Image Stitching

I've been seeing that word a lot, "stitch". I've always wondered what it meant...in terms of stitching a few images together. And I finally understood. 

And it's all thanks to a fellow college-mate who is also an amazing photographer, for his tutorial and tips on how to do image stitching to produce a panoramic photograph. 

Feel free to have a look at his blog entry HERE 

This is my very first attempt in applying his tips though (that's my backyard :p). There are many things that I have to fix in the future.

If you take a closer look at the image, there're parts that you can actually see clearly that it was stitched together. So I guess that's a reminder to watch my aperture next time. Also, I should have taken the shot in a wider range so that it'll be more panoramic after stitching and cropping. 

Still so much to learn and experiment~~ 

Donashi by Big Apple Donuts

Anything can be made into a sushi nowadays.

I like how they really try to give the 'sushi' feel to this by including the regular wooden chopsticks with the packaging.
(^ w ^)

AYAH

My Dad  (^ w ^)

Natural Sulphuric Hot Spring - Brastagi

Okay, this is the first time I've edited a photo properly. I've never used those 'layers' and 'filters' in PS before when editing my photos, I'm pretty clueless on how they work actually... 

So I thought, it's about time I learn and here it is - my very first properly-edited-photo!

This was taken at the Ginting Hot Spring in Brastagi, Indonesia.  

A Minangkabau Wedding

Apparently my Mom is a Minangkabau, which is one of the ethnic groups in Indonesia. And as a traditional Minang family, we originated from Padang. But my grandparents moved to Medan and raised their family there instead. 

I still haven't got the chance to go to Padang and see our family members there (my parents had the chance to visit them a couple of years back though), but fortunately I got to meet them during my cousin's wedding in Medan last week. And lucky me, I had the chance to see a traditional Minangkabau wedding ceremony! 

(^ w ^)

Apparently in the Minang tradition, the women play a huge role in the family. So during the wedding, it is the mother who is responsible to bring the bride and groom into the household. The mother does this by tying a cloth (a batik in this case) around the couple and onto herself, and walking them through the family, into the groom's house. 

 I was just so amazed at how awesome that headpiece is! I can't imagine wearing that during a hot scorching day....

 The Koran recital by a guest Ustaz.

 Traditional dessert - Tapai Pulut Merah with....what was it called...Omplong or something....

The bride is of a Javanese ethnic group, but because my cousin (the groom) is a Minang, the ceremony held in our house is done in the traditional Minang way. But he showed me some of the photos of the ceremony done in the bride's house which was done in the traditional Javanese way - it was really interesting to see the similarities and differences of these two ethnic groups.  

Sei Sikambing, Medan

Sei Sikambing was where my Mom was brought up. And our house is basically 'on' the main road itself 'cause my Mom told me that the government took some of our space and turn it into the current main road when they expanded the old Sei Sikambing street. 

My late grandparents used to run a warung (which is more or less like a local coffee shop) back in the days but my Aunt and Uncle started selling goreng pisang (banana fritters) like 5 - 10 years before my grandma passed away, so now it's a full-time goreng pisang / daily-necessities store (they also sell stuff like candies, dish-washing sponge, detergents etc).

I had the chance to snap some of these shots when I sat in the store during the evenings.

 There're very few old-school rickshaws like this (above) now in Medan. The locals prefer the machine-rickshaw ('beca mesin' as the locals call it) which is run by a motorcycle instead of a bicycle. Sadly, we all know machine-rickshaws are not good for the environment, but at the same time they're very useful to save time, I suppose. 

The road was filled with these three main mode of transport; machine-rickshaws, angkot (the blue van) and motorcycles.

Cows

Having cows walking around is not a peculiar thing in my village. However, we caught these guys in the most interesting 'assembly' ever today. For some reason, they just lined up in this very neat row (see below) in front of the gate of my house. 

And they didn't even  move an inch for about 5minutes! 

Until my Dad decided that we didn't need any guards for the house~