morality

What makes something right or wrong? Obviously it's our morals, but is there such thing as a subjective morality? aka "my morals" are different to "your morals".

The short answer is no. Something is either right or wrong, there's no such thing as something being right for one person and wrong for another. What people refer to as "my morals, your morals" is actually the extent of how "naughty" they can live with, eg. a girl goes clubbing and makes out with another girl, both girls would probably say they were just having "harmless fun". This is what is wrong with our society these days. Our secular society has convinced us that doing those lewd things is ok and no one gets hurt, that's so far from the truth. What would a secular guy think about those 2 girls? Definitely not "I can bring her home to mum!" No. It's more likely "I want to get in her pants". And thus leads to sex outside of marriage, unwanted pregnancies (which leads to abortion), sexually transmitted diseases, etc etc etc. Does anyone else still think it's cool to do that sort of thing? It is WRONG. Anyone to say otherwise is just trying to make themselves feel good about themselves, and if you want more food for thought, imagine your daughter doing these things.

Morality is absolute!

This reminds me of a story I read somewhere, I'll try to recap it:

There was this painter who was so good that his artworks looked like photos and his artwork was mainly of nude females in provocative poses. A restaurant owner bought some of these paintings for his restaurant thinking that it would add to the atmosphere. The painter soon passed away and was in purgatory.

[Purgatory is a place you go to in order for your sins to be cleansed before you can enter into heaven]

But each time a person looks at his artworks they thought evil and adulterous thoughts. And so they sin. But because the painter created these things, each time someone sins because of his work, more sin is added to his time in purgatory, so much that if it were to continue he would forever be in purgatory. One day the painter visited the restaurant owner in a vision telling him to destroy his work so he would cause no more sin. So the next day the restaurant owner burnt the images so that no one would ever lay eyes on them again.

Porn is not just naked ladies.

argh! too much going on!!!

Hi all,

So since my last blog...
Did the motorbike shoot for my friend Stephen, I posted the pics up on flickr, but I haven't retouched any of them yet.

I shot at Vivid Sydney, which was my first one as well and honestly I was disappointed, but apparently it was crap compared to last year.

I got a job as a real estate photographer:

But lost the job because my gear wasn't up to the company's standards.

Got my old job at Co-op Bookshop back.

Went to the launch of the 'Fullness of Truth' tour, which was highly inspiring AND entertaining!
Shot for the Alex Jones talk at Our Lady of Mt Carmel for the topic 'Catholic Evangelisation: What it IS and what it is NOT"

Working on stuff for Voice of the Youth and also a "secret" WYD project, which I hope will inspire some people to give serious thought about attending WYD11!

Upcoming events:

Voice of the Youth #6 tomorrow with Archbishop Mark Coleridge. I hear great things about him, so I am really looking forward to hearing his talk. Will be shooting it too.

Fullness of Truth - Fr Mitch Pacwa is coming to Bossley Park, I'm not sure if I'm going to shoot it or not, we'll see how I feel haha.

I didn't realise that I missed my friend so much, am meeting up with her on Saturday :) might watch Toy Story 3 as well! Double yay!

Sorry that nothing is all that indepth, I've got a lot of stuff to do and plus I'm kinda lazy hahaha

mahon pool photoshoot

So I've been wanting to do a Mahon pool shoot for a while, and I noticed that it would be sunny the next couple of days so it was the perfect opportunity. I was planning to do it Friday morning, but I checked when high tide comes in and it was slightly too late on Friday, but it was perfect for Today.


So I set my alarm to wake me up at 4:30am this morning, got out of bed, put on like 3 layers of clothes and my WYD windbreaker jacket, grabbed my gear and loaded it all in the car. I took the M5 which was surprisingly busy for 5am in the morning, in any case I got the Mahon Pool just when high tide came in. It was still dark but you could just see the faintest light from the sunrise. So I didn't have much time to work with.


It was my first time there so I didn't really know what to expect, there was this really high orange street light that lit up the area, I would've preferred a white one but oh well, I experimented with a few shots at varying shutter speeds in M mode keeping a small aperture and ISO 100 throughout most of the shoot - I'll explain why in a sec. This experience made me want to get an neutral density filter so bad now...


Ok, so why those settings... There were 2 things I wanted to get with this shoot;

1. movement of water
2. the sunrise

With movement of any kind, you would need a longer shutter in order to capture action from beginning to end, thus the shutter speed was my variable. I kept the aperture small, starting from f/8 to f/22 as the day got brighter; what this does is reduce the amount of light that hits the sensor, as I wanted to capture as much movement as possible without overexposing, this was the best way to do it. I kept the ISO at 100 to reduce the sensitivity of the sensor so it wouldn't pick up as much electronic noise.

I also used bulb shutter for a few shots, the longest exposure time I took was about 70 seconds, some of which came out slightly blurry as there were really strong winds around, despite having a very sturdy tripod, it still shook slightly (though fairly seldomly).

While walking around I slipped on some algae which I didn't see and cut my knee on a rock in the process, it ripped through my jeans too! I fell with the camera and tripod too, but my Nikki only managed to get a small scratch on the side of the lens... Lucky I had the lens hood on! Otherwise I think the glass would've been scratched!

