JPG Magazine Entries

I submitted a couple of images to JPG Magazine and I am supposed to pimp them myself. I am not shameless enough to spam people's mail boxes, but if you are reading my blog, GO VOTE FOR MY IMAGES!!

I would use sex to sell my entries, but then if you kept looking at some babe on my blog, you would not be voting for me would you????? So no eye-candy, no 'It will make you hard all night!' No, 'Make her beg for more' promises. Sorry, nada. Just vote for me ok? Would make me feel good if I got into the magazine. Not sure if getting into the magazine would be as good as Viagra of Cialis. Tell you what, vote me in and if I ever try Viagra and Cialis, I will do a comparison and post it on my blog. Was getting into JPG Magazine as good as a tablet of Cialis????

Man.... I don't think I am very good at this pimping thing am I? No wonder I am crap at prostituting my photography for money.....

2 Feb 2007

Well. The voting for JPG magazine is over. Thanks to everyone who voted for my images. :)

And the stars spoke

Are you getting hit on the head by obstacles, dear Aquarius? Could it be that you simply need to allot yourself more time to complete the Herculean tasks you take on? This may be difficult for you to tolerate. You don't know how to deal with times such as these, when you must continue doing the same thing over and over again until you get results. There is a lesson here for you: Patience is a virtue.

I have not really done any shooting since Christmas, or anything significant. When people ask me what I have been busy with, I say plumbing, in a figurative sense. The truth is that I have been a computer geek, kitting out my office with computer equipment and overseeing the archiving process of my past three years digital photography. And after a year of archiving, I have lost patience once or twice in the last month. But I guess that the stars are trying to tell me that I am on the right track and I have to persevere. Onward I say.

Lunch with Alex

Had lunch with Alex. Took a couple of abstract shots with window light. Window light is always so good.



I got shot with Alex's camera phone.

Lost in space

New Apple Products..... Not!

This contest is hilarious. Check it out.

More Web site distractions

The goal of my archiving is coming closer. To get all the digital work that I have shot in the last three years onto network attached storage. But the closer the end gets, the more small irritating problems arise. Without the whole long boring story, I have to do some maintenance on my network attached drives, and it takes a long time. Sigh. So I sit around hoping to go to sleep but waiting for drives to do things. Takes hours.

In the meantime I am surfing images on the web. Wondering how there can be so much wonderful photographic talent out there, and why on earth my images are still lacking in so many ways I cannot even begin to comprehend. The experience is both inspiring and overwhelming. But here are a couple of recommendations,

Art Nudes - If you are looking for titillation, this is not the place. In fact some times I wonder how people here can take nudes that positively turn me off by their obviousness. On the other hand, I also get informed of stunning work by people like Theirry LeGoues.

Afuckaday has much more porn content than art nudes. I mean the title is there for a reason right? But there is still some great photography here.

JPG magazine is not necessarily the type of photography that gets my attention. But, like alt photos where I got the link from, here are many simple images that work because of people's eye for detail. Inspiration for opening our eyes and just seeing.

Filemagazine was a suggestion given by a reader of my blog. It is like JPG magazine, but emphasizes the quirk, unexpected aspects of photography.

Art Photo Blog is another photo blog. It is new. I got the link from Art Nudes. And it looks interesting.

Now, just take a look at the amount of incredible imaging happening out there in the world. It gives me a rush like what 99% of photography in Singapore does not. The question is 'Why do our Singaporean images seem to lack a sense of joy and life?????'

A blog on the business of photography

http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/

This looks like required reading along with whattheduck.net for the professional photographers. Of course the duck is more funny.

I have also joined the Professional Photographers Association of Singapore. I have not wanted to join it till now but it seems that the management has changed and they are serious about helping the professional photographers in Singapore grow.

Art and Excellence

In a recent podcast, The editor of Lenswork talks about art and the pursuit of excellence. There are so many times living in Singapore when I hear people say they want cheap and good, or that what they get from me is good enough. But money is not my main pursuit in this career. My pursuit is of the best images that I can make. And it is great that Brookes Jensen also feels this way.

Geek Storage

Well. Things are never perfect are they? But at least things are improving. At least I have decided how to store files in my office. I have bought 4 of the Infrant Readynas NV+ storage casings. In each casing I have put in 4 x 500GB drives. Now the box is hardware RAID5. Meaning, that there is some clever redundancy somewhere and if one of the drives fails, I can replace the drive and all my information is safe. As one drive is needed for redundancy, I have 1.5 terabytes of storage in one box right now. I have fitted out 2 boxes with drives which means I now have 3 Terabytes of storage online. I bought another 2 boxes but have not fitted them out because there is a special offer on for the boxes. The list price of each box is $1,280. The special offer ended yesterday, but it was selling at $1,080. So I saved $800 on 4 boxes.

