Chung Dha Lam

Dai Fu Lou exhibition in the Netherlands

2009-07-18T04:38:00.003+02:00

15th July there was a small exhibition held by Dai Fu Lou in Rotterdam at the Wah Fook Wui which is stated in the basement of the Ka Fook Mansion. Within the exhibition several things were presented like paintings, shirts, paper toys and photography.

Jona brought along different shirts he had designed and made in Hong Kong to show.

Also the newest design of paper toy figure were shown at this exhibition.

The figures were standing on top a special made light box painted with the Dai Fu Lou logo and pattern, inside the box you can see a lamp with buttons and business card placed.

As you can see the exhibit is mostly about Dai Fu Lou 00 and Dai Fu Lou 0 the two very first characters that were designed. For those who have missed the exhibition you can view the pictures on our Dai Fu Lou Flickr group or Facebook. Also we filmed the exhibition and soon release a clip of this happening plus traveling from Hong Kong to the Netherlands.

Dai Fu Lou Painting

2009-07-05T22:07:00.004+02:00

Here I am showing one of the works that will be displayed on the very first Dai Fu Lou exhibition actually also my very first painting on canvas and showing how I actually painted it. I actually sketch out the design with a pencil and then afterward painted it in using a light color paint first and dark colors after.

Please come and visit the exhibition on 15th July 2009 at Ka Fook Mansion in Rotterdam which is on the Graaf Florisstraat 45 in Rotterdam. Free entrance.

Back in NL

2009-07-03T16:31:00.002+02:00

Sorry that I haven't updated in a while, I have not been back in the Netherlands for a whole week and first few days really got a major jetlag was sleeping long hours. However I got allot of stuff to do in the Netherlands, my administration of my company plus doctors visits and allot things for Dai Fu Lou. I now managed to get a exhibition in Rotterdam that will be held on 15th of July and I am now busy prepairing allot of designs and paintings.

Here above you can see some pictures of the flight back to the Netherlands, I first went to the Hong Kong Airport and then flew to London Heathrow and had to stay there for a while to catch another plane to the Netherlands. When I was back home and later that night was a beautifull sunset.
Great to be back because it is really pretty here compared to HK where everything is gray. However will be going back to HK on 19th.

Dai Fu Lou Hair Cut

2009-06-29T01:25:00.000+02:00

Last week the day before Jona and Dai Fu Lou left to the Netherlands Jona had a hair cut session, with him actually cutting and trimming his own hair. He wanted to do this to actually leave behind some bad times and hair are kind of time cause it grow with time and can actually measure top of the hair is from last time Jona had a hair cut and below it growing from each day and rest are the days between. Also Jona wanted to do something bold and actually having few photographers capturing the moment and let them try experimenting with taking pictures. Watch the video below.

Special thanks for Alan who was holding the camera and directing it, Elden Cheung and Yandy Yot who were photographing this moment.
To see more pictures visit Elden Cheung fotop album here.
Also visit Yandy Yot album at Facebook here.

June 12th Pimpin Ain't Easy

2009-06-22T02:18:00.003+02:00

Here is a new Event Video I made documenting Pimpin Ain't Easy on June 12th with DJ Enso, DJ Drafus and DJ Kazey @ CLIQ. Music is live recording during the event. Cinematography, editing and directing is all done by myself, filmed this event with my Canon EOS 500D with 50mm f1.8 lens. It was pretty hard to capture the people dancing cause the lighting in CLIQ is not really that great to film the dance area, cause they don't have an overall lighting but they use 4 spots that rotates around pretty fast, which in result came out to be able to see some people in short flashes. However sometimes there are lucky moments when the light would cross certain places making one area lighten up enough for me to film. Mostly the DJ area got enough lighting to film the DJ, but I think I should carry an extra light next time when I video at ClIQ to film the crowd. Couldn't really film the moment when the guys stole Enso shoe and threw it around only when the shoe landed in a well lighted area. See you guys at the next events!

Also if you like the video, I am for hire to film at and/or take photo's at an Event.