On to sunrises! The sun is the biggest source of light that we get, so it'd be pretty useless to take photos of it with a big aperture, so I had a very small aperture (f/22) and once again varied my shutter speed to get varying results. By the time I ran up the hill the sun was well and truly risen, albeit initially it was behind a bit of cloud. Getting a well lit scene I used a shutter speed of 1/6 which obviously would lead to overexposure of the sun (you can't really underexpose the sun!) but in the case of shooting sunrises, this is a desired effect. I took a few shots with a faster shutter speeds all the way up to 1/4000 to isolate the sun light to just the area around the sun, which gave it a sunset look.

A problem I had is quite a common one, everything in the foreground was underexposed due to the overpowering sunlight, you can overcome this by using your flash as a fill light, this would light up the nearby objects without having the need to REALLY overexpose the sun/sky.

So that was my shoot at the Mahon Pool. You can see all the pics up at my flickr.

What did I learn?

I learnt to wear proper boots! HA! I would like to do this again when I get that neutral density filter, and preferably a fluid head tripod too! It was annoying adjusting the legs to get close enough to being level. I had to straighten every single one of my photos in photoshop, with this shoot it wasn't a big deal, but imagine doing it for 200+ photos...

So what's next?

-Motorbike Shoot!

A mate of mine recently bought a new motorbike, he wants me to make it look pretty hahaha!

-VIVID SYDNEY!

I missed out on it last year, didn't think much of it until I saw some photos from friends... Planning to go on Saturday evening and make a night out of it, according to Google, it will be clear, though there is slight chance of rain around 10pm... I hope not...

my top ten songs on itunes

1. Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
2. Dashboard Confessional - Stolen
3. Matt Maher - Great Things
4. Matt Maher - As it is in Heaven
5. Matt Maher - Empty and Beautiful
6. Matt Maher - Your Grace is Enough
7. Colbie Caillat - Fallin' For You
8. Matt Maher - Alive Again
9. Matt Maher - Hold us Together
10. Matt Maher - Love Comes Down

Yeah... Matt Maher fan boy much? lol

hmmm maybe i was a bit hasty?

A friend recently posted her thoughts about relationships on fb, about how the image of the ideal man changes as a woman grows older (and wiser?) and how it was particularly illustrated in the film 'Up in the Air'. In a nutshell the younger girl in the film had this really long list of conditions ("he has to have...") for her ideal man, whereas the older woman wasn't as harsh on her conditions ("a nice smile might do it.."). To be honest when I watched this film, I don't think I got the juxtaposition of the two women.

This got me thinking about my own situation. What do I look for in a girl? I was a very late bloomer, probably due to my childhood circumstances - we were living in QLD at the time and when my parents got divorced I moved with my mother to Sydney to be with the rest of her side of the family. So I had left my friends behind and got placed in a strange place. My parents tried to get back together again a yr and a half later, so we moved back to QLD. Got put back into my old school where all my friends were still there, but I noticed a lot has changed. It didn't last long and we got shipped back to Sydney where I was enrolled in yet another school, this time it was an all boys school. Unlike many of the other students there, I didn't have any childhood friends within walking distance, and facebook didn't exist back then either so I pretty much lost contact with all my childhood friends. Perhaps all that trauma made me into such shy and quiet boy. Needless to say when I got into uni, I knew I needed to change and change I did.

Anyways, back to relationships. I had my first girlfriend when I was about 22yrs old, she was pretty, had a nice enough personality, though she had her baggage, I had mine too (*hi5* to those who watched 'How I Met Your Mother' recently). Things didn't work out so we went our separate ways and though I don't think we hold a grudge to each other, we don't really speak anymore.

So what were my conditions? Back then I don't think I had much of a list, besides the usual stuff like "pretty, caring, great to talk to, etc" and to be honest, I probably overlooked most of anyones flaws because I was so happy that I was finally in a relationship and that someone actually liked me enough to call me her boyfriend. Needless to say, that relationship didn't last long. I guess both of us got into the relationship for the wrong reasons.

A few years on and a little bit wiser, my conditions have changed from something very material to something more eternal. Having a pretty face would be a bonus, but in the end a pretty face doesn't last. The most important condition that I have, is that she is Catholic, or at least a Christian. All arguments aside about whether or not God exists, you have to admit, those who follow the beliefs have a certain type of personality. And no, not a "crazy" personality. A true believer has a set of morals which I believe the bible has taught very well. A true believer has a positive outlook on life because they know of the sacrifice that Jesus gave to us. A true believer is a person that knows how to truly love because of the love that God has for us.

I've totally gone off track from what I intended to write (lol), but I thought that was an important point for me to say. Though to be fair, just because you aren't a Christian does not mean you can't have all the qualities that a good Christian does, but in my opinion, there's a higher chance of finding "the one" among the good Christians than randomly looking in the secular world that we have come to live in.

