Four months ago, I got together with a few friends and started jamming with the objective of getting a few originals recorded. Keyboardist Karen and I had already been in a band effort previously, but we were looking for musicians to fill the void musically—and on hindsight, energy-wise—to bring the originals to the studio.

Midway through that effort, I chanced upon a flyer for a band competition; before we knew it, it was the same song over and over (and over and over) again at practice for three weeks.

Come competition night, we were the poppiest, most psychedelically-dressed, least heavy-rock band out there. We stuck out, but I’m happy to report we bagged the third prize, with Dawn as Best Bassist and Karen winning Most Potential.

Now, it’s back to the studio for that EP, but I daresay we're riding on significantly more exuberance. :)

We have a band page and all the requisite social media peripherals. How very legit! ;)

The recent spate of crapcam-inspired iPhone filters has been great for creative photography in general, and just showing people how colour tone can make all the difference in a photo.

Like every photographic tool and style, there is a place for the murky blurriness of Lomo expression.

But the deluge of Instagram pictures on Twitter is such a plague. An iPhone app (or crapcam, in whichever software or hardware flavour) should not be a substitute for good composition and thought put into a picture.

This iPhone photography blog by Eugene Hsu is one of my favourites, and the better ones out there showing how iPhone apps can be used in combination with a good eye, to great effect.

He doesn't just use software filters; I remember one post where he used his forehead oil to create some nice lens flare—but I digress.

Here's a chat I had last week with Angel on the topic:

Angel
ok i don't really understand this instagram thing

Victoria Ho
why? oh okay basically it's an app
and it will "lomofy" your pictures with filters and image processing nonsense
and post it up onto a website that is like twitpic and tweet on your behalf

Angel
yes but like

Victoria Ho
why are people making their photos so blurry?

Angel
yes! it works for some photos, but when you do it for every single photo everything just becomes hard to see
and i get frustrated like, COME ON I WANNA SEE A PROPER CLEAR PHOTO OF THE SKY
because the sky colours can be really pretty

Victoria Ho
because that is the whole problem with this lomo effing nonsense
that somehow it got fashionable to take crap pictures
and now there are pictures made to look crap on purpose which defeats the initial purpose of arty lomo pictures

Angel
yeah isn't it? i mean i GET it. but for every single thing?
in the end every photo just looks crap
GET OVER THE INSTAGRAM THING PEOPLE
i hate having to squint at that lump of beige thing with the random grey stuff that you're eating
looks really yummy. beige things with grey topping.

Sometimes Google Reader is both an epic win and cringefest all at once.

While describing a local craft beer, Archipelago's Traders Brown Ale, that has gula melaka in it:

me: So the gula melaka sort of helps to give it a mellow flavour.
Angel: That sounds weird, like it would be sweet.
me: No, the sugar in the gula melaka gets fermented into alcohol.
Angel: (eyed widening) SO IT WOULD BE STRONGER? OKAY!
me: No? It's just a touch of gula melaka and...
Angel: (zones out)

I love that this conversation happened out of nowhere. To understand, watch the video below.

Spot the odd one out. All the freelancers are hard at work (so many iPads!) but I'm relishing the last moments of freedom before I have to start gainful employment next week. In other news, I did read a couple of chapters of my book inbetween sips of iced coffee.

(I'm fully aware of how unflattering this picture is of me. But the moment was too good, plus I couldn't figure out how to replace it with another picture on the fly.)