'Las Vegas in Film' - November 1997. My first time meddling around with my dad's prosumer film camera yielded an amazing postcard-esque shot of the New York New York hotel in Las Vegas. That was probably the start of my interest in photography.

Being really young then, it wasn't until 2001 that I got seriously interested in photography with my very first digital camera, a 1.3MP Fujifilm Finepix A101. Unimpressive in detail, but nonetheless important as it provided an easier route into photography for lazy me.

Obtained a prosumer digital camera, the Canon Powershot A95 in 2003. It dropped and died in 2005, leaving me with only a point-and-shoot Canon Powershot A430 for the next 2 years. These two Canons gave me some of my favourite shots like 'Esplanade' and 'Winter Sonata'.

And finally in 2007, an admittedly value-based decision to buy the Olympus E500 saw the start of my dedication to Olympus and their FourThirds system. Yea, I would have preferred Canon back then and was envious of friends with Canon DSLRs. It has been 3 years now and I am totally loving my E500. Somehow, holding another camera just feels weird now. It's 'limitations' have helped me learn better and helped me realise that more often than not, it is the person behind the camera, and not the camera, that makes pictures work.

I once read something somewhere about photography that I found myself instantly agreeing with; it said that the only sure way we know we are improving (in photography) is when we look back at our photos from a year ago and find ourselves wondering why we even put it up online. I constantly find myself looking back at photos in my flickr collection and wondering how I even chose to showcase them; yet, it provides me the reassurance that I am constantly changing and evolving myself. Perhaps, it is not that I am getting better at photography; perhaps, it is because I am growing up and seeing more of the world, such that my thoughts and perspectives are constantly changing and the photographs I take reflect that change. I take great comfort from knowing that; and of course, from photography itself.

It follows that my favourite photos are constantly changing. As time goes on, I take new photos that gradually replace my older favourites. I wrote the following in early-2009 and reckoned that I shall leave it to reflect my personal changes:

" 'Dried Leaf', 'The Black Swan' & 'Fernando Fernando!' rank amongst my favourite shots. My all-time favourite, 'Firing at Dusk' - October 2007, a photo of an artillery weapon firing at dusk in the Australian outback, is unfortunately unavailable online due to military equipment featuring in the photo. "

Currently (Mar'10), 'Thea: Fort Canning', 'Central Park' & 'Lunar Gala' rank amongst my favourite shots. And there is of course, the photo 'Dried Leaf' that still ranks right up there in my personal opinion; and that's simply because some good things never change.

My current list of equipment includes:

- Olympus E500

- Zuiko Digital 14-45mm f3.5-5.6

- Zuiko Digital 40-150mm f3.5-4.5 Mk I

- Sigma 30mm f1.4

- Olympus FL-50R Ext. Flash

I still have very much to learn; in fact, very much is an understatement. But I have also learnt not to take my work too seriously as I am in it simply to relax, enjoy and express myself with no intentions of ever becoming a professional.

Note: I am a firm believer in the freedom of content on the Internet. Since photography is merely a hobby to me and not a profession, I have no qualms about people sharing/using/editing the photos that are available on my Flickr page. Photography is a powerful tool in expression and communication, and I personally strongly urge all other hobbyist photographers to make their photos freely available to everyone as well. You will notice that almost all of my pictures are licensed under the Creative Commons, meaning that anyone is free to use them so long as they give a simple credit to me for the original photo. Do however note that my photos with people/models in them are not licensed under the Creative Commons and I reserve the rights on them; this is not because I do not want to share those photos but because I want to respect the privacy of the people in the photos. I will be most willing to share them if you drop me a message requesting for permission and explaining your intended purpose of usage. Finally, it will be very nice if anyone who uses any of my photos drop me a message telling me so; there is nothing more honouring to me as a photographer than knowing that people are seeing and sharing my work. (: