Craving for feathers. . .

Monday, October 24, 2011

What do you call it when you're getting something for 3 times in a week and you're still craving for more?!?! Obsession? Or does this behavior qualify for the use of the word "addiction"? Whichever it is, it seems like I can't get enough of badminton recently!! Maybe it's because my life is so mundane and boring that I have nothing better to do aside from sports? Or somehow the mood for badminton has suddenly gushed out like hot water from geysers? My guess is, a combination of both, considering the fact that recently my life has been lacking activities. Everyday I spend my time in the lab and that's it, though I did manage to catch a movie with Josephine and Chong Eu last Friday, but that's about it for my past 2 weeks of entertainment.

Anyway, as I've mentioned earlier, for the last week, I've played badminton on three separate days: Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, and I'm still craving for more!! Somebody feed me with more badminton games please!! Nonetheless, that's not the reason for this post. This post, is to highlight my first attempt at sports photography but not with my camera. Long story short, Daniel organised a badminton tournament for the SPMS graduate club, which involves only graduate students and staff. Therefore, I joined the tournament as a mean to support Daniel's competition, in the doubles category. My partner was Michael, our Russian PhD student, which played badminton for the first time on Thursday itself. No!! I'm not putting the blame on him, we had an amazing time playing badminton, regardless of the outcomes of the matches. Oh crap, I nearly forgot about the photos I took with Daniel's Sony DLC, here they are:

The lighting in the Sports Hall was really dim, for photography at least. What's more, the white balance was a bit off. As the organiser AND player, Daniel had his hands tied throughout the whole night, hence, I did not bother him about changing the settings in his camera. I tried my best, but I really did not manage to find where to change certain settings, and there were matches going on, hence I just made do with whatever I have; mainly the shutter speed and aperture size.
Under these circumstances, I guess I didn't do too badly. At least I manage to get a lot of shots with the shuttle cock still in frame, be it leaving or approaching the player. One thing that I wasn't too satisfied with, was the colour balance.
As I've been shooting without any flash, I had to compromise on the noise level by jacking up the ISO. Fortunately, Noiseware Pro is magic.
Aside from my first sports photography experience, I noticed that throughout the tournament, the professors were really enjoying themselves very much. Most of the time, the hall was filled with laughters among the professors before and after each game.

On and all, I guess the tournament was a huge success, by the amount of fun everyone had. As for the outcome. . . . . Daniel and Bin won every category, so, that's. . . . a LITTLE bit awkward. But, nobody really cares. It's not like the prizes were expensive goodies or whatsoever. The prizes were just towels.

Before I call it a post, a big thank you to Yok Yin for renewing my faith in my racket by rewrapping the grip for me. On Friday night, I bought a new grip for my racket, after it slipped off my hand twice on Thursday when I was playing. Apparently, I learned that I suck at wrapping racket grips, and on Saturday, I was cursing and swearing the whole time because I wrapped it too thick and the racket lost so much power. Thankfully, Yok Yin came to the rescue and offered to rewrap my racket for me on Sunday before we play, and it worked wonders!! Precisely the reason why I'm craving so much for badminton!!! Aside from the reason that I'm trying to drown myself in exhaustion as a mean to escape all the shits in my life.