Spiders on NTV7's The Breakfast Show.

Recently I was invited by a national television company to talk about macro photography and spiders. It was initiated when a senior producer in NTV7 was interested in the photos I published in my facebook in the Macro Mania album. So we corresponded via email on the particulars and agreed to have on The Breakfast Show of Thursday 21 January 2010.

My friend Marcus was also invited to the show as he is also a spider enthusiast. To make things more realistic and fun, we decided to go to the set wearing our usual outdoor outfit, which for Marcus means his short pants. Against the pleas of some people I insisted on wearing my signature macro shirt and the turtle sanctuary hat which had been with me for many years. I felt very excited to appear on TV for the first time but when the program day drew close, usual nervousness started to creep in. Now, how if I make a fool of myself on live TV? Yes, it’s live.




Fortunately the Breakfast Show crew team had been very helpful which reflected their experience and professionalism. The senior producer of the show, Tengku Firhad, greeted us at Sri Pentas lounge before bringing us through the maze of the Media Prima complex for make up. I think the last time I had make up was when I was in a stage play back in primary school. Those are not memories I really fond of.

The Breakfast Show starts on 8.30am every weekday. For that day we will be the first guests with my slot starting at about 9am, I think. The lovely hosts were Joanne de Rozario and Aishah Sinclair who greeted us when the show was on commercial break. Me and Marcus sat on a sofa opposite them and when the crew gave the cue that we are on air, my mind simply went blank. All prior preparations suddenly vaporized and I felt at the mercy of the ladies.




It was not much of a slaughter actually as they have been very kind to make sure the show went smooth. I admit that I was nervous and tended to mumble rather than speaking like what people usually do on TV. Earlier I sent 20 photos to be used in the show and when we got to the part of talking about the photos, the first one shown was a female Argyrodes with her newly hatched babies. I think that was considered the most decent photo being talked about during the show. The next ones were about mating, courting, predation and mating again. Having to describe the mating process of animals to celebrity girls on live TV was not what I had in mind earlier.

At a point during the show we had a live call with the GM of Epson Malaysia who shared on their recent initiatives to promote photography in Malaysia such as bringing in Steve McCurry to conduct workshops here. There will be a photo contest soon with Mr. McCurry as the judge so stay tune to their website in February for details. The next guest that day was Vince from Akademi Fantasia.








There were a lot of other subjects which I wish I talked about during the show, especially on the importance of spider in our environment and conservation of the endangered species. The show was about 20-30 minutes and I believe it was a good one with a lot of facts about spiders has been shared. Nevertheless there are other fascinating information and messages that I would like to pass across to Malaysians. It is my hope that I can do it here in my blog with you.

Watch the program online here (go to Part 3) THE BREAKFAST SHOW 10 - 21 January 2010