Watsons You Awards

One of the things that I did recently was to take part in a Watsons contest. It was quite an enlightening experience and I wrote about my journey over the last month below on Facebook to thank my supporters and friends.

Culminating in a 'victory' hiphop dance of sorts at their D&D last night, the Watsons You Awards has been an interesting journey. It started out with me naively thinking that it was a simple contest where you go for a casting, get chosen as a finalist, turn up for a photoshoot and then ask people to 'like' my picture. It was in actuality, a lot more than I bargained for. Over a period of two weeks, I had to pit myself against a friend in the same category for daily votes, making a meteorical rise from the third placed contestant with 70+ votes to win with 3000+ votes. This was followed by a ZA makeup workshop, 5 sessions of rehearsals and the performance mentioned above. Being born with two left feet didn't help much and I had to pump in hours of self-torture in front of the mirror. Incidentally, my mom mentioned that she was the one who passed down the bad coordination genes. Thanks mom! :P

In my quest to get votes, I shamelessly 'harassed' my friends almost daily over a two week period, involuntarily stuck to Facebook Chat. I magically developed an inch-thick hide overnight. Online, I met people who were really friendly and supportive, and who helped me vote tirelessly. Some even roped their entire office/friend list in the voting. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! Over this period of time, I made some friends, got reacquainted with others, and got to network with people from various walks of life, and I think, if i had lost, this itself would have been a reward. All the votes of love and support in itself meant a lot to me, and I was really overwhelmed. Meeting the other contestants and having their friendship was also a boon!

(On a personal note, and it is very personal here if you wish to read on. If not, please skip to the last part...I feel that I need to vindicate myself although it would appear very wicked to wash dirty linen in pubic.)

I do have one main regret though - in the process of the competition, I lost a friendship. This person was someone I used to be close with. It hurts because this was a friend that I was really true to. We went to KL together, I shared with her the goodies l had e.g NDP tickets, Star Awards VIP tickets. I even helped her to procure a crown from China on my trip, went to her mom's funeral for support etc. So to be stabbed in the back like this was a real letdown.

She was in the same category and thus became a strong competitor. Due to some conflicts earlier in the friendship, where I felt she was insulting me in quite a few of the photoshoots that I did, I had blocked her from my wall. For example, I quote her in one case here: 

"Sorry to say the makeup dont look like you almost thought was someone else lookalike. Wonder why they chose her as excutive while you look like asst. I mean she dont look convincing as a excutive.Think you do better. mayb that why they have to make you less attractive or else you take her attention away. ....For once she look better than you hahaha.They manage to make you less attractive. What the makeup artiste did for u really is bad.But she is good at making you look older !!! hahaha gd skill in that ! ....hahaaha no la just think the making does make u look bad. But we all know who looks better."

She took the blocking very badly and 'flamed' me on a mutual friend's wall. I wouldn't have guessed she would do that except someone alerted me to the unpleasant remarks she made. The story goes like this: someone had posted on his status that some people would do anything to win. And her comment follows:

"aha i have similar experience too.I didnt want to make things ugly and it wasnt in my mind to begin with but some people just want to make it ugly and think everything can still be the same after what they did but the truth is its nt possible.All cuz of $2000,is it worth it ?A friend gone for me but lucky me made a new one at the same time.

....

You cheer up too.No point geeting upset over ppl like these.They wanna turn things ugly let them be.Our conscience is clear then who cares.They dont deserve us.lol

...

all i can say is when comes to competiton,not all close frens can still treat one another as frens.I want to but sometimes the other cant do the same

...

at least william you deserve the award.Unlike some who didnt even want to be in certain category at first and even think watsons chose the contestnats without real consideration who should be in which category.But then that person went tru all ways to win in the category she dont like. should I say she wants ti win cuz mayb its just about beatin me at another contest? Was told fame isnt what she want and the $ isnt the main reason either"

This was my reply:

"Who said that i didn't want to win? I GAVE UP my air ticket so that I can attend this casting. That cost me $400. I just want to recoup my loss. And not about beating you. If I am in a competition, I ALWAYS give my best shot. This is a fair and open competition, I try my best and you try your best. And I won this time again due to my own hard work. And I did say hello to you after it was over. In fact, I defended you when some of my voters said you didn't look good. I told them you were pretty in person. I am very sad that you actually post this on William's wall. Looks like the one who doesn't appreciate friendship is you."

At one point in the competition, she casually asked me to give it up for her. Is this what a friend would do? I would never think of even insinuating that to her. It is her right to fight for the win and it is just unfair to make a request like that, however casually.

