In all fairness, given good weather, you just cannot take a bad picture in Mongolia. I was outside in a summer camp covering Tiger Translate. The sky was a deep blue, the bluest blue my eyes have ever laid on. And the grass was a beautiful green. Rolling hills surround the capital city of Ulaan Baatar. Sheep, cows and horses dot the landscape. You just cannot take a bad picture in a place like this, even on your iPhone.

I hope the natural beauty of this country remains unspoiled and unchanged forever.

See what we were up to in the summer camp, in my post here.

THIS is really big for me, going for Tiger Translate happening in Mongolia. It is the one time I am not just a quiet and distant observer of the art but now I get to participate, mingle and communicate with some of the world’s leading artists, the likes of whom I might not get to meet on a regular day back home in Singapore. I’m totally psyched!

Tiger Translate Exhibition based on the theme "Balance" now on in Mongolia

From Left to Right: Ben Frost from Australia, Liv Carle Mortensen from Denmark, Pure Evil from UK

I am looking forward to meet the 3 international artists in attendance; Pure Evil, Liv Carle Mortensen and Ben Frost. Pure Evil and Liv have both worked with Mongolian artist in Tiger Translate London and Tiger Translate Copenhagen respectively in 2008 and 2009. The transformed London cab Pure Evil sat on was one of his collaborative efforts with the participating artists in Tiger Translate London. It will be awesome to see him interacting again with 4 of the finest Mongolian artist on the Mongolians’ home turf in the next few days. I hear that even the Arts Council of Mongolia is promoting this event on a national level. I believe the synergy and the level of participation will be immense! Check out the videos from those years here and here.

Tiger Translate is an initiative started by Tiger Beer in 2006 to bring some of the best minds from the East and West. Offering an international platform for emerging artists to showcase their work in various media: visual art, photography, music, etc. Tiger Translate is a global platform, committed to bringing contemporary Asian art forms to rest of the world, vice versa. Tiger Translate has been to London, Copenhagen, Hanoi, Sydney, just to name a few places.

The theme changes every year. This year, Tiger Translate looks at the theme balance , an essential part of Asian values and principles.

Asian and Western artists were paired to create artwork very much from scratch; Asian artists were asked to develop and create an artwork based on theme of Balance and what it means to them. After which, their Western counterparts would then re-interpret work of their respective partners to create their composition of balance. Below is a sample of such a pairing and their work.

I just can’t wait to be there! Personally, I have always been a keen observer of alternative forms of art and music, open to pretty much anything. Now I get to be immersed in both over the course of 5 days, with a taste of home-grown brew Tiger Beer in an exotic place like Mongolia. I expect an environment full of creative energy and good vibes all round.

Brick (Singapore)

C86 (UK)

The creative team at Tiger Beer came up with another brilliant idea for collaboration. Taking original pictures and added a personal touch to them. Below is a sample of such a work between Singapore’s Sin Kok Wai and Jason Raish of South Korea

Sin Kok Wai (Singapore)

Jason Raish (South Korea)

I will be watching closely over the proceedings of Tiger Translate starting 31st of August through to the 4th of September, beginning with the top 4 local artists’ collaborative work with their international counterparts. As I’ll be writing for blankanvas, the main focus is to share my experiences on Tiger Translate Mongolia plus the lowdown on the international artists as I get to know them better. It is also a great opportunity for me to capture the more intimate moments of the event.

On kevin365, I will be focused on photoblogging. Hopefully not to only capture Tiger Translate but as much of Mongolia as possible in these short few days. Consider this an introductory trip before my next excursion there in the future.

On a final note, it is heart’s intention for the year to travel far more than I did the last two years hence I jump at the chance when I was offered a great opportunity to go Mongolia for this Tiger sanctioned event. Mongolia, being rich in culture with a unique beautiful landscape and people, is a country I planned on visiting while I was still in Nepal doing my trek. Big thanks to Pat Law and APB for presenting me with the chance. Stay tuned as I report live from Mongolia over the next few days!

Actually to be honest, I’ve been really neglecting this site of mine for a while now. So to quickly bring this up to speed by recording what has happened in the last few months since the last post (which was roughly written in May).

