The Singapore government today confirmed the city-state's first H1N1 flu case, a 22-year-old woman who is being quarantined in hospital, reported Thomson Reuters.
The Ministry of Health said the Singaporean woman arrived from New York on May 26 on a Singapore Airlines flight.
The World Health Organisation said yesterday nearly 13,000 people have been confirmed infected with the new H1N1 flu strain worldwide.
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I'm having a blast here in Oslo, Norway. The previous days I was wondering if the city was build under a waterfall or if it was just raining all the time. But despite the rain, Martha showed us the most beautiful spots in the city, the best coffee places and we even got invited to a fantastic dinner prepared by her personal viking.
Today we had the first day of the 2-day workshop. This was mainly the theoretical part and tomorrow everybody will shoot in small groups. Talking about groups, this one is a lot of fun. I'm so blessed to always get fantastic people in my classes.
Linnea was our model for today. As 95% of the Norwegian girls, she looks simply fantastic but she also proved to be a patient and skilled model, who gave us one killer look after the other. I know it's really hard to perform model magic in front of 25 geeky photographers, but she did really well.
Here are a few pics I took during the workshop today. I quickly processed them in Lightroom and I'm too tired to talk a lot about the tech stuff, so I'll keep it simple.
White balance on tungsten to get the daylight shift to blue and a CTO filter on a speedlight (with umbrella) on the model.
From a moody dark picture to a high key summery photo in the same setup. We just ditched the CTO-filter and fiddled a bit with the white balance and shutterspeed.
Saw this killer natural light, coming in from those big windows.
Now let's try to recreate that light with a speedlight through a shower curtain and another speedlight bouncing of the floor for some fill from below.
One bare speedlight. I love it when you get a model that can take just about any light, makes my job a lot easier.
And now I'm going to hit my bed for some well deserved sleep. Tomorrow it's outdoor location shooting day!
The Yaps will say goodbye to their College Green home today.
The family of five, and another six remaining families, have to vacate the estate off Dunearn Road by the end of this month to make way for new tenants.
Petitions by residents to stay on, and meetings with the relevant authorities over the past year, have been unsuccessful.
The 35,000 sq m estate contains 63 pre-war terrace homes which are owned by the Singapore Land Authority and managed by United Premas.
Come July, they will be leased to the National University of Singapore.
The units will be converted into hostels for about 240 overseas graduate students of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
'It's a great place for children to grow up in. They can roam about freely in nature, as children should,' said market researcher Yap Miew Leng, 32, who has lived there for two years.
About 60 per cent of the estate's residents are Singaporeans, while the rest come from countries such as Australia, the United States and Japan.
Model-actress Nadya Hutagalung and former Zouk marketing manager Tracy Phillips were once residents, along with lawyers, teachers and artists.
The Yaps' living room opens out onto a central basketball court and tennis court set amid lush greenery.
'At 5pm, almost all the estate's children come out to mingle. Toys such as plastic cars and slides are left in the middle and shared among the families. Nobody locks their doors and mothers often have to go from house to house looking for their kids at dinner time,' said Mrs Yap.
Halloween was the annual highlight for the community. Then, almost all the families would decorate their homes and the zinc-roofed walkways, and children would go round asking for candy.
The estate takes its name from the days when it was a hostel for University of Malaya students in 1952.
It was later renamed Dunearn Road Hostels before being rented out as private residences for between $1,800 and $2,000 a month.
'We were hoping maybe they would set aside at least some units for private use,' said Filipino hotel consultant and permanent resident Farhan Sharadji, 55, who lives there with his Singaporean wife and four children.
They will be moving to a landed property in Jurong next week.
Some residents have found similar black-and- white rental homes in Changi or Seletar, while others have moved back to their countries.
Mrs Yap will be uprooting her family to Beijing, where her husband studies, this week.
Several NUS students and academics started moving in late last year, residents observed.
With more movers and unfamiliar faces around, security has been compromised, said ex-physical education teacher Shahrudin Zainuddin, 35, who has lived there since 2007.