For me, to have someone behave so immaturely and offload all the junk in public doesn't show the right spirit of sportsmanship. And to compound the offence, she did it against someone she called "friend". It would have been bad enough over a private message, but to discuss all these openly shows that she was a sore loser who chose to frivolously throw a friendship away over a contest of votes. I could go on and on about all the other things she said and did, but that would go beyond the scope of this note.

 

In any case, I choose to move on after this issue. I have learned many lessons in this journey, and I want to focus on the good and forget the bad. Most importantly, in this note, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to people who were so generous with their time and friendship, for the many who encouraged me when I felt tired, for the many laughs and fun moments with my newfound friends. And also beg for forgiveness for the moments when bothersome ME gets too much for poor longsuffering YOU. Hey after all, it's the YOU AWARDS right!

Cam-whoring with Tiger in my performance costume.

In addition to what I wrote on Facebook, I really think I learnt quite a few things about friendship. I guess, in some ways, I should have been a better judge of people and stayed further away when I got the nagging feeling that this lady could be a "time bomb". I quote our mutual friend here who distanced herself after a two-night trip with her. I should have seen the warning signs when she blocked a friend on Facebook over some trivial American Idol spoiler statuses. Or when she bitched to me about another friend she really couldn't stand. 


I would write a lot more, but let me recover from this episode and move on with my life and not mourn the loss of a friendship that is of such poor value to the other party.

There are some who think it doesn't reflect very well on myself to post up such personal stuff on Facebook. i don't often do this as I am a private person by nature, and I will not even post on my statuses things that insinuate or malign others, but this time I really feel very victimized.

All I did was to block a friend from my wall, and that was reason enough for her to launch a full-blown attack on me. Should I do the same to my siblings if they want to keep their private lives from me? People do things for reasons known to themselves and they are entitled to that if it is not a vicious act. I would say, flaming someone is a vicious act. She claims that me writing my note is disrespectful to her since we have a lot of mutual friends, but it is ok for her to badmouth me on someone's wall because we had ONLY a few mutual friends. I am very sorry, but to me it is really the same. To use an analogy, it's like if someone committed a crime, and just because only a few people saw, it doesn't make it any less of a crime
 
In retrospect, I removed most of my comments about her and just left the basic stuff she said intact. I think people can see for themselves that the comments she made were certainly unfair and I leave it at that instead of implicating myself further in the mess.

So, if you think the worse of me because of this, I can't help it. I just know that people can see the truth of the matter and make judgments for themselves.

"Tragic" Tale at Hong Kong International Airport

I was at the Hong Kong airport departing for Singapore last Sunday, and had what I would call a "strenuous experience".

When we checked in our luggage at the Kowloon station to take the airport express, I thought it was a genius idea since we didn't have to drag our stuff around and had spare time to shop at Elements, a new shopping mall just above the station. Incidentally, if you have epicurean taste, that is a choice destination. All your favourite designers will be there, and there is lots of SPACE to ramble along without literally rubbing shoulders with the locals. And there is a indoor skating rink too! If you're up for some sport before a flight, that is.

After indulging in some moments of window shopping, we made off in good time for the airport. Looking at our boarding pass, which did not indicate the Gate, we noticed that penciled on the slip was "T1". We were instructed to head for T1 despite departure information indicating Terminal 2.

We thought we would have our pre-flight dinner inside the boarding area. Obediently, we made our way to the departure dates, a little bewildered. There was a North and South entrance and we weren't informed. The LCD screen indicated Terminal 2. We decided that the 'system' was more reliable than the human factor, and went off in that direction. On the way, we popped by "Customer Service" only to realize that the staff was even more clueless than us. And spoke dismally little English or Mandarin. She had absolutely no idea what was happening.

Our minutes were flying past so we were in quite a hurry. After getting through the gates, we saw alas.....a loooooonnnng snaking queue at the Immigration and then at Security. Never mind that. A long corridor led us to a TRAIN STATION! Duh....we had to take a TRAIN to get to the waiting area!

The hubby said it was gate 42 so we took a train to that stop. Just to make sure, we double checked. When I looked at the board, I gave him an incredulous look. It was gate 522! Not 42! He had made a mistake with the flight number! Horrors!!!!

I glanced at my watch. 15 minutes to go....and a long way from the wretched gate. We were going to miss the flight. So I gathered up my bag and took off in my 3 inch boots, sweeping past irate passengers on the travellators. The gate numbers went past me...42...38....34...23...21...16...then finally at the end of the road, 522 was finally in sight. I was panting for air, beads of perspiration dribbling down my forehead, face as black as hell at the idiotic mistake the hubby made, and over having to miss my dinner. Over the intercom, the impassive voice announced "Final Call for Flight ...". My legs were giving way by now as I had ran over one kilometer in 15 minutes.

