chang*

45 years ago to the day, an african-american preacher stood on the steps of the lincoln memorial and made one of the greatest speeches of all time. in tribute to the man that the memorial was named for, martin luther king reinforced the ideals that are the american spirit, the american promise, and the american dream.

he could have well been prophesying the coming of barack obama who would invoke his memory 45 years later, in the proclamation that those ideals be lifted up again.

and for a moment it seemed as though obama’s speech would not take flight, as he spent the first two and a half minutes profusely thanking the 80 000 that had gathered at the invesco field in denver to witness his acceptance of a historic nomination.

with the formalities out of the way, obama launched into the meat of his speech. no surprises as the focus fell on the issues of the day, especially for the working and the middle class – namely the economy, education and healthcare.

in perhaps is what is his most detailed outline to date with regards to the economy , obama vowed to rid america of its dependence on foreign oil within ten years by pumping US$150 billion into developing alternative sources of energy (solar, nuclear, gas, etc.). he also pledged to aid the auto industry in retooling in order to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. 5 million new jobs are expected to be created, with obama in one fell swoop addressing the concern of outsourcing.

obama’s speech was interspersed with diatribes against john maccain’s sense of the issues closest to the hearts of the people, attacking in particular mccain’s consistent support of george bush’s unpopular policies. obama went on to say that he ‘looks forward to the debates with john mccain in the coming weeks.’

with the gauntlet thrown down, it will be interesting to see how mccain responds next week when the republicans stage their national convention.

[the serious stuff ends here.]

it is amazing how the americans have become so adept in the art of entertainment that they have managed to create a spectacle of their political process. even in taiwan they have the ‘floor brawl’. now compare those with what we get in singapore. pathetic i say.

anyway, latest development in local politics and perhaps a glimmer of hope – antihero extraordinaire chee soon juan of the singapore repertory theatre, also known as sdp, was last spotted distributing flyers and chatting up students in ntu the past couple of days. predicted development? he will play the goat in public and be incarcerated before long… again.

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‘sit down. stand up.’ by radiohead, taken off their album “hail to the thief”.

it’s been raining a lot these days and everytime i hear the pitter patter of the raindrops, especially the big fat blubby variety, i hear this song.

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well after quite a long wait, my website is finally online.

many thanks to esther and her sis xiangyun of 7thstoreydesign for designing and bringing it to life. those interested in having a website done, do get their contact from me.

still in the midst of sorting out and uploading the photos but the layout and design are pretty much settled. love the simple and uncluttered look of the site. will be looking to add more galleries soon.

my flickr has served me well as a ‘portfolio’ all this while and i guess that from now it will take on a complementary role. obviously not everything i shoot will go onto my website so that is where my flickr will continue to be important as a place of sharing, as well as networking with other like-minded photographers.

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took a while to get the whole batch of pictures out but here are my personal favourites from the week-long camp.

to view more of my work, click here.

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spent most of the day at tanah merah country club as second photographer to a friend of mine, covering the annual ymca charity golf event.

it was a routine (read: boring) job of taking group photos and the usual so i decided to do some of my own stuff on the down-time. above is the view from the 1st tee where i was stationed.

the most fun part was probably getting to drive the golf-buggy and observing the eccentricities of the rich folks in attendance. their buggies don’t ride; they float about 2 feet off the ground, bolstered by obnoxious retorts and larger than life egos.

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to see more of my photos, click here.