve said that I won’t be continuing on another project 365, I figured that I should give it another round in the (distant) future. It was really tough at times, but it was well worth it and definitely deserves another try. =)

With that, I officially sign off this ultra-lengthy post of an equally lengthy project of a lifetime.

So — *slaps on a 3-foot-thick face* — during the mid-term break five uh, weeks ago, the family tagged along Dad to Sibu where he had official duty. We spent the night at Betong before continuing on the journey along the Trans-Borneo highway to the third largest city of Sarawak.

The famous Sibu Express Boat Wharf — 3 exposure HDR

Almost six whole hours on the road later, we found ourselves in the midst of the bustling town of Sibu. Dad took us straight to the famous express boat wharf  — a nostalgic sight I haven’t seen in some good 10 years. And boy had this laid-back town changed over the years, most prominently with the addition of Sarawak’s tallest building — the Wisma Sanyan.

Wisma Sanyan: The tallest building in Sarawak is not in Kuching, mind you.

Incidentally, our hotel was right next to this towering monolith and the country’s largest town square it looks upon. We sighed a breath of relief when Dad pulled up onto the lobby of RH Hotel, which was thankfully a universe away from the bare-boned one we spent the night in back in Betong.

The room — and my workstation throughout the stay

So this was where we spent the next 5 days.

Hanging out in the corridors

Camwhoring

Coffee?

My Sis and I was also lucky enough to find access to the executive floors one bored morning. We literally explored every corner of that 14-storey building. Funny thing was, the lift blocked access to the executive floors the next time when we tried to bring Mom and Dad up.

RH Hotel’s Executive Suites

Because the rooms came with complimentary breakfast at the hotel restaurant for two, we took turns to head down every morning for a scrumptious buffet breakfast.

Breakfast was never this good

When not eating in the hotel, we’d head out. I must say though, RH Hotel has the most strategic location. It was just a stone’s throw away from the Wisma Sanyan mall and the humongous Sibu Town Square. Not to mention, only a walking distance from countless eateries of Sibu’s CBD. Seriously, you have to be really lazy to stay hungry there.

Throughout our stay, the rain gods were kind enough to spare their lightning spears and water hoses. For it didn’t rain even a single drop in the five days we were in Sibu. The clear skies all day long eventually led into beautiful sunsets over the Rejang River. Ones that scream for you to get out and shoot.

Sister and dusk at the Sibu Town Square — 3-exposure HDR

Which was exactly what I did.

Mom and Sis at the Sibu waterfront park

We also walked over to the  really well-kept Sibu waterfront park for an even better view of sunsets.

On the last day, we had lunch at the Sibu Central Market. Dad recalled of how they display livestock for sale in the market — all wrapped up in newspaper tubes with only their heads bobbing up and down. It was a must-see.

Live chickens in the Sibu Central Market

It didn’t take long for us to find the live chickens. While initially amused at how they were left with their heads excitedly bobbing, some of these poor birds just hung their heads low — as if in hopeless despair. I felt a tinge of sympathy as I shot them through my viewfinder. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not turning vegetarian anytime soon. Chickens are..well, chickens. It is their fate, however unfortunate.

Nonetheless, we headed up to the 1st floor of the market to savour some authentic Sibu food for the last time. Not missing, of course, the oh-so-overrated kompiah — dry and hard oven-baked lumps of flour sprinkled with sesame seeds. I never understood how could people eat them as-is. Other than its bland taste, its dry and rock-hard texture could seriously break some teeth.

Sibu kompiah stuffed with minced meat

But, when you slice a kompiah in half, stuff some juicy minced meat into it and deep-fry it into some golden-brown goodness — you’ve got the best delicacy 60 cents can buy you (prices may vary). It was the first stuff we ordered as soon as we sat down.

Knowing all so well one cannot leave Sibu without a large bag of kompiahs, we headed to the old Sibu Market after lunch to get ourselves some of them freshly-baked from authentic kompiah bakeries. If you’ve never seen how kompiahs are baked, here you go:

Fresh batches of kompiah in a traditional Chinese oven

The bakery workers wasn’t all that happy about me pointing my camera into the kitchen as he swiftly moved into the frame to completely block my view. As if I’m planning to copy and patent their space-age tech to mass-produce kompiahs in my mega kompiah factory. Although that isn’t such a bad idea. =)

So armed with a huge bag of steaming hot kompiahs we embarked on the journey back home with only Dad to thank for bringing us along for this trip while he worked is ass off. This is my Dad for you. Thanks pops!