We had to go down an escalator, only to find ANOTHER BUS! Thankfully that was the last leg of my wild goose chase. We made it in the nick of time. You can imagine that I only had unkind words for my sheepish-looking hubby, who tried to apologize to my stone-walled demeanor. Thinking back, it was quite hilarious...I pictured myself as the brash Chinese woman tornado ravaging everyone in my path screaming "EXCUSE ME EXCUSE ME!" on the travellators.

Ironically, we were back at Terminal 1. Where we started off. Wished they had some signage to clue passengers like us in on their very 'sophisticated' system.

If you ever took the Kowloon airport express service, please, head straight to T1, despite all signs indicating otherwise. Otherwise, you are in for an airport tour.

Snake dies After Biting Breasts

Description: Orit Fox, the Israelite model known by her breasts has been bitten by a snake on her breast.
According to several sources the snake was intoxicated with silicone from the model's prosthesis and died shortly after



This video is so funny-ironic-ridiculous I had to post it.

I think the model had it coming. She was trying to look all seductive and sexy playing with the snake and having it slither around her thighs and neck. While she was sticking out her tongue to lick the snake, nothing happened. I was half-expecting it to hiss and sink its fangs into her serpentine tongue. Instead, the snake took to her boobs. I suppose it must have been a lusty male snake since it was attracted to her boobs. The sorry part was that it paid a high price for its moment of lascivious folly.

Hmmm...now about the intoxication from the silicone. If it killed the snake, I wonder what sort of harm it would do inside the model's breasts. Wonder if she has to do some last minute surgery to contain that leak. Morale of the story: keep those twin peaks well-covered when handling snakes?

Posing nude?

I had an interesting discussion on Facebook with a photographer recently. He posted on a Singapore Freelance Models page with this question:

Julien Atomick "how come no ladies wanna do nude or implied nudes here? even if its artistic shoots."

It garnered quite a bit of responses that went like this:

Hker Insg it's one's limit. should well consider rather than rush into it.

Sam Tan It's still a conservative society mate. I also have the same problem 

Sam, in my opinion, is a newbie photographer who doesn't seem to have reached anything of credible standards yet. I have seen his portfolio...bleah!

Julien Atomick haha conservative society much... more like a every girl is aspiring to be a model society. maybe should do a chinese opera theme or traditional malay dance theme where everyone is covered up.

Julien's condescending attitude to wannabe models was a little uncalled for. Although I don't completely disagree with him, there is no need to belittle the aspirations of these girls.

Alexia Giesen not all ladies are comfortable in doing so.
i myself will not do it until i join an agency. Where things and all work will be kept confidential. Where as you do it as a freelancer, you can never be to sure of the confidentiality

Grace Poh maybe because there's clearly a lack of professionalism & photography standards in our local industry?

Makiyo Jaz Because they know what you are up to behind your so called "artistic shoots" ?? oh im sorry i had no idea, hmm every girl aspiring to be a model well u mean theres something wrong with that?

I liked Makiyo's response...totally dripping with caustic sarcasm. Hehe! Then here is my contribution to the thread:

If u r a good photographer, u can make the best of any theme. What's the obsession with nudes? Voyeurstic pleasure?

Julien Atomick 

Thank you Alexia for a clearer view from a models perspective.
And also Grace for that important point. i dont know about other photographers but i practice a contract basis for all the legal and liability issues for all the do's and do not's for both parties which both parties agree on and also a print release form for the model if the photos are to be used for prints or exhibitions and this i mean gallery exhibitions. 2 copies in balck and white for both the artist and the model. And being a fine arts photographer i think "THEME" doesn't come much into play but more the "SUBJECT" which most amateur photographers here lack of. with the situation being - no creativity for a shoot? oh lets just choose and follow a theme why don't we all and maybe use an ipod for props... or Oh, lets shoot inside a sleazy hotel! ~weeeeee... yup love themes.

Someone was clearly a little upset with my little interjection. At that time I had a profile pic of myself in headphones and holding an ipod. (see below) My first reaction was to pack off a nasty retort about how come only nudes were "artistic" but I decided to hold my horses and come up with a level-headed, and objective reply:

With all due respect, there is a very fine line between art and pornography. And i think there should be equal merit given to other genres like fashion and beauty shoots etc, and there is no shame in girls aspiring to be models. (Incidentally i am not speaking of myself here. )

Julien, u have a credible port so i can't speak for u but there are many perverts out there armed with a camera shooting under the guise of an "artistic" theme, legal contract or not. Can u fault models trying to protect themselves by refusing to pose nude?