A break-in was reported earlier in the year while residents have also observed a growing rat problem.
The SLA said it tenanted the estate to NUS 'after careful consideration' and that all tenants were given at least six months' notice prior to the expiry of their tenancies, to give them time to make alternative arrangements.
Each unit will house about four students, according to a spokesman for the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
The units, sports facilities and multi-purpose hall will be refurbished at an estimated cost of more than $3.5 million.
Source : Sunday Times – 24 May 2009
gilfenn has added a photo to the pool:
Click.Chick has added a photo to the pool:
ACP Lighting 1, Term 2/2009 - Test Session 2
Model: Rachel Handshu
Lighting: 1 x Large Softbox above model at camera right w/ white reflector at camera left tilted upwards towards model, 1 x Monobloc w/ standard reflector and black flag aimed at white backdrop
Going back to my old studio building this summer and doing a series of lighting workshops. More basements. More loading docks, cracked windows, train tracks. Warmer weather. We had a ball doing these last time.
Hit this link for workshop application PDF…
They'll be running June 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30 & July 1.
We will have breakfast, lunch, and lights all day. Free parking. Everybody gets time behind the camera, as well as gripping for shoots, observing, talking, discussing, looking at gear and all manner of light. Minimal setups, maximum setups. We go at it all day long.
Last time, we worked high key….
We worked low key….
Lotsa lights….
We worked one light….
We worked character…..
We worked beauty….
We had firefighters…..
Boxers and trainers….
We did incredibly cute….
And sophisticated style….
Here's what some students from our Winter '09 session had to say:
"…My associate Karen and I did go to Joe's seminar on Monday, the 19th, and it was spectacular! I came away with so much information and so inspired to try new stuff, outside my comfort zone."
"I wanted to honor your request for some feedback… problem is, I can't really think of anything that could have been improved upon.
Things were beautifully organized.
The coffee was superb.
The facility was magical.
The crew were all top-shelf — pleasant, accommodating and SO helpful…And of course Joe was dazzling. What a gift his work is for all of us. I had an amazing time."
"As I am thinking about yesterday's workshop in the warm comfort of my Manhattan apartment, I continue to be amazed how all of you were dedicated to giving us a tremendous day. On top of that, rather than increase the number of participants, you increased the number of days…THANK YOU."
Hope to see you there…..more tk….
I have been playing architectural photographer this week for a new blog I am working on.
This picture (final seen up top) is built on the ambient coming through the doors at back right, and the lamps in the room. The ambient exposure is a compromise to pull all three of those continuous light sources in as best as possible. This is a late shot with no flash, and I think I may have opened the ambient up half a stop or so from this level. But you can get the idea.
Almost forgot about the powder room, as I shot it last month. This is lit, but with on-camera flash. This room is only 3x6 feet, so bounce off of the ceiling is a default choice. The trick is going into vampire mode for the mirror. 
The kitchen had me scratching my head for a few days as I wondered how to light it. I wanted to show the whole room, which had no windows -- and lots of very warm CFLs as light sources. 
Here is where I shot the kitchen from. I made this photo later in the evening (we needed the full dark) with two SB-800s and some road flares that we painted white.
As it starts to get dark on (a rainy) Monday night, Susan asks if I remembered to shoot her garden in the back. Of course I did not remember to shoot it, because I am a total moron during allergy season. So I stepped out onto the deck and saw this mix of tungsten light and deep, foggy twilight.
The waning foggy light made the garden look lush, if a little flat. And the garden was way darker then the grass in back. So with the last bit of twilight I grabbed an ambient (somewhere in the 1/4 - 1/2 second range) and exposed for the grass.
Among the fifteen shots I did for the house brochure, this detail of the 
The last one I am going to mention was a little bit of a challenge to work through. Ben's room is only about 10' x 11', and the loft bed soaks up a lot of that.Full RSS feed, from Strobist.com. Videos are not viewable in emailed posts. Click the post title to see any embedded video and/or to view or post comments. This month's feeds are sponsored by:
