Extreme
Where do I really start with this year? It really didn’t begin in the best of ways and I think ultimately it meant that things got progressively worse by the time it neared the end. I’ve said in the past that besides calendars, we use milestones to mark passage of time. Often, it’s those years where so many things have happened that you look back and think, “wow, that felt like ages ago” but when achievements are fewer and far in between, time seems shorter. Consequently, it feels like I’ve just come off January 2012.
I’m a bit late in this end of year wrap up post because I wasn’t sure how much honesty I can put into it compared to previous years. It’s not exactly a good thing for one’s reputation so I guess all I’ll say is, my situation at work escalated to the point that I’ve had to seek medical attention. I went through a bit of a trying time at the end of November but through support from my doctors and friends and family (both those who knew and those who didn’t), I think I’m getting somewhere now.
So what were the significant events of 2012? Well, apart from anguishing for the first few months of the year over a broken down friendship (which took me another few months after to finally get over), I guess it was dominated a lot by again settling in to the new project I’ve been assigned to at work. Although I officially started in the role before the previous year ended, the fact that I went on holiday straight away meant it wasn’t until I came back that things really started.
It was pretty much on the quiet side and photo shoots weren’t prevalent; quite the opposite of the year before. Apart from my own issues, I do think that everyone too was probably just a bit tired out by all the shoots that we did previously and everyone had a slow start as a consequence. I did a few paid shoots during this period
It wasn’t until April that things really picked up again. The event of the month was my brother’s wedding. Besides the obvious importance of the day, what made it even more special was my relatives from the Philippines actually flying over for a few weeks. My family back in the old country have always been unreservedly generous whenever we were back there and it was my genuine pleasure to actually pay them back for that they’ve done for us this time around.
For the first time ever in all the years that I’ve been making AMVs, I haven’t released a single one online in 2012. Seems kind of appropriate given that I’ve given up on participating in the AMV competitions but there’s a bit of regret there that I wasn’t able to pump something out. That’s not to say that I haven’t edited anything at all this year. Indeed, I’ve even created some stuff that can be categorised as AMVs but because they were all for commissioned works, I basically decided not to release.
The most exciting of my video works involved the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in which I edited together a good majority of the backing videos for their video games concert. Though I somewhat regret now that I didn’t employ the help of my studio members, I am nevertheless proud of what I had achieved and seeing it play on the big screens of the Melbourne Convention Centre to a crowd of over a thousand people, well, that was a big ego boost.
For the most part, what proceeded next were birthdays galore. A good portion of the stuff I took with my new point-and-shoot camera was just stuff from birthday gatherings. It was very nice to be doing low key (or low energy) type things. On the one hand, the relative peace I felt was looking like a waste of time, but now that I look back, I think it’s been worthwhile that I didn’t push myself any harder.
Conventions of course still kept coming. For the second time ever, I went to SMASH and it’s still in my mind one of, if not the best anime convention in Australia today. I stayed with more or less the same people from last year in the same apartment, and I stayed there longer too. Between the shoots, meeting up with Sydney friends and the convention itself, I can definitely say I had a great time. Yet, when I think back to the year before, I can’t admit yet that it was as good. First times are always going to be hard to beat I suppose, but yeah, again the broken down friendships and tensions in the group I believe had its impact.
Manifest was meant to be the convention that no one went to but it turned out to be hollow words. Practically everyone was there but whether it was because we had given up on the convention itself and only focussed on having fun on our own, or because the convention really did improve, I have to say we had noticeably less complaints. Still, the smaller crowd was a bit of a downer because whatever the organisers were doing to attract crowds, they’re not working.
Shoots started to happen more often afterwards and in particular it was very refreshing to start moving towards fashion shoots rather than just cosplays all the time. I might have had less shoots this year but I do think they involved more effort than before and we aimed to be more creative; quality being better than quantity definitely in people’s minds. I know I probably say this every other month, but I think after all the experimentations, more than ever I’d like to do more personal photography projects and not just be someone’s photog.
Without a doubt, the highlight of my year was my 30th birthday. I organised it at my house and the general idea was overload of food from as many different animals as I can gather. It was a success in that regard. It was essentially a two day celebration too as I had my relatives come the day after my friends came for them to eat up the leftovers.
I mean, sure, it was my birthday and I was meant to be the centre of attention but I guess that just meant that I was able to pay attention more to how my precious all my friends were to me. I mean, Jai came back from Canberra just for the weekend without so much as a complaint, indeed he looked forward to it even more. And I know that living all the way out in Cranbourne does mean I’m as far away from most of my friends before you start heading towards farmlands. Everyone coming to see me did more to give me more optimism than anything I’ve tried before.
