Christmas + Ski Trip to Les Arcs, France

In the winter of 2009, we went on a Skiing trip to Les Arcs, France. Although it was a skiing trip, a few of us, myself included opted for snowboarding. We had to go through a crazy long bus journey (20 or 30 hrs, can’t remember) which was held up due to adverse weather conditions; the crazy snow.

Since the trip was for about 7 days long (minus the bus trips), we had to spend Christmas over at the Ski Resort. It was such a beautiful place, sort of like entering a fairy tale. I can’t help but wonder how Switzerland or Austria would be like.

There was a Christmas countdown-fireworks show along the slopes of the mountain. It was my first time taking photos of fireworks, which was quite a good experience. Had to tweak a lot of the settings to try getting the best light paths etc. It didn’t work out that well, but still acceptable I guess.

It was rather difficult to take photos while snowboarding. Can’t imagine falling and having my dslr fly into the air. So, was only able to take out the camera on the last day, and even then I had to set it aside and take shots when I’m not on the board.

Snowboarding, is just awesome. Although skiing may seem to be the more practical safe choice, snowboarding seems really cool. Well I can't comment much considering I did not attempt to ski, but it just feels good. Although the first 3-4 days of learning nearly cost me an arm and a leg (bruises from falling), it was definitely a worth while experience.

Some of the mini toys from the Christmas Crackers! Cute.

View of the slopes from the 1950 village.

A tasty shot of the 1950 special. 1950 is the level of the mountain the village is on, which I’m assuming is 1950 meters above sea level. This amazing waffle is so delicious, with chocolate sticks skewered into the waffle itself.

Siberian husky? My favourite breed. I find the dog's glare really cool, and the fur is just nice, not too fluffy or naked. Feel like hugging it but didn't want to die so fast.

More shots of the fairy tale village.

First attempt at Panorama shot. It didn’t work out that well as I didn’t have a tripod with me. The gradient of the ground is also extremely tilted. Click to enlarge!

This is a lovely pic of Cik Sophia/Sophy. I actually flipped the picture horizontally cause it felt better this way. Apart from that, very minor touches to the contrast and the shot turned out great!

Ahem, this shot is dedicated to the special couple of the trip. I’m sure you guys have had a great time together on the trip =)

Last shot, an attempt at B&W + Vintage look. I still can’t achieve the type of warm gentle vintage feel that I’m looking for. Still need a lot of practice. Cheerio ~

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London Photowalk 1

After getting a DSLR, I've been taking a lot of photos, about 8 gigs after about 7 months. I've never really uploaded my pictures, just a few occasionally on facebook when I'm harassed to do so. Considering it's the exam season, and I need a healthy stress outlet, I decided to work on this photoblog (after months of procrastination) during whatever leisure time I have.

Well, this is the first edition of the London.Photowalk series! Photowalk series are a bunch of random pictures of my extended period of time at a place; in this case London.Photowalk to me, means exactly as the words literally say; photography walks. Just me and the camera walking about.

I kinda like the name photowalk, and the idea for the name photowalk came from a blog I frequently follow, dannychoo.com. Was always fascinated by the photographs posted, and I wanted to share the same fascination I had. I also like the concept of how boston.com tells its photo news stories. I guess I'm trying to go for something similar to it.

The first five pictures of this photowalk is of Caffé Concerto at Regent's Street, London. Went here on an outing with 2 lovely ladies for some cakes and hot drinks.

Beautiful cosy place, with one of the most wicked hot chocolates I've ever had. Extremely chocolaty with the smooth rich taste. The taste is quite good surprisingly considering no sugar was added.

It was just early winter, and we would have short moments of sleet, especially at night. I'm currently staying at tower hamlets, one of the boroughs in London. Tower Hamlets is one of the designated boroughs which will be hosting the London 2012 Olympic Games. I hope I'm still in London when the Olympic Games are here.

Initially my housemates and I were quite worried to be moving in to this area. It was extremely dodgy looking, although not as bad as the Hackney area, which felt as though we would get robbed any moment. Must the the exaggeration from the media and so on.

But after living in this part of London for 7 months, thankfully it has been incident free. As long as you respect others and stay out of trouble, no trouble (or not much) will come your way. Really enjoying the place, as our neighbourhood has a Mega-huge Sainsbury's 3 minutes away.

Picture above taken at Primrose Hill. It was an outing to see a comet/meteorite, but the skies were empty except for the occasional air planes. Still, it was not a wasted experience, quite fun just hanging about in the freezing winds with my mates.

Well, I won't be doing a lot of commenting; so I'll drop you off here. I particularly like the last photo, it was displayed above a cinema. Enjoy!

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