Throwback Thursday: Malacca, Malaysia

Malacca is the third smallest state in Malaysia and was originally under Portuguese control as one of the port towns in the country. When walking around, you can see that the architecture was heavily influenced by the Portuguese, especially around the 'A Famosa' fortress.

We stayed there for only one night and went primarily for food, of course. We got there early in the morning and stood online for Chicken rice balls at Chop Chung Wah. The restaurant is famous for their rice balls and everywhere there is a line outside on Jonker street. We didn't wait that long since a waitress was taking our orders, so that once we sat down our food was ready for us. I think we literally sat down and ate within 20 minutes which was a shorter time than the wait to get into the restaurant! 

After chowing down, we walked around the historical parts of the city to take photos, which included a visit to the previously mentioned Portuguese fortress.

This was probably the hottest day for us during our vacation so for us to cool down, we went to San Shu Gong for some durian cendol! For those who don't know, cendol is an ice dessert with coconut milk and various other add-ons. At San Shu Gong, they served cendol with bits of durian in it! For those who can't stand the smell of durian, I would not recommend that you step into the restaurant/store because once you walk into the shop, it is like walking into a wall of durian, haha. With that said, if you love durian, this is the place to be! They sold various durian products including a 400grams of durian jam for about $3.60USD!

ME? On youtube?!

Yesterday I was interviewed on Skype by my close friend Andre Griffiths. The video was published today so go watch me be all professional and stuff! I promise that I am not normally like this, I just don't like the way I look on camera ;)

We talk quickly about my crafts and my tip for those who are starting off with photography =)

To see his blog post click here!



Also, go check out his blog and music at the links below!

Andre's Site: http://andregriffiths.com/

Andre's youtube channels: 

• https://www.youtube.com/user/andregriffiths, 
• https://www.youtube.com/user/themindofdre

Andre's instagram: http://instagram.com/themindofdre

Pumpkin carving

So two weekends ago, I went pumpkin picking at Melville, Long Island and I got myself a tiny little one to carve a design on. This past weekend, the same group of friends got together and got dirty carving!

Our friends have hosted a pumpkin carving day for the last 7 years and my husband and I have joined the last three. The first year, I carved a medium sized pumpkin and it took me a very long time, so long I actually didn't carve one last year. This year, we were all determined to make it easier on ourselves so we picked up a pumpkin gutter bit and a dremel!

We take carving seriously.

VERY Seriously....

If you have read the last post, I mentioned that I was going to do a design related to one of my favorite TV shows. If you can't recognize it, it is the Lannister house sigil from the Game of Thrones! Yes, I am a big time dork =)

So serious, we even carve watermelons!!

Throwback Thursday: Sea Kayaking at Milford Sound, New Zealand

One of the places we had planned on visiting for our honeymoon was Milford Sound so I wanted to make sure I found the perfect thing to do there. We found many tours/activities in the area and settled on sea kayaking because we wanted to prove that we were fit! Boy was I wrong, but let me warm you up to the story first ;)

Since we stayed in Queenstown for the night before kayaking, we actually woke up at 4am to drive to Te Anu which was about 2 hours away. At 6am, we were picked up by our guides along with the other people joining us for the adventure. From there, we headed into the Fiordlands by a small van with small stops along the way.

As we drove through to our destination, our guides gave us some interesting information about the area and to warn us about the horse flies we were about to encounter. Honestly, no amount of warning would have prepared us for those things. Imagine bugs that were about 2-3x bigger than fruit flies that swarm and bite you. 

You are probably thinking "Fallon, we get bit by mosquitoes all the time, whats the big deal?". Well dear sir, these are not like mosquitoes. They actually swarm around you and attack but when they bite, they don't let go for ANYTHING. You can swat, blow, brush them off, but they will continue to attack. After biting you, they will leave bumps similar to those of mosquitoes but they actually stay for much longer, think 2-3weeks. 

After hearing that, you might think that you would never want to visit this place but it's worth it anyway. As long as you can endure the first hour or two, by the time you end your tour the wind from the sea actually blow them away from the coast and you are free!

As for the kayaking, we spent about 4 hours kayaking around the sound with lunch included AND we got to see some seals and penguins!! Lunch was on a small rock formation in the middle of the sound. The guides even made us hot chocolate to warm us up before we headed back to the starting point.

