Monday, March 31, 2008

Hanoi-Halong

Treasure Islands

Dire straits

Schooner

Ripples

Onward

Finally, some colour

Oryza sativa

Zig

Zag

At rest

Arkitekcher

Twin Towers

Streetwise

Que sera sera

Flurry

Scoot

Toyota is king, especially in black

Sundown

20 comments:

CHARIS said...

Great job, Mister Lok. I'm impressed! I see so much of you in them.

But Mister Lok, I worry for you. You may want to reconsider being overly generous with your pictures. Sharing is one thing, but allowing people to become unjustly enriched by helping themselves to your pictures?

Anonymous said...

The B&W ones are very dramatic.

Onward looks good in frame.

Am definitely going back. =)

HL said...

Charis: Thanks for the compliments. And for your concern too. But what do you mean by "overly generous" or "unjustly enriched". You mean I should not post such pictures at all? Or I should reduce the resolution so that people can't download the files and use them for their personal or commercial purposes? Well, if I detect any copyright infringement I'll appoint you as my counsel to initiate legal action ya? Win-win situation, no? :)

Yennie: Yea, but only after post-processing. The original pics were super dull. Too bad, can't put in borders using Picasa. Halong would definitely look different under a blue sky. Need more time in Hanoi and paddy fields. :)

CHARIS said...

If some random guy from Great Britain likes your work so much to take it and send it to his editor for a magazine cover, then as good as a counsel I was, I will not be much help :(

So, Mister Lok, I think not only should you reduce the resolution, but also put your name or something on them. Prevention is better than cure.

jacqui_woo said...

I think the grayness and cloudiness added a really romantic and melancholic touch to the photos! Gorgeous!

Vivien Keu said...

wonderful shots!.. I particularly like the "Arkitekcher"... so colorful.. :) and the "Dire straits"... wonderful piece for reflection of life.. :D

Anonymous said...

jealous!! we didnt get to stop by any paddy fields... ehhehe.... oh yeah.. HA-LOOOOOONG! :P

HL said...

Charis: Thanks for the suggestion. I shall take it up. How do you stick your name on the picture? Use Photoshop?

Jacqui: Yea, it looks much better after conversion to B&W and tweaking the contrast. The haziness lends an ethereal mood, like a mist floating over the sea.

Vivien: That's Vietnamese architecture for you! Yea, when we're in dire straits we tend to listen and learn better. Perhaps I should relabel the picture... it doesn't look dire enough.

Kat: You passed by miles and miles paddy fields, but you probably slept through it. My paddy shots were taken at the handicraft workshop. It was drizzling, so I only had a minute or two to grab a few shots.

lina said...

Hmmm... eh... wait. Better change my opening expression..

Wowzers! Great shots! I am going (planning stage) there end of this year... can I pinjam your camera? Hehehe...

CHARIS said...

You're asking me? I am still clueless about photoshop. I just use the normal Edit Picture. Its extremely cumbersome. I think there is an easier way to do this, but you need to enlighten me when you find that out ;)

Anonymous said...

unfortunately for u HL, picasa got no add text function in it's viewer/editor. u probably need some form of photo editing software, eg photoshop or a less complicated one in ACDSee. go to the insert text function, select add text, then draw the box over the place u wanna add and then type ur name into it and whallah....there u have it. name on pix. hehe! of course photoshop probably has a function where u can just click some buttons and all ur pix will have u name without having to repeat the process on each photo. haven't got to that part of photoshopping yet. hehe! hope this helps.

lainey said...

it's actually not very difficult to doctor out text with photoshop. :P

and unless u want to write ur name across the photo, someone can easily crop off the bit with ur 'brand'.

so ... ur best bet is to post low res pics here which will still look great becos ur images are fairly small.

Vivien Keu said...

Well said, Mr Lee..

"when we're in dire straits we tend to listen and learn better."

Unknown said...

lovely pictures!!! :-)

Anonymous said...

Arkitekcher: whimsical charm :) ( … or haphazard design-thought-process? :( )

u see lots of these eccentric zigyzaggy terraces all over downtown saigon – as if each terrace unit were built at a different time by a different person – yet the style/ language is similar – hmmm …

kam*yu said...

it's easy to watermark using photoshop. Just drag and drop your picture into the window, and use the text tool. You can make the words super huge but adjust the opacity, so it still looks elegant.

Love the shophouses. Just like Who-Ville.

HL said...

Wow, thanks for all the nice comments and excellent tech support.

I tried to download the pics from the blog, i.e. right-clicking "save as" on the enlarged image, and I found that the files are max 300KB, even though the original file I uploaded was >1MB. Does this mean that people can't simply save a hi res file and use it for their own purposes without my knowledge?

Maybe I'll watermark my future pics since it's not too much of a hassle.

But I'm a nice guy, so for now the pics are shareware. ;)

Anonymous said...

love the pics lokie schmokie... :D they are absolutely beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Eh nice pictures Loki :)

Unknown said...

loki?? haha! :p

Yeap, we can't download your hi-reso pics cause though you posted a 1MB pic, ppl downloading it will only get a smaller version. The blog / etc. scales it down when published. Of course, folks can still use it without your knowledge :)

anyway, very nice pics and hope you'd have had a chance to take some of Tioman.. :) looking forward to seeing it.