Cycling in Hong Kong

2009-06-07T20:03:00.003+02:00

Sunday June 7th I treated myself to a cycling tour from Tai Po to Sha Tin and back. First thing that bothered me was that the bike I got had old shifters plus the front brake is on the right and rear brake on the left which is pretty much the opposite side of my normal bikes. But for the rest I pretty much easily adapted to it. Also seem the Hong Kong government anticipate that there would be allot of accident cause by the cyclist. Mostly cause by people who don't know how to cycle or actually swivel the road too much, pretty much of the people can't ride a straight line cause they ride extremely slow you can even run faster then some. The swivel pretty much like drunks and people trying to learn to cycle on roads with high cyclist traffic instead of a quiet still square.

The pictures are taken with my phone would not bear to do this with my new camera plus too much accidents happen and allot of the roads are very busy even though they are very wide there are allot of cyclist and allot of them are pretty slow.

This was my bike for the day a Trinx which I personally never have heard of before, but pretty much isn't a Trek 1500 Alu Carbon Frame which I have in the Netherlands. It cost me 50HKD to rent it for the day, however rather be riding on this because all the MTB they rented were extreme small I think the frame sizes are children sizes. And actually saw allot of people riding bike with wrong height and wrong sizes, too many large people on small kiddies bikes. But this bike actually is perfect fit for met a 52cm size, but the rear tire wasn't really pumped hard enough for my taste and the gear levers were too loose cause it sometime shifter to other gears on it own.

This is actually first time I photographed myself while cycling and now pretty much know why people look at me when I cycle without a helmet, my hair become like the haircut of Elvis and would have looked even more with me wearing sunglasses. Next time I want to rider to Tai Mei Tuk cause the Road to Sha Tin got way to much people riding around very slow. And if I get back the Netherlands I am going to try a video of me cycling around the track. I am sure I can make an interesting video with all the equipments I got.

First Dai Fu Lou vid

2009-06-05T13:19:00.003+02:00

Dai Fu Lou Freshly washed start from Jona Lam on Vimeo.

Full movie directed and made by me at the studio and ofcourse the figure is also me, but only the head the body is Alans works and also hanging it on the cloth hanger. The Dai Fu Lou figure is moving cause of the airco blowing it. Sound and voice is also me. Pretty much most by me.

29th May Song For Children at Philia Lounge

2009-06-03T21:37:00.005+02:00

Songs for Children indie night at Philia from Jona Lam on Vimeo.

Here is a video clip I made from the pictures and vids I took at the Philia lounge last Friday when there was a Indie Rock Night held by Songs For Children, will all girl DJ's however Mike DJ'ed aswell at the end. It was allot of fun so made this small documentary / album video of that party.

HK babbling in Mong Kok

2009-06-01T06:47:00.002+02:00

On the Hong Kong television is a program which is a parody on the celebrities of Hong Kong played by celebrity actors doing comedic acts, acting and dressing up like other famous celebrities of Hong Kong. However I was lucky that day that I actually brought my camera with me cause I wanted to test out my new 50mm lens and actually bumped into this group. However there were allot of press so was hard to get a good spot to take picture also allot of non press which were irritating putting there phone cam in front of my camera.

They were actually giving away fruits for this promotion on the street of Mong Kok, at Sai Yeung Choi street. However I don't have a tv so can't watch it at all, so not even sure who all the celebs are however some I recognizes from some drama series.

However learned allot from taking these pictures cause actually group photo's with 50mm with f1.8 is not that doable. Especially when you are not standing 100% in from of them cause then you can only focus on one person.

Cause it would had been great if I had focussed on the girl in front cause he was looking into my camera but you can see she is out of focus while the lady behind her is sharp. Actually there are allot of these kind of tv program or other promotions at Sai Yeung Choi street daily even sometimes there are game shows happening.

Attending a wedding in HK!!!

2009-06-01T06:09:00.004+02:00

Haven't been updating my blog in a while but two weeks ago a good friend of mine who I just met few months ago in Hong Kong had a wedding, ofcourse this person is Alan Leung. Also I was one of the brothers who would help the groom( ,not literally a brother of Alan). But first time attending a full wedding from morning till late and first time wedding in Hong Kong, did not took my camera with me the top picture is made day after the flower pin that I had wore at night . Also there were allot of other photographers plus mostly allot of friends of Alan are professional photographers.