I have fitted out 3 Teras of storage because I am archiving my work and I need that much storage right now. At the moment, the best price per gig is the 300GB drives, but in the long I figured it is better to go with the 500GB drives. One thing to note though, the 1TB drives are now out. And the price of hard drives should come down by the middle of the year. If I bought 500GB drives then, I would have 6 Teras of storage online. But if I just wait till when I need the storage, I may just buy 750GB drives. Yeah, it all sounds crazy, but there is a method to my madness.

One unexpected cost to come out of this is that I bought a 16 port gigabit switch box. The Readynas boxes use gigabit ethernet. Considering the amount of information I am shifting around, the gigabit exthernet makes sense. The good news for Mac uses is that the Ethernet ports are gigabit ready! PC users can buy a pci gigabit adpator for $49.

Now, if you understand all this, then you are truly a geek too.

Now, if only that bloody archiving of my old work gets done. I have been waiting for over a year for this archiving to be completed.

Website distraction

I have been in geek phase since Christmas. What with all the hardware and software maintenance I have done. I have spent way too many nights staring at the computer screen. But here are a few of the photographic distractions and inspirations.

Ok, you all know Flickr and I am not going to advertise it anymore. There are good photographers and images on the site, but you have to wade through a mountain of crap to find the gold.

My old friend Wesley has asked me to look at photo.net, and it looks better. Lots of professional stuff.

What is really making me loose sleep though is altphotos. To see the best, you have to look at their all time favourites. There is also a slideshow function that shows the newest postings to the sight. I have to thank Shin for introducing me to this site. I love the textures in all the photographs. There seems to be so many good photographers from Eastern Europe. And they all seem to still be shooting film in square format. Gasp.

I am inspired and am playing around now with a second hand Mamiya 6 MF from B & H.

A New Year

I start this new year with a new team at The Pond. Abby is my office manager, Shin is my Studio manager and Anvin is my digital assistant.

I have all my new lighting equipment in. Portable profoto packs to let me travel and shoot regionally.

It has been a long arduous year in 2006, but the archiving of my work has come some way. However, there are still major parts to be done. But that work is from the beginning of my career and is not that important.

As I am waiting for Adobe Photoshop CS3 and the price of hard drives to drop, I am still not in a stable computer configuration in the office yet. I hope to get things sorted by mid-year.

Work is slow at the moment and I am trying to get my photography seen out there. I am working on a portfolio brochure to mail out.

I won a merit prize in the Digital Art against aids competition. I think the image get flashed at the Heren's digital billboard.

I am in a place of transition, full to potential and busily laying the foundation of the road ahead. It is not very glamorous, but there is a good fight to look forward to.

Life is a journey, not a destination

The only constant is change.

I have been taking photographs for over twenty years now. For the first decade and more it was just a hobby. Something that I did on holiday trips. Then I accidentally became a professional photographer. And it slowly became a consuming passion. After twenty years I finally feel that I am creating photographs that I can truly be proud of, but it is just the beginning. No sooner have I reached a certain level than am I searching for the path to the next one.

The other day Eadwine seemed kind of jaded. The journey seems like a long an arduous one. But this is the truth of the matter, even if we are drawn to photography, or some other activity, it does not mean that we do not have to work hard or that all obstacles to our growth would miraculously fade away. The endeavour of a top photographer is no different from that of a top sportsman, musician or even businessman. The dominance of Tiger Woods in golf is awe-inspiring. But it is his example of humility and constant strife that is so important to the rest of us. The BBC and the United Kingdom are stunned by the utter defeat of their cricket team by the Australians in the ashes tournament. The English team won the last ashes and were praised, but commentators wonder if they became complacent. Tiger Woods will not rest on his laurels. That is what makes him so frightening. Even at the top of golf game, he is aware of the weaknesses of his game, and he is working on it.