So if you've read my previous post, you'd probably gather that I was interested in a particular girl and had decided to "just be friends". I feel I need to explain further as I was quite intentionally cryptic. I don't know how it works in the real world but for me, if I were to chase a girl and not get some sign that she likes me too, I would most likely give up after a while, this is why I think the whole "play hard to get" idea is stupid, because if your tactic is to show no interest in order to "challenge" us more, some of us are going to take it at face value and believe that you have no interest at all. This sort of leads to my next problem. Thinking back on all the girls that I've liked in the past, I realise I have a hard time figuring out if the girl genuinely likes me or is just being nice. My friendships with those girls don't seem to last that long after I "confess" and honestly that just sucks because they were close friends (at least to me they were). And I consider this girl a close friend now too and in all honesty, I would love it if we ended up as a couple, but it wouldn't be nice if I took that blind chance to "confess" and then lose that kind of friendship again, you're worth too much to waste on a chance.

i scream

Oh well, it seems that we're not meant to be :'(

Guess I'll settle for friendship :]

All Saints have a past, and all sinners have a future

I went on a much needed retreat last last weekend, it was pretty good. The theme was 'Footprints in the Sand' although personally I didn't really find heaps of relevance to the theme, I thought about the theme myself in my own meditation and really liked what came from it. It's like when you walk along a beach (or desert lol) and you look behind you, you see all the prints that you made, how it changed the environment around it and most importantly (to me) all the prints that my friends and family have made and how they interacted. Then you look forward and the beach is unmarked, meaning the future can be anything you want it to be :) I made a few new friends and had heaps of fun playing the games Cha Hong taught us, and I found by the end of the retreat I started calling the Fathers "Cha" ('father' in Vietnamese) by default so I guess it made me more fobby hahaha.

I had time to reflect on some of my relationships too, particularly with the friend I was having trouble with and I remembered one of Jesus' teachings, "you who are sinless may cast the first stone". I'm not saying that I've done what they did, but I know I'm not perfect and although they have done what they did, I shouldn't condemn them for a mistake they probably wouldn't have done in their right minds. I also remembered a really nice quote someone told me at another retreat once... "All Saints have a past, and all sinners have a future." :)

just dandy...

So my uncle died.

He was out at Taronga Zoo with his lil grand-nieces and nephews when all of a sudden he fell, and opened his head up... He came to a few minutes later and then was completely out. He was transported to Royal North Shore Hospital where the Drs did everything they could, but unfortunately was not revivable so essentially was brain dead. He was kept on life support until relos from Melbourne could come and say their last goodbyes.

The funeral was last Thursday and he was cremated on Friday. He is the first of my direct relatives to pass away, although my grandfather has been a vegetable (he had a stroke) for the last 10+ years, he's still kicking. In some ways I think my uncle was rather lucky, looking at my grandfather I can't imagine what a hell he would be going through, able to hear and think, but have absolutely no control of his body otherwise. Not to mention the toll it's been on our family.

Of course when someone you know dies, you think of your own mortality, and of the ones you love. For me there was only one thing that came to mind - how I would like to be buried. Being the only (seriously) devout Christian in my extended family of buddhists, I hope I do get a Catholic funeral service and not some Asian style one that the elder in my family enforces (that's assuming I'm not the said elder lol) though I'm sure my own kids will know.

On a side note, I'm quite disappointed at a friend of mine. What do you do when a friend that held up to your own moral standings, falters and is now in conflict with those values? Sure, it wasn't THAT bad but that's how it starts, you edge closer and closer until you look at yourself and realise that you've gone too far. I've already lost a friend because of the exact same thing. I don't want to lose this one...

Dashboard Confessional - Stolen

A friend sent me this song yesterday.

Loveliness.

We watch the season pull up its own stakes
And catch the last weekend of the last week
Before the gold and the glimmer have been replaced,
Another sun soaked season fades away

You have stolen my heart
You have stolen my heart

Invitation only, grand farewells
Crash the best one, of the best ones
Clear liquor and cloudy eyed, too early to say goodnight

You have stolen my heart
You have stolen my heart

And from the ballroom floor we are in celebration
One good stretch before our hibernation
Our dreams assured and we all, will sleep well

sleep well(x4)

You have stolen
You have stolen
You have stolen my heart

I watch you spin around in your highest heels
You are the best one, of the best ones
We all look like we feel

You have stolen my
You have stolen my
You have stolen my heart

Nathan @ UrbanDictionary.com

Awesome definition, besides the "superior to all even God" part... whoever wrote it must be a lil bit nuts... lol

Stations of the Cross

As we were in the season of lent, Fr Liem has organised a special 'Stations of the Cross' for our parish this year. Normally we do several inside the church in a few different languages, this year however, we did just the one massive re-enactment at the park across the road from our church, incorporating the different languages at different stations.

My photos on facebook here, and my 'Special Edition' here.

Shot of the Day:

hi all!

So I've decided to pick up blogging again after a very long hiatus =P

I'm quite lazy atm with web design so bear with the generic theme I chose for this blog.

I'll mostly be posting about my work as a photographer and maybe some graphic design work as well.

Anyways... welcome to the world of the Nashimaro =P