Looking into a brief history of Chingay, it’s all about celebrating multi-cultural diversity and neighbourhood celebrations, dating back to 1973. Over the years, Chingay has progressed and transformed from a community heartlanders celebration and performances, into an international spectacle attracting both locals and international visitors and performers to Chingay in Singapore. Chingay Parade today is a very grand street and floats parade in Asia, showcasing our rich and vibrant multi-cultural society of Singapore, as well as embracing exciting cultures and colours from all over the world.

Chingay 2012 promises to be a splashing spectacular with the theme of ”Love, Care and Kindness Everywhere”, it will take you through a very colourful and dazzling performances, encompassing love, harmony, friendship, community diversity and spirit. On the night of Friday, 3 Feb 2012 – Parade Day 1 at 8.30pm or Saturday, 4 Feb 2012 – Parade Day 2 at 8.30pm, coming to you live at the F1 Pit Building (Next to Singapore Flyer), Chingay 2012 will light up the 2 nights!

Here’s some of the Chingay 2012 Highlights 

- Dragon Dramatics

- Beautiful Cultures

- Dreams Realised – Love Our Children

- Engaging as One – Love Our Community

- Triumph Over Challenge – The Grand Finale

Chingay 2012 will be a spectacular performance, with lots of water splashing! The ticketing information is available here on their website. Do purchase your tickets and watch the Chingay 2012 performance live, you can’t beat the feeling of being there in the midst of the performances and celebrations!

Here’s some of the photographs of Chingay 2012 Media Preview – Look forward to seeing you at Chingay 2012 !

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Starting on a Friday, 4th November 2011, the pool action kick started till Saturday. It wasn’t just the big boys in action, the ladies teams were playing, along with the school boys, providing continuous sporting action on the grounds for the crowds to enjoy. Besides the sports, there’s the sideline carnival festivities of food and drinks.

Many teams from different parts of the world coming back to Singapore to play in the 64th SCC Rugby 7s, although one of the crowd favourites, the South Africa Vipers wasn’t able to join this year, some teams returned back to Singapore playing in the SCC Rugby 7s again, the Swedish Vikings with their awesome Viking Hats whenever they ran on to the pitch! The French connection consisting of French Development and NAPTHA Pyrenees7s, this was their maiden debut in the SCC 7s competition! These teams provided more flair and spectacle to the SCC 7s!

Shot over 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, great to watch and enjoy the rugby matches at the same time. Check out my sports photography of the 64th SCC Rugby 7s on my Flickr , SCC Rugby 7s 2011 – Day 2 and SCC Rugby 7s 2011 – Day 3. For more information into the history and heritage of the SCC Rugby 7s, do drop by their website and the information is available there!

 

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The Ablitt Cup Competition, fought between Daveta and Borneo Eagles, was a great game that lived up to the reputation of fast flowing attacking Rugby 7s, hard fought, passionate, fast paced, fierce and competitive. Daveta from Fiji came up tops and they are the 64th SCC Rugby 7s Ablitt Cup holders! Congratulations to them for a great fight, sporting spirit and passion! Let’s all look forward to the 65th year of SCC 7s in 2012 and will love to watch Daveta coming back to defend their crown!

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My alumni mata, The University of Queensland, was there too, participating at the AAS 56th Anniversary Dinner, held at Raffles Town Club, held on the 26th October 2011. Our local alumni body, University of Queensland Alumni Association of Singapore (UQAAS), were there and we had 2 tables, with a great of mix of recent graduates and those who had been working for a number of years to those senior alumni graduates from University of Queensland. This dinner was graced by the President of Singapore, His Excellency, Dr Tony Tan and Mrs Tan, along with the Australian High Commissioner, His Excellency, Mr Doug Chester and Mrs Chester.

Accompanied by the beautiful classical music and singing, it was good to catch up with fellow graduates and chat with the recent graduates, social networking and exchange. Besides, it’s also good to find other fellow friends from Australian Universities graduates and catch up too!

While I was going around taking photographs, I took the time to chat with my UQAAS friends and took many more photographs of them and getting the other photographers to help too (with me inside the group photos!). Do check out some of the selected photos taken here on Flickr ! If you are a University of Queensland graduate, do check out the activities by UQAAS and by AAS too ! Check out our past UQAAS activities and events photographs here on Flickr !