My photographic heroes include Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Paul Elledge and Albert Watson. Every one of them are hard working people, even workaholics. They are all known in their lifetimes, but none of them stopped working on their photography. Avedon, after a successful career as a fashion photographer, went on to shoot amazing portraits of normal American people. When I was interning in Chicago, I was awed by Paul's achievements as a photographer. I first picked up a camera when I was eighteen and became a professional six years ago. Paul's Grandfather and father were enthusiastic photographers. Paul has been around cameras since he was young and he has decades of experience. When we were metering for portraits in Chicago, Paul was concerned over 0.1 of a stop of exposure. I cannot see the difference in anything till there is 0.3 of a stop of a difference, but Paul said that he can see 0.1 of a stop and it does make a difference. I concluded that I am still at the beginning of my photographic journey.

In a small way, I have already made my mark in photographing the arts scene in Singapore and in the wedding photography market. But that is not what drives me. It is a continuous journey of refining my vision and the skills to create the vision. Last year I interned for Paul Elledge, this year I will taking workshops in Tuscany with photographers like Antonin Kratchovil and Andreas Bitesnich. I am learning all the time. There are no longer any leaps in my photography, that happens only in the beginning. As you get better, it takes more effort to continue to improve and get to the next level. I think that to keep improving and pushing myself, I need to stay hungry. I was financially stable in the wedding line, but I am taking a gamble in the commercial world. I want to be able to earn enough money to maintain my studio and still have time to work on my personal photography. But I could just have thrown my career out the window.

There are small celebrations when I reach new levels, but they are short lived. I know that I have some skill, but I am always humbled by the multitude of talented photographers before me and working today. The photographs are a by-product of a well lived life. Life is a journey, not a destination.

Frank Hilario Saga continues

I feel like I am in one of those Phillipino political intrigues. What gives?

I wrote to the American Chronicle to warn them of Frank Hilario's propensity to use images and ask permission later. I got the following reply from the American Chronicle today,

---
Dear Tan, thanks for your note. We have advised the author not to use images that are not in the public domain or images he does not have permission to use. Thanks for the alert and all the best.



- Pete
---

Well and good. Frank was not too pleased and sent me this e-mail,
---
I don't understand why you did not respond to my letter of 2 Jan 7:14 AM CST flickr email which, among other things, I said I couldn't afford it. You asked me what I meant by 'Thanks' but you did not wait for my reply; my flickr mail of 2 Jan was my reply. Your letter of protest (protesting a would-be violation) was grossly unfair.
---

In the end, Frank did do right by me and did not use my image. He did however, use an image from the web site all-things-photography.com and acknowledged it in the American Chronicle article 'We'. I wrote an e-mail to Nick Stubbs, owner of the all-things-photography web site to let him know an image from his site was used in Frank's article. If the proper permission was given, all is well.

But here is my answer to Frank,
---
Dear Frank,

I think it was unfair of you to simply declare that you were going to use one of my images in your article without asking politely first. And it was unfair of you to answer my polite response to my email with an unspecific 'Thanks!'. I saw your article entitled 'We' in American Chronicle and see that you have used an image from all-things-photography web site. I hope that you have asked permission as I have informed Nick Stubbs, the owner of the web site, of the usage. If you have asked him politely and gotten permission, things should be fine.

Mr Hilario, your blog entry on Bloghard, blogeasy, shows a basic disrespect of other people's rights and feelings. You even revel in the idea of committing the perfect crime. Just how do you square that with being a god-fearing Roman Catholic? Does a simple confession absolve you of the sin that you have committed?

My images and the images of other people are the means of our living. We put food on our tables and pay our rent with the images we make. We have to put them out for display so that other people will purchase our images, but this does not give other people the right to abuse our copyright. Even if I was an amateur whose images are for my own pleasure; it does not mean that I appreciate you taking my images and using them to illustrate unspcified articles. Looks like you have done this before and am proud of it.

When you repeatedly abuse people without given them a 'fair' chance to respond, just what do you expect from other people? Did the bible not say, 'Do unto others what you others unto you!' ?

Mr Hilario, if you want to be treated fairly, start with the way you treat others.

Yours sincerely,
Tan Ngiap Heng
---

I know why I have to protect my copyright and other people's copyright. Mr Hilario has a different take on his being different and what should apply to him. Here is his reply.

---
TNH,
This was my first email to you:

I don't really like nudes, but this one appeals to me. It's very appropriate, so I'm using it to illustrate one of my articles to be published by American Chronicle. I hope you don't mind - I always give full credit in any case:
Image by Tan Ngiap Heng who captions it 'TNH_061217_4069.'
I will email you when it does get published.
Thanks.

I said I hope you don't mind, and that I will email you when it does get published. And then you said you did mind. And I replied. And then you did not reply to my flickr mail.