Morning started early at the house of the bride where we had to play games before we could enter the house. First up was a cup of not sure what it was but didn't really tasted that good, still don't know what was in the cup. Then we had to pose as a doll that the girls would throw on the ground and end up in a certain position, but most awkward plus we all got dirty from it, cause we had to lie on the ground. After each game there was a ribbon removed till we got into the house. Final game was that Alan had to say 10 nice things that he would do, but after few he didn't knew what more to say so he sang. After that was allot of tea offering to the family members by the bride and groom and giving gifts.

Then we went to grooms house where also tea offering but then to the grooms side. Also allot of pictures were taken and then got back to the bride house to see the roasted pork getting cut and getting for food.
Then later mid day we went to a big room in Hung Hom where we had to prepare for the dinner and ceremony that was held at night. The night was pretty busy with allot of things to do walking around.
The cake was actually pretty special cause the butterflies was added on the spot. However did not saw them really cutting it. Plus mostly had to miss allot of meals and food cause we had to stand on certain places some times get things walk around. Allot of pictures taken and we had a polariod cam and made a special photoalbum of all the pictures taken during the day and also gaven allot of pictures away. Also what was really special is that Alan sang a song for his bride Wind. For sure it was a pretty special day but from my perspective it is pretty busy even for the bride and groom it ain't that easy and really got allot to do and not much moments to relax.
What is pretty wierd is that I actually missed the wedding of my nephew in January cause I was still attending school but very interesting still saw another wedding in Hong Kong.

Leakage!!!

2009-05-26T17:23:00.002+02:00

It have been raining heavily the couple of days and the office I work and stay have some major leakage. Mainly in the room that I was sleeping in, you can see the damage in the video. Pieces of the ceiling fell down and allot of water dropping. It seem the drainage of the roof isn't that well and mostly above that room got major issue. We didn't have much buckets to catch the water so I shift made some, I actually cut the top of of the bottle so it would have more surface area to catch the water and drop the top on in it so it would get less water flying up, also condense water would stay in the bottle this way. It is filmed with my Canon EOS 500D with 50mm f1.8 lens and you can check out the quality in HD.

24 May a very busy day!

2009-05-24T22:06:00.005+02:00

Today done two jobs at central, one at Fringe club and other the place where AnD second anniversary party was held. At the Fringe Club there were allot of celebrities and press and media luckily we were hired to shoot video so we could do more then the press, cause actually the press area is pretty worst if you had to try and shoot the band playing, cause allot of people would had been standing in the way.

Saw and took photo's and vids of Theresa who held a short press conference. Also I was wearing my Dai Fu Lou Shirt at this event and actually filmed Theresa looking my direction and got a smile one her face and a small laugh, however I am not 100% sure about if she saw my shirt though... I caught in on my brand new Canon 500D also allot of odd faces during both events cause people thought that I was taking pictures but I was mostly filming. Was pretty much also pushing the limit of this new camera and even got it overheated cause of filming too long. Also learned I need to carry sets of extra battery plus more SD cards.

I gotta say Theresa Fu is super pretty she is pretty much center of attention when she was standing there. However didn't really had much time to take allot of footage of her or pictures cause I had to setup for filming the band that would be playing there. However didn't saw most of the celebs when the bands played and film them watching. Also I don't even recognized all the celebs cause most of them I don't even know, only the ones that are really famous or I have seen music clips of or seen in drama series. However it is pretty interesting shooting vids with my 500d cause it is way lighter then the other camera's. However it is HD ready it quality when filming with correct lighting is pretty good. Will release some more vids soon also trying out some VJ things and can now shoot movies with I can use for VJ'ing.