 

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Aussies are simply crazy about their sports and cricket is like a staple diet, a must have for them! Therefore, I slowly learned about the game, rules, lingo and terms, till date, I am still learning more about this sport. Recently, I was invited by the friendly folks of thePRelement, to attend the 2^nd Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) Twenty-20 Cricket international tournament, that was played at the Padang, a venue of historical significance in Singapore’s history, heritage and sports.

Although I wasn’t able to watch all the matches, I was able to catch a game on Saturday afternoon and the finals on Sunday. The weather was great on both days, hot and sunny, with beautiful sunshine, great for watching cricket games! Since this was my maiden attempt in capturing cricket sports action, I was changing locations at every few overs to capture different perspectives, angles and composition of the cricket tournament. Given the size of the oval and my lens focal length (70-200mm f4 on a 1.3x crop body), it was a new learning and challenging experience for me! Some spots around the oval field works still alright for my lens, overall, a 300mm or 400mm telephoto lens would definitely be more ideal for capturing cricket action (and most of the other sports action too)

Action wise, Twenty-20 cricket is more fast paced action as compared to the 5 days Test Cricket and 50 overs format. There were good fielding, bowling and a few batsmen were powerful with their 4s and 6s. Being my maiden attempt at capturing cricket action, adding on to my sports photography portfolio, a very good learning experience and love watching live sports action so close to them! The tips & tricks for shooting cricket especially the bowlers in action needs to be more researched and experimented more in the future! For more SCC Twenty-20 International Club Cricket Tournament photos, check them out here on my Flickr!

 

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Shooting Fireworks at Marina Bay for the past since 2007, I always have been an avid Fireworks lover, influenced by playing many   firecrackers when I was a young kid overseas during Chinese New Year Celebrations. Do check out my collection of fireworks! This year’s NDP 2011, is very special and significant for me because I was given the opportunity by LeVel33, a craft-brewery, restaurant and lounge, with such a magnificent bird’s eye view of the Marina Bay and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) who facilitated this special invitation and arrangement for me to go up with Mr Chin, another avid photographer to capture the fireworks.

I reached there at 5pm and was immediately mesmerised by the beauty, design and ambience of LeVeL33, gorgeous and classy, when I stepped out to the terrace, I was totally blown away by the beautiful scenery of Marina Bay from the 33rd floor, with an opportunity to dine, wine, relax and chill with your friends with such a magnificent landscape beauty. Yes, this is Marina Bay, located in the heart of Singapore’s CBD.

From the terrace of LeVeL33, I was able to watch the pre-parade performances from the Red Lions parachuting down from the sky landing on the Marina Bay Floating Platform, the Sea Hawk and Chinook flying below us into the Marina Bay, the National Flag Fly-Past right across our eyes and the F15 fighter jets doing the Presidential Salute, flying right above us LeVeL33. It’s really a bird’s eye view of the action and many customers at LeVeL33 are drawn to the terrace to watch the NDP 2011 action too! During my time there, I had made new friends the table beside me, had a great time sharing about my photography experiences, letting them try and hold my DSLR equipment setup and they had a nice time holding and posing with it!

While waiting for the fireworks to start at about 805pm, the changing sceneries from the evening sunset into the night from LeVeL33 is so beautiful, beyond words actually. Marina Bay Singapore definitely stands out in the world with an all rounded fun and action living and excitement. When the fireworks, started I was so happy to be able to capture it from such a bird’e eye view location!

Happy 46th Birthday Singapore!

Many Many special THANKS to LeVeL33 and URA for this special arrangement and invitation! Last but not least, enjoy the photographs on my Flickr taken from LeVeL33, you must visit them to enjoy the food, ambience and the gorgeous view of Marina Bay Singapore!

 

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Hot fiery octane 2-on-2 action just got more intense and exciting along with the rise in temperature, showcasing a level of beach volleyball action showcase that presents the beauty and sporting moments of precision timing and teamwork, with teams from Indonesia and Oman, leading the way. Our local boys are good too, giving the big boys a run for their money and a good fight on the beach volleyball courts!

The quarter finals, semi-finals were a great sporting spectacle before the grand final and it’s an awesome sporting event, signifying the growth and popularity of beach volleyball in the world and here too in Singapore, just look at the beach volleyball crowds during the weekends on Sentosa island. The volunteers and organisers did a great job to organise the 2011 Beach Volleyball Championships, well done folks!