You are all missing the point of my blog. It just happens I'm a different sort of guy. And I'm not the one to point it out - If nobody gets the point, if all you are after is intellectual property rights, then you don't get it. (If I get jailed for pointing out something, no problem.)

Frank
---

Sigh... We are all different. But we all live together in communities. If someone is different, does that mean he is allowed to abuse other people, misappropriate their work? I don't get it.

Flickr, A double-edged sword

I recently put this image up on my Flickr site and got the following email,

----
I don't really like nudes, but this one appeals to me. It's very appropriate, so I'm using it to illustrate one of my articles to be published by American Chronicle. I hope you don't mind - I always give full credit in any case:
Image by Tan Ngiap Heng who captions it 'TNH_061217_4069.'
I will email you when it does get published.
Thanks.

Frank
----

To which I replied,
----
Dear Frank,

Thank you for your email and considering using the image for your article in the American Chronicle. I am afraid that the model in the image is a professional model. Although I own the copyright of the image, I am unable to release it for commercial use. It was a test shoot which allows usage in our portfolios only. If you desire to use the image, I will have to negotiate with the model's agency and charge a fee. I might add that the model is from the US, so it is unlikely that it will go unnoticed by her agency.

If you are willing to pay usage rights I am willing to speak to her agency and quote a price. As it is to do with the model and my livelihood as a professional photographer, I am unable to release this image for free. I hope you understand.

Yours sincerely,
Tan Ngiap Heng
----

I got a reply with one word in it, 'Thanks!'.

I used Frank's Flickr profile to find out more about him. In his blog, he actually states that he regularly uses images from Flickr for his blog without asking permission first... The article is here.

I have written to the American Chronicle about the incident and am tempted to write to Flickr as well. But in this particular case, Frank Hilario has not actually infringed my copyright yet.

I guess that the more one exposes oneself to the public, the more abuse one exposes oneself to.

Drama at Bedok Jetty

I took a walk to the end of Bedok Jetty after dinner on Friday night. I was expecting a quiet moment looking out at the sea and ships. I sat down on one of the stone benches. Not five minutes had passed when a fisherman suddenly got all excited, picking up his fishing rod and pulling. I am so used to seeing the small fish that is caught at Bedok Jetty that I was surprised that this fishing rod could curve as much as it did. It was like everyone at the end of Bedok jetty could sense a life and death battle ensuing. The outcome was not really in question, but the fish gave a good fight, causing the fisherman's friend having to step in to help reel in the fish. The result of the battle was the capture of one mid-sized stingray. It was definitely the biggest fish that I have seen caught at Bedok Jetty.

Geek Rules!!

One learns from adversity. Like Rocky Balboa says, No pain, No gain.

In the recent digital troubles that I have had, I managed to turn a PC computer into a print server. Previously, my D-Link router had a print server, but only two of the pcs could access it. The new netgear router I bought does not have a print server. But using one pc to be the print serve has allowed all the computers in the office to print through it, Macs and PCs. So I learnt something new. Amongst all this learning, I found that firewalls, although important for keeping your computers safe from outside intruders, are the number one cause of communications not working.

When buying my new modem router from South Asia Computing, the salesman told me that the modems and routers do not last long if switched on 24/7. I should switch them off when not in use. I have been changing my router and modem like once a year. Now it gets switched off when the office is not in use, maybe it will last me a couple of years.

I have a PC that was used by the office manager. It was a made to order box from Sim Lim. It has been unstable for years. I got the power supply and graphics card changed but the computer still mysteriously rebooted once in a while. So I got the office manager a Dell which works well as is not the office print server. But the old computer is not a complete waste. I installed it with an extra drive that has been suspect as well. I put in the newest version of itunes and made a copy of all my music from my mac. I now have a music server in my room in my parent's home. :)
I am typing this entry on this relatively unreliable machine while listening to world music. It does not hurt me if the computer dies in the middle of unessential work. But it has behaved quite well so far.

As a photographer I have a huge amount of digital data. I bought enclosures that house 4 drives and connect by firewire to workstations I have. To be safe, I keep 2 copies of each set of information. My poor assistants spent a lot of time copying files from the workstation to one drive and then the second. I just found out that the Macs have can do Raid 1. This is where two drives are made to have the same information automatically. If one drive dies, that drive is replaced and the information is once again copied to 2 drives. By using the built in Raid 1 of the Mac OS X, I have made the assistant's job easier, and my digital files safer. The cost of this, free. And soon, I will have one copy of the information that will be kept off site.

