Legoland Malaysia, 2012

One weekend last October, my friends and I took a weekend day trip to Johor Bahru, Malaysia to visit the newest Legoland theme park. The theme park was designed for kids so if you go in there thinking it's the next Disneyland or Universal Studios, you will be disappointed. Lower your expectations and you might have an enjoyable time marvelling at the Lego structures and whooping it up along with the kids on the (rather tame) rides. I have to say though, the Malaysian theme park seems not quite ready, and needs more time to be developed fully. I visited Legoland San Diego in 2007 and I have excellent memories of that place. The rides had more variety, took into account older visitors, and the park design really immerses you into the world of Lego.

// Camera & Film
Instead of toting my SLR across the Causeway, which entails having to go up and down buses to pass through Singapore and Malaysia immigration, I decided to go with a lighter camera that day. For a change, I decided on the La Sardina instead of the LC-A+ and paired it with the new Lomography Sunset Strip 100 film. I have mixed feelings about this new film. While I enjoy the colour tint of the film, I am not wild about the grain. It reminds me of the Lomography XPRO 200. I will have to try it out in the SLR and see how I feel about it.

Just A Minute, January 2012

Watching...Full House. Old school 80's fun!
Reading...The Daily Beast and Politico.com
Finding...myself sick constantly. I just recovered from the chicken pox at the start of the month and I am now ill with viral conjunctivitis. I resembled a one-eye monster. NOT. PRETTY.
Listening...Warrior by rookie kpop group B.A.P.
Drinking...Starbucks Brew of the Day. Because that's the cheapest semi-decent coffee I can get around my workplace.
Enjoying...The Republican Presidential Primaries. I love Election Year!

encountering the la sardina, part 10 | the end

So, the time has come for the Loblography Singapore competition to end. It's a little sad because it's been really fun getting to know the La Sardina and the bloggers who were participating in it. I hope we will continue to keep in touch and read each other's blogs. Big congratulations to Sasha who got to keep the La Sardina, I think you thoroughly deserved it with your awesome post!

Now, the last thing left for me to do is to draw the 10 lucky winners who will each receive 10 piggy points! All together, a total of 25 people commented and I ran the numbers through random.org for the winners.

Congratulations to:

Rhianne
Euphemia
Camy
Mei Ling
Jessie Sie
Boobert
Jasmine
Elyna Lee
Matthew Chen
Niki Torres

I will need you to email or comment on this post your Lomohome address by this Thursday, 20 October so that Lomography will be able to award you the points. Have a great time shopping at Lomography with this extra cash! :)

encountering the la sardina, part 9 | reflections

i was tempted to add in the lyrics of the songs 'reflections' but i thought it was too corny. i have been enamoured with reflections in the water lately. there's something really peaceful about a still body of water, and i am just itching to dip a finger in to create a ripple! i am also really proud of myself for managing the double exposure pseudo reflection shot, there are so many inspiring shots of this technique online and i am glad i managed quite a nice one.

encountering the la sardina, part 8 | hello, it's me.

some playing around late at night with the fritz the blitz flash and my own face. this was the only presentable shot. notice my left eye have been hit photographically with a cylinder. wham!

encountering the la sardina, part 7 | accidental double exposures

there's a story behind this roll of film. my estate has recently become cycling-mad. you can't walk for five paces without coming across someone on a bicycle or a bicycle being chained up. the ways that the bicycles were being parked fascinated me and i wanted to devote good portion of film to exploring angles. i happily snapped around for a few days when disaster struck, the shutter was stuck! because i had about 10 frames left to shoot, i decided to rewind the film and reload it again. i wound it to about 5 frames before the frame that the shutter got stuck to experiment with some black and white double exposures and i think they turned out really cool! i should probably do this more often so that i don't get the chance to overthink making a multi-exposure.

encountering the la sardina, part 6 | black & white

when i took on the challenge of shooting with a la sardina for three weeks, i knew that one of the things i had to do was to put the camera through all sorts of film to see how it held up, colour negatives, cross-processed and black & white. as you can see, i am happy to report that the combination of the la sardina and black & white film is a match made in photography heaven! when i opened up my file containing the digital prints, my jaw literally dropped at the first image. SO GORGEOUS! i have so many more photographs to share from this roll, i hope i can do it all before the 16th when this competition ends!

oh, and HAPPY FRIDAY! :)

encountering the la sardina, part 4 | multi-exposures

more photographs from the la sardina, today it's about the multi-exposure button!

if i were to describe my character as a lomographer, i would say that i am a pretty timid creature. i rarely do multi-exposures and bulb mode shots because i am afraid of wasting my precious film. the only thing that i experiment with is the type of films to use (as you can see on my sidebar). but with the la sardina and the challenge of the loblography competition in mind, i determined to be timid no more!

at the moment, the only multi-exposure principle that i can work out in my head is by looking for interesting textures to add to an otherwise normal photograph (above two). in fact, i am thinking of shooting an entire roll of textures, then doubling it with other stuff. in most other cases, i am still pretty bad at trying to grasp the principle of dark and light areas for mx, see below.

time to run out and practice more, methinks! the sardina won't be mine for much longer. yikes!

remember to leave a comment on THIS BLOG POST to help me win the lc-a! i am giving out piggy points to 10 lucky commenters! :)

encountering the la sardina, part 3 | the best shots

so, this is my official post for all of you to comment and help me to win the lc-a! i have slightly less than two weeks to gather all the comments i can, so i will be working hard to get as many as i can!

this set of photos are composed with photos from my first two rolls of film shot this past week. the first 8 photos are taken with the lomography xpro 200 film and the last 4 photos are taken with the ferrania solaris 400 film. i will be posting up more posts throughout this week with photos from those two roll of film. look out for them!

to recap, there are two prizes up for grabs in the loblography singapore challenge. the first. get the most comments/likes/reblogs on a blog post to win the lc-a and be featured in the lomography magazine and newsletter. the second, the most creative article gets to keep the la sardina camera. i will gather together  my most creative photos later, as i am not done with experimenting and playing around with this camera. for having so little features and being so simple to use, there seems to be an infinite number of ways to create images on the la sardina.

lomography singapore has also kindly provided all the participating bloggers with 10 x 10 lomography piggy points vouchers to give away to 10 of our lucky readers. for non-lomography users, piggy points are basically online store credit to be used in the lomography shop. 

i will be giving out my piggy points with the usual giveaway style, using random.org to determine who gets the 10 piggy points.

for a chance to win 10 piggy points & help me win the lc-a

1) comment on this blog post

for an additional entry, please leave an additional comment for each action

2) follow Green Tea Fields on Google Friends Connect

3) blog/facebook/tweet about this post, please include my blog link www.greenteafields.com or my twitter handle @greenteafields

suggested tweet:

help @greenteafields win an LC-A in the loblography singapore challenge and stand to win 10 piggy points for yourself! http://bit.ly/o5sF2i

the competition and the giveaway ends on 9 October! the challenge has been extended till 16 October!

COMMENT AWAY &

THANK YOU, YOU!

encountering the la sardina, part 2 | the meet up

01. the wonderful world of lomography
02. kiwikoh, josephine, hpility, youthinkicarewhatyousay, lovelivfe
03. the fischers fritze

a couple of pictures of the meetup last week to collect the la sardina cameras.
one week into the challenge, how is everyone doing?

wednes/day of discovery: the la sardina edition

coincidentally, two of my favourite photo-bloggers for the easily distracted and everything reminds me of you own the la sardina as well. and even more fortuitously, they have been posting about their camera and the photos they have been taking so i have had lots of research material to work with. to make the deal just a little sweeter, their photos have been of, arguably, two of the greatest cities in the world, NEW YORK and PARIS!

so go on, check out their gorgeous photos and reviews!

rhianne take a walk along the canal with her sardina, and around paris.

elle delves into the history books about the kandor camera that inspired the la sardina and takes black and white shots of New York City. She also introduces us to milk&miel, another fabulous blogger who owns the la sardina.

encountering the la sardinia, part 1

in the spirit of being more creative and to step out of my comfort zone for the loblography singapore challenge. i decided to make a video of me unboxing and loading in the first roll of film. it was filmed the day that we received our cameras, at one of my favourite cafes and then i edited it that very night!

hope you like it!

update about my progress
right now, i am just getting used to the camera and i have shot about 25 shots of my first roll. i hope to finish it tomorrow since i am attending a conference right next door to the designated film processing shot. my first thoughts about the camera is that i really like the solid built to the camera. none of my other toy cameras feel quite as well-built and as sturdy as the la sardinia. it's also been quite awhile since i played around with toy cameras so i am making all the rookie toy camera mistakes all over again, leaving the camera on in bulb mode, forgetting to adjust the focus ring. i am also getting used to the viewfinder, which is in the shape of submarine, as it is much wider than other viewfinders that i am used to. with such a wide angle, i am finding it difficult to compose shots. i am, however, experimenting a lot with super close-ups and multi-exposures.

the loblography singapore challenge

about three weeks ago, i was invited by (the newest kid on the lomography block) lomography singapore to register for the loblography singapore challenge. with nothing to lose and all to gain from three weeks playing with the la sardinia, i threw my name into the ring and waited for the results of the shortlist.

boy, was i surprised when i opened my inbox on friday morning to find out that i had been selected as one of twenty of singapore's coolest bloggers (their words, not mine although i am grateful they think of me as such) to take part in the challenge!

lomography singapore wasted no time starting the challenge this morning when they called all the bloggers for a meet up at the red dot museum to explain the rules of the challenge and to hand over the cameras to us. we drew lots for the cameras and i picked the fischers fritze which included the fritz the blitz flash! i am terribly excited to begin shooting with this camera so for the next three weeks, expect nothing but a constant bombardment of posts about the lomography la sardinia camera!

once again, big thanks to lomography singapore for giving me this opportunity and a shout out to the analog dork whom i met at the meetup!