The VAS Singapore Beach Volleyball Open Championships 2011 is getting bigger and it would get bigger in the future!! Beach volleyball here in Singapore is going to metamorphosis into a mega sporting spectacle event! Meanwhile, sit back, relax and enjoy some of the beach volleyball action photography!

 

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The Volleyball Association of Singapore (VAS) is currently having an Open Championships on 23rd July and 24th July 2011, held at Siloso Beach of the fun and sunny island playground Sentosa! Day 1 is completed, however, more exciting and high octane action is in Day 2, on the 24th July 2011 from 9am to 6pm!

Do come down, enjoy the sun, sand and beach volleyball competition, with teams from overseas countries gracing our Singapore Beach Volleyball Open Championships 2011! Great and exciting future volleyball talents producing great games for all to watch and enjoy! See you there at Siloso Beach for more Day 2 Beach Volleyball action!!

Here’s some snapshots of the VAS SG Beach Volleyball Open Championships 2011 Day 1 

 

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A day of fun and events, started with my small photography workshop sharing and an interactive hands-on interactive events photography workshop with my participants, my first time helping out at Singapore Social Media Day, even with 2 registered participants, Colin and Juliana, supported by Amanda and Sue who came down to support me whilst they are busy with their activities. Since it wasn’t my first workshop sharing, I am better prepared than last time and it was intended to be more sharing of my photography experiences, personal projects, tips and tricks and where to go take photographs in Singapore. After my sharing, we went around photographing Singapore Social Media Day event, the SoMe wall, the performances and the crowds at Singapore Social Media Day 2011! I had lots of fun too, exchanging Juliana’s GF2 with my 1Dmk3, playing with the wide angle pancake lens while Juliana was testing out the high fps of the 1Dmk3!

After my photography hands-on session was over, I continued to stay behind capturing photographs of the event, watching performances and making more new friends at Singapore Social Media Day 2011! The blog shops were fun and interesting, packed with nice and unique stuff for sale and some of their proceeds go to charity. Overall, it’s good to catch up with blogger friends whom I knew and met before, finally meeting blogger friends in real life and last but not least knowing more new blogging/social media/twitter friends! Do check out some of the photos uploaded into my facebook photo album!

This event was organised by the bloggers forming the Singapore Social Media Day Ex-Co and I would to congratulate them on a great job! Well done and keep it up! I would also like to thank the Singapore Social Media Day Ex-Co for giving me this opportunity to do a sharing on my photography experiences and social media networking.

 

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

There are people in other parts of the world, that are not able to enjoy all of the things we are having and enjoying now in Singapore, these people could be living in developing countries and disaster stricken areas. It was from this charity walk, Bare Your Sole 2011, organised by Habitat for Humanity Singapore, showing that organisations are out there helping these people who are in need of help, to help them build a decent home, a shelter over their head, a place for them to live in.

Bare Your Sole 2011 was held at Gardens by the Bay East (Rhu Cross) on 18th June 2011, a great turnout of support and walkers, walking barefoot and raising funds for the needy. Although the weather wasn’t sunny and bright, it wasn’t raining and the rain stopped, just nice for the walk to begin. Flagged off by Mr Dhanabalan, A leisure walk in the Gardens, beautiful sceneries of Singapore’s Marina Bay landscape of Marina Barrage, Singapore Flyer, Marina Square, Raffles Place CBD and Marina Bay Sands. The crowds were great, from all ages and walks of life, walking barefoot in the name of charity, enjoying themselves and taking many photos too!

It was fun to be part of this interesting and noble event, helping to raise the funds for other needy people too. While we are able to enjoy the high standards of living and comfort in Singapore now, let’s all take stock and appreciate the finer things in life, not just chasing the dollars and cents, status and power. Therefore, we can also help those around us who are more needy too!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

When: 25th June 2011
Time: 2:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Where: *SCAPE Atrium & Gallery

Many many interesting activities, performances, networking and sharing sessions will be on during Singapore Social Media Day 2011 at Scape. Do come down and join us for a day of fun and excitement, organised by bloggers, for bloggers and social media communities, networks and platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Micro-Blogs etc etc), the people who know what is it all about and how to go about doing it!

It’s also a day for a good social cause, fund raising for The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund ! Follow them on Facebook ! RSVP for this wonderful and fun event ! Look out for this hash tag #ssmd2011 on Twitter ! Let’s all take this opportunity to widen the Social Media community and networks, make more new friends !

Last but not least, I am conducting a photography sharing session, full details here! Look forward to seeing you there!