After an early breakfast at the neighborhood coffeeshop on a superbly beautiful Saturday morning, my wife mentioned 'Its really nice outside today, lets spend the rest of the morning at the Botanical Gardens!'

Yeah, why not? It was a glorious day to be out especially at the Gardens, an elegant and beautiful piece of Singapore which few tourists know little of beyond its famed Orchid Gardens.

With a manual German (guess...) rangefinder in the trunk and 2 spare rolls of black and white film in my shirt pocket, it also occured to me that its been months since I took a picture of my family.

Small camera bag slung across my chest, I parked the car and hoisted my 30-month daughter, Genna, up on my shoulders for her 'elephant' ride. It wasnt too hot, the place wasnt crowded and the air was good.

'Papa, I wanna come down and walk' my little precious pleaded. I let her down and prepped the camera as we ambled along its lushly shaded pathway.

I've been coming here for the last 30 years and it was like I was amongst old friends. Venerable giants that had been planted a hundred years before I was born greeted me. Trees that were mere saplings when I arrived on earth were now teenagers (in tree-speak) reaching for the skies. I still remember the African Mahogany where I fell off while I was still a child Tarzan, dislodging 2 of my milk teeth.

With my family around me, this was a perfect setting to do some meaningful family portraits.

I was in good spirits. I was somewhere familiar and loved.

Being a seasoned people photographer, I've been exposed to tough shooting and documenting conditions in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore's rougher neighborhoods, dealing with the roughnecks of society and surviving more than a few encounters with knife and gun weilding folks. I've managed to get the gnarliest and nastiest gangsters to become friends and shook hands with people who've maimed and spent jail time. I could just about handle any kind of 'situation'.

Little did I realize that before the end of that day,.... I'd have met someone who was more terrifying, volatile and unpredictable compared to Yaowarat's (Bangkok Chinatown) worst henchmen ......... my 2 and a half year old daughter.

She sits there quiet as a flower basking in the sun, her silky hair dancing in the cool morning breeze..... fingers twiddling at a little twig fascinated by its texture. 'Ah-so, cute-to, cute-to' remarks an elderly Japanese lady to her wheelchair bound companion. She ignores them.

I've switched the camera on, cranked the film advance, set the apature at f8 and duck-walked slowly towards her 'hey Genna, look at Papa's head.... there's a flower on my head!'

She looks up, spots the white frangipani I placed on my head and laughs.......... while the branch I had mistaken for a 'twig' flew the 6 feet between us and smashed me on the forehead. I was stunned and she was laughing.

Spotting a couple pushing a pram, she runs towards them and peeks in for a curious look at a month old baby. I thought 'Alright! A story!' and walked proudly up to the new parents indicating 'Your baby? He's so cute! Yes, this is my little girl.' Introductions out of the way, Genna innocently looks up at me and shouts 'Look Papa.....its UGLY BABY! UGLY BABY!' My face turns red in embarassment and their faces drop out of their heads in disbelief.

She skips off as I opened a big tap of unending apologies. Just wait till I lay my hands on you, you little rascal!!!

'Papa! Papa! Help me! Save me!' my wife runs over with me and find her clingling on by her fingers to a crusty branch 3 feet off the ground, unable to dismount. 'Hah! Serves you right!' I laughed in glee. After a minute, I picked her up and held her to my face 'Genna, you behave yourself now.'

'Ok Papa! Sorry, cannot run and shout'

'Papa?'

'Yes darling?'

'What this?' as she opened her palm and showed me a red fire ant stumbling around on her unbitten flesh.

'GET THAT AWAY!!!!' I yelled using my own hands to Shoo! it away. In an instant, it locked its jaws around part of my hand and sunk it in.....deep. 'Aaaarrrghhh! Yeooowwww!!!' I screamed in pain trying not to drop her and yet trying to now seriously kill it.

'Ha!ha!ha!' The morning couldn't get any worse at that point in time.

I was wrong.....again.

We finally settled on having my wife play 'Hide and Seek' with her on the lawn. Getting her to sit or stand still for half a second was impossible. I tried panning. I resorted to hyper-focussing, I got down on my belly, I stood up on a park bench and I fell backwards into the pond (still had my wits about me to hold the L high up in the air out of the 2 foot deep water)

Exhausted, soaked in mud and water with a crowd of bemused onlookers milling around, I gave up.

Genna, in the mean time, had taken a piece of bread and plastered it in brown mud after getting bored feeding the fish in the pond. 'Here Papa! Chocolate for you!'

Still in shock over falling into the pond, I opened my mouth wide 'at least she's sweet enough to give me a chocolate......'

munch....munch....munch?????......aaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!!

I had a good laugh about it at home...... after her royal spanking

end

p/s I also got introduced to abstract photography that morning with lots of half-bodies in and out of frames, blurred motion and plenty of lone head/arm/feet pictures....... I soon bought a digital camera thereafter