I think Julien got my point there...

I understand Glynis. After this discussion on the threat i've already come to understand from the model's perspective. Yes, you are right you can never know what sly motives one has hiding behind his camera lens. i hope we don't get off the wrong foot here. but honestly (not relating to nude modeling) i dont think art photography gains equal merits here in the whole photographic society in singapore at all.

Thank you Glynis and every ones views and points in this.
I think the photographic community here is still in its maturing process. i guess there is much we can learn from each other (models and photographers) to heighten the professionalism of both parties like i have.

I am posting this up on my blog because I realised that recently with the growing popularity of DSLR cameras, there is a pool of men with big lenses who specialize in shooting girls in various states of undress. It is really disturbing how many ask for these kinds of shoots. I am not prudish and I can appreciate the art and beauty of a nude or lingerie shoot. However, from what I hear, some photographers shooting in (seedy) hotels even bring along condoms for "part 2". One model got harassed and blackmailed with her own nude shots. 

So if you are an aspiring model, beware of who you shoot with, and don't shoot anything you are not willing to expose to the world.

Truly, Madly and Deeply

That's the name of a Converse Valentine's Day event at Heeren held over the 

weekend of 12th and 13th Feb.

I was invited to be one of the 3 judges for the event, which started off with a fashion show of sports/casual wear. So here are some pictures of the young models...

THE BOYZ...

Desmond my friend, who was 2nd runner-up Calendar Guys 2010, and two others I don't know.

Then, THE GALS...

The Chinese gal, Daphne, happens to be my friend too.

There you go, some pics from the fashion show itself.

After that, we had an interesting segment where 6 couples pitted against each other to win our hearts. We had some sincere, honest to goodness couples trying really hard in 3 rounds. One was a fashion show, the other was a interview round, but the last one was the one that got the crowd's attention---the ONE-LEGGED KISS! Poor fellas had to balance precariously on one leg while keeping their lips locked in a passionate embrace. Ahem! Maybe not so passionate, and more sweaty and quivery.

Half dropped out when their muscles protested after 5 minutes of abuse. So we had a tie-breaker...see below...

Maybe the moral of the story is it pays to stay toned? The first couple in white eventually won. They were former cheerleaders in their schools and impressed us with a mini dextrous performance. 

That's not it yet. This couple had to pit themselves against the winners of the first day....by smashing balloons without using their hands. That was rather entertaining, especially the look on this girl's face before she got started.

Again, being dextrous helped. Our winning couple (below) also had lots of chemistry. High school sweethearts who had dated for 9 years, if I remember correctly, and getting married this year. They were elated that they got a free trip to HongKong and a pair of Foxtrot shoes sponsored by yours truly.

Yes, it is Desmond again as one of the judges! Dual-function! In the centre is Mrs Singapore World 2007, Inderpal Kaur. I think we 3 had fun judging this event. 

The couples were really simple young couples putting in their best efforts to win the prize and some even brought props in the fashion show round. 

Opps....us queens can't ever get away from the pageant pose can we? LOL!

On a personal note, WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING ALL YEAR? I know I have been laying off on the blogging quite a bit. I have been doing some "pseudo-modelling" (what's that?). Find out when I next have time to blog. :D

Wave House AGAIN

My annual pilgrimage to Wave House at Sentosa.

It appears that every year on the 31st Dec, starting last year, I will make a trip to sentosa to watch other people enjoy artificial surf. This year's countdown began with a trip to watch the hubby enjoy his second try on a surf board. There are two rides there..Flow Rider and Flow Barrel. I gamely pose in front of the more challenging ride, as if I was about to go up on it...LOL!

No plans to subject my body to some hard knocks any time yet. I heard from the other surfing gal friends that they had colourful splashes of bruises on their legs. Let's wait for when I don't have a photoshoot lined up to do this.

In the meantime, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU OUT THERE!

Caught Partying

 I spotted myself on Lifestyle Asia website today!

That was last month at Bar None's FHM Christmas Party. They had some kind of cheesy FHM pageant going on at the same time, hosted by Utt from MTV, and involving the girls throwing free briefs to the guys in the club. I'm not prissy but it wasn't very amusing that it was a very testoterone-laden event that left nothing much for the ladies. Free beer, free condoms, free briefs. Not pro-female at all. 

As for the pic below, I wouldn't say it was exactly my best shot since I suppose I was trying to mouth some word when the photographer clicked his camera. But hey, 10 people "liked" it nonetheless.

So here are some redeeming shots where my mouth is not twisted in some peculiar fashion....