A month or so before this, I was increasingly convinced that I needed a lens to replace my Nikon 18-105mm kit lens for the D90. The D90 has always been the camera I took with me on holidays and more often than not, I only took one lens with me. Since the 18-105mm was broken, I had really only 2 choices, the Nikon 50mm f1.8 or the Tamron 28-75mm f2.8. The 50mm is my smallest and fastest lens, so for travelling it was convenient, but on a DX crop, you were quite restricted with your angles. The 28-75mm was more versatile but it was essentially my workhorse lens for portrait work so I was really reluctant to use it just for holiday trips. So it was just serendipitous that I found someone on eBay selling some lenses and camera gear for dirt cheap. They were old, but the Nikon 28-70mm f3.5-4.5 that was in the set worked well enough that I was definitely proud of my purchase. My holiday camera predicament was solved.
But then came my birthday. I often spoke to Jacob that the next proper lens I would get is the Nikon 24-70mm f2.8. I’ve read review after review and hands down, for Nikon users shooting in this range, this is the best out there. I usually buy my gear overseas because prices in Australia are just mind bogglingly high and so I didn’t anticipate to have the 24-70mm in my hands for quite some time yet but somehow or other, my friends pooled together enough money to buy me this lens (both those people who attended and those who didn’t my party). I was essentially gobsmacked by this turn of events. I suppose it’s materialistic of me to equate friendship this way but damn it, I really couldn’t express just how much this meant to me, beyond its purpose as a tool.
Christmas was next and again, this was probably one of the most fun Christmases I’ve had in years. Australian celebration of Christmas hasn’t really compared to what I grew up with back in the Philippines but the celebrations my relatives conducted this time around probably got as close as they could to what I experienced in my childhood years.
New Year’s Eve was, well, magical. Road tripping from Melbourne to Sydney was a great idea as we just had so much fun on the way (and back, despite being in coma most of the way). Things just sort of fell into place as the trip went along and despite us having no proper plan of action, there was hardly a dull movement and when it was dull, we slept. It’s what a relaxing holiday ought to be; good company, lots of eating, lots of sleeping.
Those are the highlights of my year. They weren’t as numerous but I felt they had more meaning. It’s a bit strange that now that I’ve reached this age I feel like I’m shying away from independence and needing people more than ever. It’s not really about needing to keep me alive or anything like that, but I guess I’m realising that I don’t always have to pretend that I’m strong. You could probably say I’ve got a bit of a “hero complex” where I just cannot leave someone when they’re low, even if it means I get dragged down myself. It was my way of being a friend, it was what I believe what kept people hanging around me. Showing some sort of weakness I thought would push people away.
But I found that as I opened up to some people what was really going on, I discovered just how lucky I truly am that I've got friends who will prop me up and become closer to me particularly that I've become honest with them about me. I thought at the start of the year that it was going to be painfully hard to open up my heart again but what I realised in the end was that it was more painful to keep it shut.
LJ sucks.
I’m a bit late in this end of year wrap up post because I wasn’t sure how much honesty I can put into it compared to previous years. It’s not exactly a good thing for one’s reputation so I guess all I’ll say is, my situation at work escalated to the point that I’ve had to seek medical attention. I went through a bit of a trying time at the end of November but through support from my doctors and friends and family (both those who knew and those who didn’t), I think I’m getting somewhere now.
So what were the significant events of 2012? Well, apart from anguishing for the first few months of the year over a broken down friendship (which took me another few months after to finally get over), I guess it was dominated a lot by again settling in to the new project I’ve been assigned to at work. Although I officially started in the role before the previous year ended, the fact that I went on holiday straight away meant it wasn’t until I came back that things really started.
It was pretty much on the quiet side and photo shoots weren’t prevalent; quite the opposite of the year before. Apart from my own issues, I do think that everyone too was probably just a bit tired out by all the shoots that we did previously and everyone had a slow start as a consequence. I did a few paid shoots during this period
It wasn’t until April that things really picked up again. The event of the month was my brother’s wedding. Besides the obvious importance of the day, what made it even more special was my relatives from the Philippines actually flying over for a few weeks. My family back in the old country have always been unreservedly generous whenever we were back there and it was my genuine pleasure to actually pay them back for that they’ve done for us this time around.
For the first time ever in all the years that I’ve been making AMVs, I haven’t released a single one online in 2012. Seems kind of appropriate given that I’ve given up on participating in the AMV competitions but there’s a bit of regret there that I wasn’t able to pump something out. That’s not to say that I haven’t edited anything at all this year. Indeed, I’ve even created some stuff that can be categorised as AMVs but because they were all for commissioned works, I basically decided not to release.
The most exciting of my video works involved the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in which I edited together a good majority of the backing videos for their video games concert. Though I somewhat regret now that I didn’t employ the help of my studio members, I am nevertheless proud of what I had achieved and seeing it play on the big screens of the Melbourne Convention Centre to a crowd of over a thousand people, well, that was a big ego boost.
For the most part, what proceeded next were birthdays galore. A good portion of the stuff I took with my new point-and-shoot camera was just stuff from birthday gatherings. It was very nice to be doing low key (or low energy) type things. On the one hand, the relative peace I felt was looking like a waste of time, but now that I look back, I think it’s been worthwhile that I didn’t push myself any harder.