After my sensational trip to Australia, doing the Great Ocean Drive with friends Nic and Chloe, Jason and Diana, visited the cities Melbourne, Sydney and Bendigo, I was back in Singapore.

Not too long after that I was up in Kuala Lumpur, cooped up in a hotel going through a mind-blowing program, Money and You. Awesome stuff, I shall find time to elaborate more on that in a separate post.

Following which, I traveled with friends Jijay, Aron, Komal and Michael to Nepal for a 10 day adventure-ish trip. This was in the periods between 23rd July and 1st August. Pictures can be seen in my Flickr account, I am still in the process of cleaning up and uploading.

With my friends, Delia and Adam, from London coming to Singapore for two weeks, we managed to squeeze a short vacation to Phuket. Being a monsoon season, it was hardly sunny, we did have one good day of clear skies though. Which brings me to my last point.

And just today, I have a trip pretty much firmed up to Mongolia! Hurray. Credits goes to Pat Law for pitching me up for the trip. I’m going in stead of her due to work reasons and her successfully busy business better known as Goodstuph. What is the trip about? There’ll be a separate write-up for this, and I’ll be writing for Pat during the duration I’m there in Mongolia. I wish the trip is a longer but heck, a trip is as good as any other, long or short.

I didn’t know what to expect being in Brighton beach on an autumn’s day. But we had very good weather, the sun was out and a light breeze. We got some pretty good shots. I hope to post some of them up as soon as I get clearance to do so.

In less than three days, I’ll be on a plane with my wife to Melbourne. We’re literally flying into the month of May as we head down-under. This trip has been one in the planning since late 2009. I’m glad we made it this far. So effectively my wife and myself will be away from the 30th April evening to 17th May morning. This trip will be especially special for myself, since I’m celebrating my 30th birthday there, plus an early 4th wedding anniversary for my wife and I.

The trip’s primary objective is to help a good friend with his pre-wedding photography. First off, they wanted something that most Singaporean couples don’t have for their pictures; an uncommon location. Secondly, relatives of the bride-to-be live in Bendigo, Victoria, not more than 2 hours away from Melbourne City, in short, savings on accommodations.

And at least for us, the secondary objective is to do some sight-seeing while we’re there and to take that long vacation that I’ve personally have been pining for. On the second leg of the trip, another couple will join us 4 in Melbourne after we’re done what the photos we need to capture in Bendigo. It’s been ages since the last time I went to Melbourne and certainly look forward to seeing that city and spending some time there again. For the few days we’ll be in Melbourne, all 6 of us will be touring the city and the vicinity before the first couple we came to Australia leaves first for home. During which more casual shots will be taken.

On the second leg of the trip, we’ll head down to Sydney with the second couple. And I believe it is the first time we have ever set foot there. We being all 4 of us. I am looking forward to doing the tour at Hunter’s Valley and staying a couple of nights there while we are at it. We are going to take the opportunity while all my gear is with to take some shots of this couple who have been married for just over a year.  We are also excited at the chance to visit Hillsong church, personally more so for me because most of my christian rock music in my iPod originated from them.

In short, there will be plenty of picture taking and I will be lugging along my recently acquired MacBook Pro 15″ i7 to process some of the pictures as I go along and this also allows me to blog as often as I can. Memories like these are definitely worth recording as much as I can, when I can.

I was invited by Pat Law to preview Nike’s Spring Summer 2010 Edition of sportswear inspired by football fabric and technology. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of mainstream Nike products but I do fancy their kicks on the occasion. This season’s spread was the collective effort of 6 different designers from all over the world.

Interestingly, yesterday was Pat Law’s first solo event put together by herself. I must say job well done on albeit small budget. 4 different talents/models (most of which are from Fly Entertainment) were on the scene with 4 fashion students to participate in a quick and simple “fashion” competition. They went about dressing their respective models up, and the best dress was voted by the whole lot of us who were there to watch.

Oh yes, left the event with a goodie bug that contained a Nike toiletry bag and a discount voucher for 30%… Yes more shopping!

For more pictures from event, here’s Pat’s Flickr account.