As cool as these firewire boxes are, I will be switching soon to these Network Attached storage boxes by Infrant, the ReadyNAS NV+. These boxes have hardware Raid 5 and by being networked attached are accessible by all the computers in the office network. With this pronouncement, I officially admit that I am a geek. Eek! Well, if you understand what I just wrote, you are a geek too!

Here is another a couple of freebies I find useful. I shoot tethered to a computer. It used to be a Sony Vaio and now I have a Mac book Pro. It is nice to have the captured files on the shoot computer copied to an attached USB drive. (Yes, I am giasu, but I rather think of it as being professional.) But managing the copying of files from the shoot computer to a folder is tedious. There are free, yes free programs, that can sync the contents of 2 folders. On the PC, the program is called sync toy, made by Microsoft no less. On the Mac, there is a program called Filesync that does it. Whenever there is a break in the shoot, we get the sync programs to makesure that new files are copied to the external drive.

Ok. Enough. Geek Rules!!

Digital Trauma

I am so glad for the lull in work. I was expecting a really laid back Christmas holiday season but it was not meant to be.

A couple of weeks back my O2 XDA died on me. It was just dead. Trying to keep in contact and organised, I decided to buy an O2 Atom exec. I wanted the built in wi-fi. Dang, the Atom Exec started working up, and had to be put into the service centre for 3 days. :( In the mean time I went and got a cheap Nokia without a camera. I had to get it anyway because I have reservists end of January and I need a phone without camera. But I had to sync all my information from my laptop to my Atom a couple of times this week. I also sent in my old PDA to find out what happened to it.

Then my DVD player has been acting up for several months now. I went and bought a lens cleaner and it did not help. I brought the DVD player down to the service centre and was told that it would cost $40 for any servicing done. I decided to go buy a new DVD player, a Philips one, for $89. The cost between servicing and new things does not make sense nowadays. The best part is that when I got back with the new DVD player, the tray would not open. I had to go back to the shop to get a one to one exchange. What a waste of time.

Then my network router and modem decided to die on me. This is happening about once a year. I decided to buy an all in one from Netgear. The Linksys and D-Link equipment that I have bought before was really not user friendly. I bought a ADSL modem, router and wireless set at Funan. The salesman told me that all the boxes are about the same and we should not have the boxes on 24/7, they overheat and get spoilt. :( Wow, the high standard of workmanship nowadays is astounding.

Anyway, I got the Netgear box back to the office and it took me a couple of hours to set it up. It could have been much faster if the ease set-up wizard had not kept detecting the wrong settings for the ADSL service. I kept ending up at a page to enter a fixed ip address. I rang up Singtel and the only help I got was that Singtel does not have fixe ip addresses. Ahhh... yeah... thank you very much. And once the easy setup wizard started going I kept getting back to it in spite of the many things I tried. But I finally found the button to let me configure the Router manually, it took me all of 5 minutes. The easy setup wizard took me an hour and a half and got me nowhere. And yes, the Netgear Service Centre number for Singapore simply does not work.

I now have the internet and office network back up and working. My old D-link router used to have a print server. The new one from netgear does not. I wanted to buy an add on network print server, but was dissuaded by the salesman in Funan. He told me that in 90% of cases, there were issues and he does not want to be responsible if it did not work in my office. I understand where he is coming from. I have now got to find a way to share the printer in my office.

And with all this configuration and crazy stuff going on, the internet is hammered by the loss of undersea cables in Taiwan. I just cannot get the information I need. :(

Man, I need a holiday from my holiday.

Season's Greetings

This has been a challenging and rewarding year for me. So many things happening, some difficult, mostly good learning experiences.

My wish is that there will be less war and atrocities in the world. People will take positive action to save our world from global warming, super bugs and tyrants (incluing George Bush).

How is it in this world are so intelligent but so unwise? How is it that religions that should be promoting love, can cause so much hate? If there is one truth, why can't people agree on it instead of fighting one another? Why is the road to hell paved with good intentions?

I know very little and believe in even less. This much I know, I treat the people I meet with respect. I have to always act to keep my conscience clear. As much as my entire life is about photography, I will not abuse people or trust to get ahead. As mush as I use emotion to create my work, I will not suspend reason.

I know that I am fallible, but I am not a sinner. If I am going to hell, for what? For trying to treat the people around me well? For trying to love my fellow human beings? For wanting to be the best photographer I can be?