Conventions of course still kept coming. For the second time ever, I went to SMASH and it’s still in my mind one of, if not the best anime convention in Australia today. I stayed with more or less the same people from last year in the same apartment, and I stayed there longer too. Between the shoots, meeting up with Sydney friends and the convention itself, I can definitely say I had a great time. Yet, when I think back to the year before, I can’t admit yet that it was as good. First times are always going to be hard to beat I suppose, but yeah, again the broken down friendships and tensions in the group I believe had its impact.
Manifest was meant to be the convention that no one went to but it turned out to be hollow words. Practically everyone was there but whether it was because we had given up on the convention itself and only focussed on having fun on our own, or because the convention really did improve, I have to say we had noticeably less complaints. Still, the smaller crowd was a bit of a downer because whatever the organisers were doing to attract crowds, they’re not working.
Shoots started to happen more often afterwards and in particular it was very refreshing to start moving towards fashion shoots rather than just cosplays all the time. I might have had less shoots this year but I do think they involved more effort than before and we aimed to be more creative; quality being better than quantity definitely in people’s minds. I know I probably say this every other month, but I think after all the experimentations, more than ever I’d like to do more personal photography projects and not just be someone’s photog.
Without a doubt, the highlight of my year was my 30th birthday. I organised it at my house and the general idea was overload of food from as many different animals as I can gather. It was a success in that regard. It was essentially a two day celebration too as I had my relatives come the day after my friends came for them to eat up the leftovers.
I mean, sure, it was my birthday and I was meant to be the centre of attention but I guess that just meant that I was able to pay attention more to how my precious all my friends were to me. I mean, Jai came back from Canberra just for the weekend without so much as a complaint, indeed he looked forward to it even more. And I know that living all the way out in Cranbourne does mean I’m as far away from most of my friends before you start heading towards farmlands. Everyone coming to see me did more to give me more optimism than anything I’ve tried before.
A month or so before this, I was increasingly convinced that I needed a lens to replace my Nikon 18-105mm kit lens for the D90. The D90 has always been the camera I took with me on holidays and more often than not, I only took one lens with me. Since the 18-105mm was broken, I had really only 2 choices, the Nikon 50mm f1.8 or the Tamron 28-75mm f2.8. The 50mm is my smallest and fastest lens, so for travelling it was convenient, but on a DX crop, you were quite restricted with your angles. The 28-75mm was more versatile but it was essentially my workhorse lens for portrait work so I was really reluctant to use it just for holiday trips. So it was just serendipitous that I found someone on eBay selling some lenses and camera gear for dirt cheap. They were old, but the Nikon 28-70mm f3.5-4.5 that was in the set worked well enough that I was definitely proud of my purchase. My holiday camera predicament was solved.
But then came my birthday. I often spoke to Jacob that the next proper lens I would get is the Nikon 24-70mm f2.8. I’ve read review after review and hands down, for Nikon users shooting in this range, this is the best out there. I usually buy my gear overseas because prices in Australia are just mind bogglingly high and so I didn’t anticipate to have the 24-70mm in my hands for quite some time yet but somehow or other, my friends pooled together enough money to buy me this lens (both those people who attended and those who didn’t my party). I was essentially gobsmacked by this turn of events. I suppose it’s materialistic of me to equate friendship this way but damn it, I really couldn’t express just how much this meant to me, beyond its purpose as a tool.
Christmas was next and again, this was probably one of the most fun Christmases I’ve had in years. Australian celebration of Christmas hasn’t really compared to what I grew up with back in the Philippines but the celebrations my relatives conducted this time around probably got as close as they could to what I experienced in my childhood years.
New Year’s Eve was, well, magical. Road tripping from Melbourne to Sydney was a great idea as we just had so much fun on the way (and back, despite being in coma most of the way). Things just sort of fell into place as the trip went along and despite us having no proper plan of action, there was hardly a dull movement and when it was dull, we slept. It’s what a relaxing holiday ought to be; good company, lots of eating, lots of sleeping.
Those are the highlights of my year. They weren’t as numerous but I felt they had more meaning. It’s a bit strange that now that I’ve reached this age I feel like I’m shying away from independence and needing people more than ever. It’s not really about needing to keep me alive or anything like that, but I guess I’m realising that I don’t always have to pretend that I’m strong. You could probably say I’ve got a bit of a “hero complex” where I just cannot leave someone when they’re low, even if it means I get dragged down myself. It was my way of being a friend, it was what I believe what kept people hanging around me. Showing some sort of weakness I thought would push people away.
But I found that as I opened up to some people what was really going on, I discovered just how lucky I truly am that I've got friends who will prop me up and become closer to me particularly that I've become honest with them about me. I thought at the start of the year that it was going to be painfully hard to open up my heart again but what I realised in the end was that it was more painful to keep it shut.
LJ sucks.