Chinese New Year 2013

The Chinese or Lunar New Year means different things depending on what age you are. If you’re a grandparent or belonging to the older generation, it’d be a festive and joyous occasion where the extended family gathers for the reunion of celebration, feasting and catching-up. For kids, it’s also an occasion where they look forwards to dividends for being relatives or offspring and beef up their piggy banks for a nice payoff and present at the end of the festivities.

Hannah as she grows older has also been faring better in the long days when we’re out visiting. Just last year, she’d get tired and thus cranky real quick. But this year, she was able to sustain herself for an entire day out of home and even got through the first day of festivities without her usual afternoon nap.

For the first time, the Nikon gear stayed home this year too for CNY, with the E-M5 fully taking over photographic duties. Bounced flash shots using the Metz flashgun are still somewhat iffy with a tendency for under-exposure. So I dialed in a +0.7 EV for some of the flash shots and also took RAW versions just in case too.

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The yearly CNY picture of the Foo clan will get larger by +1 next year in 2014.
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The kids in their yearly iPad party.
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Brunch at Yoshinoya over the long weekend and with the new 25mm f1.4. We enjoy having breakfasts here but the eatery just experienced a large price mark-up. Duh.
With the 25mm f1.4 shot wide-open. I seem to be getting the best results by just slightly stopping-down by half a stop.
With the 25mm f1.4 shot wide-open. I seem to be getting the best results by just slightly stopping-down by half a stop.

Funnily, the weather for this year’s CNY has been rainy – quite unusual since for as long as memory serves, previous years’ CNYs have always ben hot and humid. On the days outside visitations and feastings, it was quite relaxing to be homebound during the 4 day holiday weekend.