Bikini Dance Event @ Club no.9

2009-05-18T11:26:00.004+02:00

Here is a new documentary movie of the picture I have took during the Bikini Dance Event @ Club no.9 in Central Hong Kong. The party got a bikini fashion show with two models and 5 Jagermeister girl giving free shots of Jagermeister. The main DJ for the night was Tung Tung aka Miss Yellow, also there was another DJ who played very well by the alias of DJ K.C. I was there to take pictures of this event and mainly take pictures of Jagermeister. Also I stayed much longer than the press media and tried out some experimental photographing which mainly fit great within a video, and also mainly make use of the lighting of the club itself instead of the flashlight of my camera. I might consider buying a Canon 500D if I get the money for it, so I can do some HD filming and some video production. For sure making videos is pretty interesting.

The party was great for sure learned bit more about Hong Kong party cause really allot of people don't like to have their pictures taken or be filmed cause their are shy. Allot of people don't want to be seen cause they think about what other think about them if their photo's are shot during a party, however if you go party then go all the way. If you want people to think that you are a shy person that never party just then don't go. However this party is one that lasted for me the longest till 5 while others were till 4. For sure learned allot again and will improve in photography and will get a 50mm 1.8F lens soon to be able to make some better shot during dark parties cause of the low F of the lens to be able to get more light. Also cause of the low F you can get great depht of field effects.

MC Yan Sparkling Double vid

2009-05-17T08:03:00.004+02:00

Here is something new I am trying out, making a short movie clip with the pictures I took during MC Yan exhibition. I use the only song I at the moment got of with MC Yan on my laptop which is Point Blanc featuring MC Yan. However I like the contrast of both the song and the art style of MC Yan which is a mix of Hip Hop and Classic Chinese style. Also I shot allot of picture and might be bit boring just looking at pictures in an album, so here is a very first photo video clip I have made. However it might seem to look simple but actually took allot of time loading the pictures and actually following the music to jump to the next picture, I used about 6 hours to put this together with 1 hour to render it out.

However I find movie editing might be something interesting however I think I need a faster computer to handle the large files and to render the movie faster.

MC Yan Sparkling Double

2009-05-15T22:12:00.004+02:00

Yesterday night I went to the opening of MC Yan former crew of LMF and now a Music director of Radio DaDa. MC Yan got a very interesting design style he likes to draw graffiti but with a old Chinese kind of way, it is an interesting mix of new and old. Also he got a cool logo when turned 90 degrees spells Hong Kong. Be sure to watch the exhibition which in the basement of the Hollywood center on the Hollywood road in Central Hong Kong. Also today during the opening MC Yan did a short live art performance and finished up few piece. I was luckily to have my camera with me so I could take some pictures of him in action also exchange business card and talked a bit and hear him explain about his art. Also at the exhibition they also show a movie of how he had painted the paintings so you could see how he actually works. Probably most interesting exhibition I have seen so far in Hong Kong. I truly got respect for MC Yan, great work for sure am very inspired after seeing his work.

Coconut drink / Review

2009-05-15T21:26:00.003+02:00

This above is an actual coconut, but the first layer carved into this shape however inside you got the actually brown coconut with the hard shell. We actually use different tools to finally crack them open and nicked some straws from McDonald, hehe. The juice for me taste allot like some soya milk drinks. Also if you crack if further open you could eat the meat of the coconut, however I found out after drinking the juice that I am getting some major allergic reaction from it. So pretty much need to watch out in the future not to eat things with coconut in it. Also to much work if we wanted to crack it much futher and we don't have any knifes to cut it. We actually tried out if a corkscrew would work but the inner hard shell is just too hard. However the juice is pretty tasty and actually it got allot of juice but it is such a major pain in the ass to crack open. Rather buy a bottle instead, but pretty good that I now learned that I am allergic to this however it is hard to findout if people use coconut in things. Also I found out that actually coconut allergies are the most rare kinds and is not common tested for cause of it rareness.

Alive Not Dead 2nd Anniversary / Photo's

2009-05-15T19:51:00.003+02:00

Here are some pictures that I had took during the second anniversary of Alive Not dead. However I came late because we had to shot HK Live first at Fringe Club. Also am now using pictobrowser to show picture instead of having them listed below each other and making a large long page to load, it is now an easy small slideshow where you can see all the picture I had took.