Tone-mapped 3-exposure HDR of the campus

This time around though, our brilliant brains over at the Student Admin devised another tutorial enrollment method — first come, first serve tutorial registrations during the first lectures throughout the first week. Student admin officers would come in in a middle of a lecture and wreak havoc turning a class of a hundred sitted students into a stampede of hopefuls rushing to secure their names on a list of their desired tutorial group.

More often than not, scenes like that turn ugly when the slower ones were left group-less or left with tutorial slots that wouldn’t fit the timetable. Then there are moments of utter confusion of the assigned time slots, the cutting of queues, exchanging of shouts between the student admin officers and students — you get the idea.

Tutorial registration during Energy & Motion lectures in the Lecture Theater

All these experimenting of tutorial enrollment methods semester after semester left me wondering how does our parent University in Melbourne conduct their tutorial enrollments. I’m sure there’s an effective way our student admin can learn from and stick with rather than changing how we register our tutorial slots every semester, never failing to cause chaos and confusion every time.

Eggy’s pencil case during C Programming Labs

Anyhow, the dust has settled and tutorials, labs and lectures are now in full swing. This semester brings about a few rather interesting subjects other than the four boring exam-oriented ones I had last semester. There’s this Robotics Project 1 subject that includes a component on C Programming — something I’ve been looking forward to for awhile. We also have a component on Computer Aided Design which we started off with manual drawing of plans before moving on the mastering the well-known and used AutoCAD program.

Making a beeline for The Spring mall

On a related note, now that the semester has started, I’m finding it rather hard to keep up with Project 365. Not that I didn’t see this coming, but I thought I could persevere. I just couldn’t see myself bringing my dSLR to campus everyday looking for that shot. Then there’ll be waves of assignments to be dealt with, tests and exams. Blah.

I’ve been thinking hard on my decision to go on with Project 365 now that it’s been put on a temporary hiatus. Sacrificing my dSLR for my parents’ trip to NZ was harder that I thought, no doubt. But I thought it was worthwhile considering it is a once-in-a-lifetime trip and thus, are memories worth being recorded with the best gear possible.

Rest assured, Project 365 is a challenge I’m willing to push myself to accomplish — fueled both by my love for photography and you, yes you, for your support and readership — are really what that keeps me going on, be it also in praises, constructive criticisms or just plain Flickr pageviews.

Seeing chrome — taken outside The Spring — 50mm f/1.8

Until then, see you in an aeon. =)

Luckily Canon had this really, really affordable lens in the form of the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II that wouldn’t really hurt my wallet after spending on the 1000D just less than two months ago. Which, bring us to the fact that its been barely two months into my foray into the dSLR world and I’m already getting a second lens.

A few friends were surprised that I’m already acquiring a new lens so soon. Thing is, I’m not new to dSLRs or photography in general. Even before I got a dSLR, I was already pretty sure what I wanted and had a (growing) mental wishlist of gears I’d like to have. The only thing holding me back is of course, budget. Because lets face it, photography is an expensive hobby.

The Nifty Fifty and its box

That said, Dad helped me get this one in KL during his last working trip there! This is definitely the last lens I’m gonna acquire in awhile, for a kit lens + 50mm combo is more than sufficient for me to move on. =)

The 50mm spent its early days as an unglamourous ‘standard lens’ that came default with all SLR cameras back in the 35mm film days. Its a prime lens, which means it has a fixed focal length unlike those of zoom lenses which allow you to zoom in and out of your subject. So why would you want a lens you can’t zoom for, you ask.

Fall leaves by the road

The main selling point of the nifty fifty is it’s wide aperture, which you can’t get with the normal kit lens or cheap zooms that comes with dSLRs these days. Wide aperture lens are great for shooting in low light and are responsible for the bokeh effect due to a narrow depth-of-field associated with a wider aperture.

By the road

If you really wanna know more about the 50mm and its advantages try out this article at Gary Voth Photography: The Forgotten Lens.

I don’t know but if you’d ask me. A 50mm prime is sure worth every penny. It’s very good glass, delivers stunning quality and it’s fast. My only qualms with this lens is it’s rather noisy clunky autofocus motor, but that of course, doesn’t affect image quality whatsoever.

The Nifty Fifty and Me

So yeah.

Slap on a 130g 50mm f/1.8 II (the lightest Canon lens ever) onto a 1000D body, which also happens to be the lightest Canon dSLR at 475g — you’ll get a powerful 600g bokeh machine.

Tell me that isn’t good. =P

If you haven’t yet heard about it, check out my Photoblog at http://img.tehCpeng.net!