A Toy Story

A break from the greenery for now…

This toy stall at the neighbourhood market at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 has served as a backdrop for one of my previous shots. I spotted another photo-opportunity during a visit to the area this morning. Although the lighting was flat and uninteresting, I could not help noticing the gaze on the child. Immediately getting a rough idea of the post-processing and manipulation that I would probably need to do when I got home, I sneaked off a shot. The above is the result of some layer/hue/saturation/levels manipulation in Photoshop. Compare this to the unmanipulated, original picture…

Exposure information: Camera – Canon EOS 20D, Lens – Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L, ISO – 400, Shutter speed – 1/640 sec, Aperture – f/4. RAW file processed in CaptureOne 3.7.1 LE with additional manipulation performed in Adobe Photoshop 7.0.

Victoria Amazonica


The leaves of the Victoria Amazonica has always been interesting photographic subjects. There used to be lots of them to be taken at the Sundial Pond at the Botanical Gardens in Singapore (see this post for an example). With the Sundial Pond now closed for renovation, we found only this small cluster of them in a small enclave off the Ginger Garden. A polarizing filter was used to reduce the reflections in the water and to increase the overall saturation of this shot.