Juice Fasting Day 3 - Paused

Juice Fasting Day 3 - Paused, a photo by Mervin Chiang on Flickr.

lol... Guess what? I broke fast after 3 days :P

You can call it an excuse or a trial. Whichever way you see it, I had a lot on this week since it's my last week at my current work place and everyone was "complaining" about how I did not plan this enough... Milk in the fridge, leftovers that needs to be eaten.. etc...

So I decided to stop it after 3 days. Since the literature says that less than 3 days is useless, I decided that 3 days was a good time and a good trial to stop... For now...

How did I go? Well, I did well! Besides the caffeine withdrawals and also the gas discomfort in my stomach, I was OK. I notice, I get it the hardest around 5-6pm and had to take a lie down. However, I was already starting to feel energised and feel better by the afternoon of day 3.

Will I go again. Absolutely! I just need a better recipe for the vege juice. It still tastes a little ... erm.. yuks!

Juice Fasting Day 1 - Mixed Feelings

Juice Fasting Day 1 - Mixed feelings, a photo by Mervin Chiang on Flickr.

Headache, gas in stomach, tired comes to mind if I were to summarise today.

Honestly, I was really tempted to give up around 5-6pm today when I got home. Started thinking about noodles and the nice fish Kat had in the steamer :(

A quick power nap slept that feeling off. I'm OK for now... Constipation has set in. Might have to start looking at fibre supplements.

You know what's the weirdest part? The key motivation currently when all else mentally fails is financial! When I'm wrestling within myself to give up or not, the only thing left besides health, detox, etc.. was the fact that I've spent so much on this idea already, I better see it through. Otherwise there will be no ROI! W0ot? :P Talk about being a consultant for too long 0.o

Also a few final notes-to-self...

• Slow juicer really has a lot more pulp left in the juice than cyclonic juicers. Needed to strain in the end. 
• Need to get rid of the lemon and lime skin more. It makes the drink go more bitter as the juice keeps longer.

About the photo for today... It is actually the end of a beetroot :P I thought it represented my brain at the moment... totally smashed with a splitting headache...

Juice Fasting Day 0 - Preparation

Juice Fasting Images 001, a photo by Mervin Chiang on Flickr.

Well, as the title suggests, I am starting a 10 day Juice Fast. I watched Joe Cross' documentary "FAT, SICK AND NEARLY DEAD" (his website) and got inspired.

As mentioned here, there are many good reasons why I should try doing it. More resources here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juice_fasting
• You can follow this guy's blog on it: http://formertrashcan.brightppl.com/?cat=4&paged=6

p.s. Just in case you were wondering why am I putting this on my photography blog, well... I don't have anywhere else to put it and I was lazy to start another one :P

Let's see how long I keep this up, both the fasting and the blogging on the experience :P

Macro Photography - A Green Tree Frog

Macro Green Tree Frog, a photo by Mervin Chiang on Flickr.

Just a quick post to write about macro photography on a Green Tree Frog I took a few days back. I started Brokenvase Photos to concentrate on babies, toddlers, kids and family. However, on my free time, what I really like is to take macro photos. Hence this post.

Some quick tips or Note-to-self:

1. Taken with a EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM with a 1.4X teleconverter plus 2 extension tubes (25mm and 35mm)
2. Manual focus
3. Manual mode
4. Ring flash remotely triggered and held by cousin
5. Step in and out to get focus pane.
6. Continuous drive shoot to catch the sharpness
7. F/8 if possible to get less DoF

My very first Newborn Photo Shoot

Keon Baby Shoot (Marketing)-6, a photo by Mervin Chiang on Flickr.

Today, I finally got my chance to take photos of Keon, my newborn son at 9 days old! I've always wanted to do this. One of the reasons I started Brokenvase Photos was to try to take babies, toddlers and families. So what did I learn from the experience?

1. Always have your poses in you mind before you start.
2. Explain the pose to mum so she understands what is expected.
3. Prepare the parents that it is going to be rather traumatic event! Yes it is! There is not two ways about it. The baby will cry!
4. Have props!
5. "Set and forget". Lighting and camera settings must be done beforehand and not when the baby is in position!

That's all for now.

Mountain Scenery with People in it

Mountain Scenery with People in it, a photo by Mervin Chiang on Flickr.

This type of shot is the hardest to get right. It has a wide dynamic range. The background is of mountains and valleys with a very bright contrast. The foreground has people that want to be also evenly exposed.

If you take it at evaluative metering we'll get a silhouette effect. If you do spot metering the background would be completely white.

The only way I found that might work is to do a bit of fill flash. That means to still use your flash and under power it a bit. However, doing that is still not the best. As you can see in this photo, the background looks like a fake canvas in this case. Not to mention the weird color balance you need to deal with... Hmm...

I tried HDR as well, but it is hard to do that with people...

Anyway, thought I'd document this...

Mikaela's 3yo Birthday Cake Making

Mikaela's 3yo Birthday Cake Making, a photo by Mervin Chiang on Flickr.

Eeek! I realised I haven't written anything in a while. Just been too busy with many things at work, family and various activities. Not to mention Mikaela's 3 year old Octonauts birthday!

This is not spam. If you have seen this already, yes, I am posting it again because I am very proud of Kat! If you have missed it here is the video I did again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i_Jzc2siDQ

I like to do time lapse photography since I'm not very much into videography. This time however, instead of just straight through time lapse, I took some photos with my other camera as well on close ups. Using Animoto, I was able to quickly knock a video together! Awesome!