After lunch, the wind had picked up and fortunately for us it was blowing back into the sound aka our starting point. We had tried to use a sail to get us back most of the way but since the wind was too strong, we had to resort to paddling against the current back to land. It was very intense, but hey we ran the marathon so we could have do anything at that point! 

On the way back, we stopped by several stops to drink water so clean you tasted absolutely nothing. We also had time for some jump shots! After jumping, the entire van passed out due to exhaustion, except for the driver of course. 

Our amazing guides doing a jump shot of their own!

If you are planning a trip to New Zealand and if you are trying to find something to in the South Island, I highly recommend sea kayaking or at least taking a tour of either Milford sound or Doubtful sound! The company we went with was Sea Kayak Fiordland, website is : https://www.seakayakfiordland.co.nz/

Pumpkin picking at F&W Schmitt's farm - Melville, NY

Yesterday I went pumpkin picking for the first time since I was really young. I vaguely remember going once before but I am not sure exactly how old I would have been or if it was with a school trip. The pumpkins we picked today are going to be transformed in the near future for an annual pumpkin carving day with friends so I was pretty excited to find the right one.

We went with several other friends and it was overwhelming but fun at the same time! It was a little bit cold from the wind but the sun was strong enough to keep us warm while we shopped around the pumpkin patch.

At the end I was able to find the one that is perfect for the template I have chosen. *HINT* It's from one of my favorite TV shows ;). Stay tuned to find out how it turns out!!

My tiny pumpkin that will be carved!

Can someone tell me why someone would buy one of these? Decoration maybe?

Photographing pastel artwork

A few weeks ago I was asked by my sister in law to photograph some artwork for a long time friend and when she handed me the drawings it was mind blowing. It was as if I was looking at an actual picture instead of a hand drawn piece of work!

Melissa Caparelli uses soft chalk pastels to recreate photos that were taken of different subjects and she is able to capture the emotion and lighting. If you are interested, you can find her instagram here! She does do commissions and I am seriously considering having a portrait done of my first pet =)

I took these photos on my kitchen floor because we have a lot of daylight that comes into the room. To protect the artwork, I laid white foam on the floor and it also provided a clean background for the photos. Later in post I used the white foam to correct the color temperature since she will be printing the photos out so it is important to keep the color correctly.

The lighting in our kitchen coming from our backdoor.

Throwback Thursday: Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

I can't believe it has been six months since I was in Mexico enjoying the sun and ocean for a few days.While at Playa Del Carmen we stayed at the Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda resort and nearby there was a lagoon about a 20min walk away. At points during the walk it was pretty brutal since the sand had sea shells in it and it was poking at my feet but we made it nonetheless! 

If you look closely at the image above, you can see that the rock wall is separating clear water with a darker murky water. The water on the right side actually had a lot of seaweed that made the water look really muddy and dirty.

We walked around a bit more and found this little docking area under the trees were people were kayaking and the water was super clear.

Being from NYC, water this clear is amazing! Next time I am there, I want to go in and take a dip to see what happens!

Photobooth with DSLR Booth!

A few months ago I was asked by a friend to help set up a photo booth for this past weekend and of course I agreed. I originally didn't know how I was going to make it work and I wanted it to be as simple as I could make it. Last week I started to look up different software to let me do that and I came across dslrbooth.

It works with most of the Nikon and Canon cameras out there. For Sony and Fuji however, you would need third party software to allow the dslrbooth to trigger the shutter. The software costs only $50 for standard edition which has a lot of features already and I knew I was going to use it more often so I bought it without hesitation! 

The UI is very simple to use and it is actually maximized for touch screens but it works on non-touch screen as well. I have a four year old dell running win 7 and there were no issues. The software also gave us the option to play with the layout and we ended up using a logo that the mother to be designed! We also set up the photo booth to allow photo sharing and people were asked to submit their email so that a copy can be emailed to them directly.

Below is a sample of what we ended up having and sharing with those who participated in the photobooth!

I don't have a photo of the set up itself, because honestly I completely forgot. We had a tripod with the camera with speed light attached which was bouncing light off of the ceiling. The laptop was right next to the camera which gave the participants the prompts for photos. I will be doing another photo booth for a family baby shower so I'll hopefully remember to take a picture then!

FYI, this is not a paid post =) I really do find this software awesome haha