Dai Fu Lou online shirt shop

2009-05-13T09:03:00.001+02:00

After several event showing our Dai Fu Lou shirts in public we now opened our online shirt shop, so people who like Dai Fu Lou and all our supporters can now order a shirt online.

We have chosen to start with Spreadshirt cause of their high quality prints and durability, that have been tested and reviewed. Also to make it easier for our international fans from all across the world, cause Spreadshirt have a great delivery service and can send their products to any country in the world.

We now have placed the most basic Dai Fu Lou character on the shirts. You can order the illustration in the colors black, white or glow in the dark. The color of the shirts are open to choose any color that are available with that shirt.

Each shirt cost $35 USD and you can use either a creditcard or with use of a PayPal account to transfer money to order a shirt.

To visit our brand new shirt shop go to http://daifulou.spreadshirt.com.
If there are any questions please contact jona@daifulou.com.

Playing tourist at Hong Kong

2009-05-10T16:40:00.002+02:00

Haven't really done any tourist stuff when I came to Hong Kong so last week used one day to do it. However I go to central allot and actually go to the longest lined escalator allot mainly to get back 2 HKD after traveling with the MTR.

Actually the escalator is boring to photograph actually mainly most part look the same and on the side is mostly buildings.

In the middle is orange tree where you can eat Dutch snacks and dishes. Right is the sign you will see when you reach the very end of the escalator. From there you can follow the map to the peak, which means you can walk to the top which I did.

It is a pretty hard path to walk cause of the sheer angle you have to walk and it is pretty steep.

However it is worth it cause I could take great pictures there of the peak. However next time I will take the bus or with the tram. Check out more picture of the peak on my Flickr account.

Congee breakfast!!!

2009-05-09T09:46:00.002+02:00

Actually been here in Hong Kong for a while but haven't tried any congee yet. So this week went out to breakfast to tryout some congee. Congee is just rice but cooked with allot of water to it becomes more watery. On the back you see some roll not sure how they are called in English though. I chosen the plain congee, but also there are one mix with allot of thing also to you order noodles to mix with the congee. There are allot of way to eat it actually, I should actuallly learn to make congee myself.

However I got one tip don't ever order coffee at the small restaurant in Hong Kong they are disgusting they just don't know how to make coffee. If you want proper coffee go to Starbucks, just stick with the tea or softdrinks.

Real Dai Fu Lou at Speak Up!

2009-05-07T14:43:00.001+02:00

First time the real Dai Fu Lou appeared in public at the Speak Up! Event. Dai Fu Lou presented himself and searched for more supporters.

Also this is the twelve Speak Up! Event which is which is held each month and that means it has already been a whole year that Speak Up! started, so it is their first anniversary.

Even Micheal Chan of the movie Lumina had a try of being a Dai Fu Lou, doing some poses and trying the mask. During this Speak Up! they showed the trailer of Lumina and almost the whole cast was there. If you haven't seen the trailer yet, watch it here.

There were even few Dai Fu Mui at the scene, and one of them is actually the lovely Kate Sullivan who had just a opening of a play at the Fringe Club before the Speak Up! Event.

And also some Dai Fu Poses poses were done.

Hard Candy at Underground 5th Anniversary

2009-05-02T17:14:00.004+02:00

This is a picture set of Hard Candy at 5th anniversary of Underground. During this set I played around with my camera doing allot of crazy things to learn more about my camera and trying to produce special effect that make the picture look special.

During this shot I zoomed while pressing the button taking the picture. It make it possible to make the part where you focus mostly in the middle to be sharp and outer part of the picture to have a motion blur.

This shot is made with a slow shutter time but also using a flash. The red is cause there is a red strobe flashing making a double exposure but with only red and I actually played with that during this play cause it was annoying me so I tried to use it instead of finding a way to get rid of it.

The lowest picture got a triple exposure cause of someone else flashed during my shot so you could see a very sharp 2nd exposure. But the other I played with moving the camera for the second exposure so you would see a double picture instead of having a second exposure to make the person extreem red or getting cool effects from it.

