Back to class

Personal development is a good thing.And you are never too old to learn.I welcome such an opportunity to pick up new tricks in the trade and was given a chance to attend a
six-day copy clearing and editing workshop.This is divided into weekly sessions spanning over half a month.What made it interesting is the fact that I knew the trainer, who is the best in the field.He came highly recommended by an old friend of mine who is employed as a training manager in
the country's oldest English daily.In the first two sessions, I learned a lot about things that are majorly overlooked.And the point driven was the fact that most journalists are so used to what they see everyday, their
eyes become shielded from common mistakes and cliches.This was part of the personal enrichment that I was hoping to gain and I must say that I am glad to be
a part of.To me, it takes a lot of guts to actually own up for making a mistake, learn and move on.I think the trainer made his point too when he told the class that he was not there to solve problems
faced by reporters on day-to-day matters.What felt right, was the fact that he was there to teach his students on how to deal with copies and
employ the proper word usage.With two down, there are four more classes to go. That said, I am looking foward to the future sessions.

A surprise find in Bukit Gasing

Rare find: Caponiidae Curtana

The Macromaniac team at Bukit Gasing on Friday night

Teamwork: our guys working on capturing the Caponiidae Curtana spider

My macrothon outing ended with a trip to Bukit Gasing.After leaving Bukit Tinggi, TS Ching and I headed to Raju's restaurant at Section 5 in Petaling Jaya. We got there about 5pm and had an early dinner.I noticed that the food and service at Raju's really sucked.What was more appalling was the fact that one of the food handlers actually tried to warm up a piece
of fried chicken in the microwave oven after taking it out straight from the frying wok.I rejected the order and continued with some conversation with Mr Ching.One of our regulars Derrick came later. He told us two other guys were supposed to link up at the Hutan Pendidikan entrance, but later, we
found out that they were no-shows.Master Kurt joined in and after we were done with our meals, we moved on to the trail head.Since we were early, there was enough ambient light for us to hike in to the tower trail.We shot our way in and found some really interesting bugs.There were tiger beetles, spiders and a couple of butterflies at the beginning of the trail.The fun only started after dark when we rigged up a perimeter with lights and worked around it.I was rather disappointed with my Black Diamond Apollo lantern because its NRG powerpack had
yielded only an hour of light.Lucky for me, I had my back-up lights: the Surefire Aviator A-2 and my trusty Fenix TK-40.Having spent nearly two hours in the jungle, the find of the day was a two-eyed spider from the
Caponiidae family.This rare creature was thought to be a mite, and everything that we saw defied our very
understanding of spiders.I managed to squeeze about five shots on my Canon MPE-65 lens that gave it a 2x magnification.The results were satisfying and we named our find Caponiidae Curtana in honour of Master Kurt who found the rare spider.

In total, we spent about 18 hours on two locations and its a worthwhile trip because we were rewarded with so many cool bugshots!

Macrothon - Bukit Tinggi, Pahang

My first Rhino Beetle

Long horned beetle

Team Macromaniac: Samo, TS Ching and Master Kurt

Friday was a packed affair.I left for Bukit Tinggi in Pahang as early as 6am in the morning and rounded up my macro shooting
kaki TS Ching and Master Kurt.We had a good start and the weather was excellent.This was my second trip and follow-up to the hilltop resort and I found that many things has changed.The entrance fee has been revised from RM10 - RM12 and security guards are place at the
Japanese Tea House entrance.I had a hard time with a Nepali who refused to allow my car into the park.After dealing with the idiot, we decided to walk to the botanical garden at the park.It was quiet and we had the whole place to ourselves.There were plenty of beetles and bees around and I had a blast shooting at least three different
species of long horned beetles.We worked till 3pm and shot off to Bukit Gasing for a night macro session.