This season I celebrate life and humanity. I wish goodwill to everyone. Please don't pray for my soul, I will be fine. Hell is here on this earth, caused by our own ignorance, prejudice and our willingness to suspend reason.

The Income Gap in Singapore

Monday December 18, 9:05 PM
Income gap tears at Singapore social fabric
By Geert De Clercq

SINGAPORE, Dec 18 (Reuters) - When Wee Shu Min, the teenage daughter of a Singapore member of parliament stumbled across the blog of a Singaporean who wrote that he was worried about losing his job, she thought she'd give him a piece of her mind.

She called him "one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country" on her own blog and signed off with "please, get out of my elite uncaring face".

Wee was flamed by hundreds of fellow bloggers, but when her father Wee Siew Kim -- an MP in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's constituency -- told a Singapore newspaper that "her basic point is reasonable", the row moved well beyond the blogosphere.

The episode highlighted a deep rift in Singapore society and was an embarrassment for the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and prime minister Lee, who has made the reduction of the income gap one of the priorities of his new government.

"Coming from an MP in the prime minister's constituency, these comments really were political dynamite," political commentator Seah Chiang Nee told Reuters.

"If the political arrogance and elitism get any worse, the PAP will lose more electoral ground," he added.

Singapore is Asia's second-richest country after Japan with a gross domestic product per capita of about $27,000, ranking between EU member Italy and Spain. But in terms of income disparity, Singapore is in altogether different company.

Singapore's Gini index -- which measures inequality of income distribution among households -- of 42.5 puts it between Burundi and Kenya, the UN Human Development Report 2006 shows.

"Yes, the gini coefficient is very high. Through housing, health care and education, we have tried to narrow the income gap, but not through wages," National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan told Reuters in an interview last month.

"WELFARE AS A DIRTY WORD"

Singapore pays no employment benefits, no pensions and has no legal minimum wage, but education is cheap and excellent, health care is subsidised and the government gives subsidies to first-time buyers of government-built flats.

Last month, Singapore's first parliament session since the May 6 poll was dominated by the inequality theme.

PM Lee ruled out the introduction of old-age pensions, a minimum wage or European-style welfare.

"We have treated welfare as a dirty word. The opposition, I think the Workers' Party, has called for a 'permanent unconditional needs-based welfare system'. I think that is an even dirtier five words," he said in a speech on Nov. 13.

But he acknowledged that since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the income gap had widened, and said that his government plans to "tilt the balance in favour of the lower-income groups".

While Lee's ruling PAP is in no danger of losing its stranglehold on parliament -- where it has 82 out of 84 elected seats -- the growing income disparity has hurt its credibility.

In the May 6 poll, the Workers' Party scored its best result in years, with chairwoman Sylvia Lim winning 44 percent of the votes in a multi-seat ward. Lee lost 34 percent in his ward to a group of unknown candidates in their early thirties.

"They (the PAP) are concerned about the fallout if they don't do anything about the income gap," Lim, who entered parliament as a non-voting MP under a best-loser provision, told Reuters.

In parliament, Lee said he plans to improve healthcare and boost housing subsidies for low-income families. He added that he wants more "workfare" schemes, under which the state tops up low-income workers' pay.

On May 1 -- five days before the election -- the government paid out S$150 million to about 330,000 low-income workers, and Lee promised a similar package for next year. Details would be released in the 2007 budget on February 15.

"MARIE ANTOINETTES"

Critics say that much of the outrage about the teenage blogger's comments is due to a perception that Singapore is ruled by a privileged elite that's out of touch with the people.

The road to a top job in the Singapore government or civil service leads through elite junior colleges and prestigious government scholarships for university studies abroad.

While access to these schools and scholarships is open to all and based on academic grades, critics say the children of the elite are well represented. Wee Shu Min attends a top school, Raffles Junior College, as did her father, an MP and a top executive at state-owned arms maker ST Engineering.

In a report about "elite envy", the Straits Times daily quoted official data showing that in the last five years, one in three students on government scholarships came from families with incomes of more than $$10,000 ($6,500) a month, while such families make up just 13 per cent of all Singapore households.

Students from households on incomes of less than $2,000 made up only 7 per cent of scholarship winners, the paper added.

Colin Goh, founder of satirical website TalkingCock.com, said that while the first generation of post-independence PAP leaders was seen as close to the people, this is no longer the case.

"The source for much invective in the Wee Shu Min case is that there is a real sense the PAP is composed of people in ivory towers; that they are a bunch of Marie Antoinettes," he said.

The Photographic Pecking Line - Where's my whip?