Dai Fu Lou Teaching Students About Creativity

2009-05-02T16:39:00.001+02:00

Friday we had a small creativity lesson teaching students from age from 10 to 17 how to be creative and how they should prepare for a exhibition, mostly cause most of them have never seen a exhibition before or let alone know how to make one.

Vanessa, Alan and Jona are all creative in different field of design could easily explain and help them out with certain problems and things. The main theme of the exhibition these students are designing for is Building something for this city. As for the big difference between the Hong Kong and Europe we also have a different perspective on the already made project that we done by these students. Mainly the students all designed innovations, however many of them made it too complicated for them selves compared to others, while some just did not do the full research.

We came there actually without knowing how many students would be there or actually knowing what they all have designed. So we had few presentations of the student showing us their made project and we gave feedback on the pros and cons of them. Actually most of them aren't that well thought of plus they aimed at a much to big of project that would have summed up allot of data and statistics that need to be shown. While between it all there is one great design made by the youngest kid of the whole group who is working alone today cause his partner could not be there.

The boy here is front is the small talent, I am sure this kid would become one amazing designer in the future also could see some aspect of myself in him cause he also like to draw very very small. But he is actually the only one who has made an actual consumer product instead of things that the government would look at or could buy and would have cost millions to invest in. This kid just made a simple alarm clock that would wake you up by making your cushion vibrate, so it would not wake up others in the same house or the neighbors. In Hong Kong there are not much space and people live stacked on top of each other and in pretty cramp places and Hong Kong is also allot of 24 hours businesses and allot of people sleep and wake up at different times. Also he was one of the teams who have a working prototype with them.

The other team made an electric water scoop generator which a real energy meter to show how it produces energy. However this generator will be driven by the flushed or dirty water that are produced daily in the many tall buildings however the main problem is that the water is dirty and could clog up the scoop and may need allot of maintenance. This might have been easy if they just designed a scoop which would generate more power then normal ones cause of somethings special, however now placing in a building they made it much to hard for them selves, cause now they need to get informations from architectures about how the water moves within building and many more problems with maintaining it.

We did few exercise to see the skills of the students, we let them design a logo for their invention and posters and see how they made it and talked about what is good and bad about them.

Sunday 3rd of May there will be an exhibition held by these students and will see then if they have learned and listened to use cause we have given the information that they have needed. The exhibition is held at Cattle Depot, 63 Ma Tou Kwok Road, To Kwan Wan, Kowloon.

And here are some other snapshots made during the creativity lesson that we have given to these students.

Live Action Dai Fu Lou Preview

2009-05-01T03:42:00.000+02:00

Here is a first glimpse how life action Dai Fu Lou might look like. Posing with the half made mask the face is actually added with photoshop for the moment we still have to color the mask first and see how or where we would place holes so we could look at where we are going.

Here is actually Jona wearing the mask and standing on top of a raised part next to the stairs on top of the roof, also bit dangerous without seeing thing standing that high on a roof. But in the end worth it to get some interesting cool shots.

And actually it does not look half that bad with the mask on, wonder what the impression will be from people if we start wearing the mask to events and the streets of Hong Kong.

Sai Yeung Choi Street

2009-04-30T17:41:00.002+02:00

This is actually one of the oddest streets in Mong Kok cause during certain times the streets is open for people to walk and all vehicles are prohibited to enter. However the varity of shops make it interesting also because it is stated next to the Ladies market. The most intersting shop of this street is on the very end almost to Yau Ma tei which is an art supply store which is truly major with everything you could ask for, however what is not great about it, are the service by the shop workers. They actually don't even know if they got certain things or not and pretty much very lazy to help you out searching it or explaining things. Also today was a warm day and all the airco on all the shops were turned pretty high and I can't seem to stand the dry air that comes from the airco I get a very dry throat each time I get in a shop and need to drink something very fast otherwise I begin to caught and people might think I got some major decease or something. Also my friend appartment mate is smoking allot and each time I am home I start to caught, I am thinking moving to the studio which means less expenses on traveling plus a much better environment cause nobody smokes there.