A day out in the field

Very long time never had such an experience of gazing out to acres of paddy field. The journey to balik pulau was quite tiring and adventurous as the road is winding plus it was under construction. The tired night before had drag to my Saturday morning with a k-session with my Altera gang till around 3:30pm and everyone decided to go back to doze off. Dragging my camera bag with another passionate photographer we decided to pull off to balik pulau as he felt like taking some paddy field photo.

We reached there around 4 something and start to hunt for a paddy field spot. Finally we saw a few spots and start driving towards our destination. The below are some photos taken there. A step closer into long time childhood. Soon realized my object doesn't seems to have much paddy photo haha... I guess I was more interested in the other plants out there. :)

EXTREME Colours...

Past few days the trees by the roadside attracted me as they were all blooming with white and pink flowers. Not really sure what the species was, so named it Sakura. The view was purr-fect for a wide angle shot. But since I didn't have any, so sticked with my kits lens and macro lens for the job. Sunday was a lazy day but still drag myself out to capture the Sakura moments. But to my surprise, the flowers were barely there. I guess it is already close to the end of the flowers' season. It's life span is only a week or two. Because of the Sakura, I started to notice some other flowers which also grew near the area. With the thought to improve my macro skill, I started to put more effort into those flowers than the Sakura. This round, I played with the extreme settings in photoshop, pick up a new technique call Burst effect. But not really sure whether it work well or not. Give me some comments ya. The rest of the photos, some might look unreal hehe... cause I changed the saturation, added shadow, twick the color settings for different feel.

Teochew Opera

It's Saturday and as usual, we was hovering around town to find some object, events or whatever to snap. As we pass by the indian street, it was quite happening as Deepavali was round the corner. As we find a parking at the busy street, we walked along to a stage performance but it soon start to drizzle. I was thinking... "Oh no... It's raining again". We rushed back to the car and in need to find something else to snap hehe... Passing by Pengkalan Weld had caught Kelvin's eyes where there is a opera performance at a roadside temple. We stopped by and went straight to enjoy the performance.

I'm half a teochew and listening to the performance sort of felt familiar. Everything was colourful, bright, loud as well as entertaining. As the high technology advancing, so did opera performance. With it's LED subtitle in chinese, the performance sort of make sense to me, although it's difficult to understand without the subtitle. Teochew opera known as 潮州京剧 in chinese. The story performed that night was 程咬金娶妻 which meant a king's journey to find his bride. The story was summarized as the king was finding a bride and his treasurer had introduced him to a warrior's daughter. The warrior's daughter was unaware about the marriage and felt betrayed when they meet up during their wedding night. Of course from the past, the girl normally don't know her husband until the night of the wedding. The girl had some resistance and wanted to leave but the king tried to reasoned with her and proposed that she is allowed to test him. If he passes then she will have to accept the marriage. They start to test their vocabulary skills on poems and the king failed miserably as he is not so educated himself. Hehe... He tried to justify the unfairness and the girl gave him another chance on 1 on 1 sword fighting. Later the girl sort of bonded with the king and she finally accepts the marriage. Happy ending. ^_^ Enjoy the photos. Click for bigger view and more in my flickr. Fully promote kelvin's pic using wide angle and 50mm. He captured a different feeling to the performance.

The Actors & Actresses











Some scenes








Props & Musicians

Mooncake Festival @ Esplanade 2009

This year's mooncake festival had been an enjoyable one... Been out enjoying Jco during tea and "cheong" to Esplanade for the performances. I was rather surprise with the performance that night as I didn't have high expectation after the drums performance night from the previous outing. It's just too bad as the traffic jam and rain had reduce some of the adrenaline that night. As I was the only out with camera, I have the priviledge to be shielded from the rain haha... I tried to use my macro 90mm to become a tele macro lens. The result of the photos gave me a surprise although there are some blurred ones as there is a lot of hazy effect on the stage.

There were a variety of performance from the musical to malay dance, from chinese chingay to 24 drums performance. The performers also do have a wide range from children, teens to adult. It indeed make the viewers enjoyed the show although the sky is still raining stubbornly.

嫦娥奔月

Malay Dance

The Chingay performance was one of the highlights of the night. There was an announcement on the cancellation of this performance due to the rain as the performance base was not shielded. The rain had made the performance difficult to control and the pole will get very slippery. But, the champion of the year had shown true dedication and strive to give the viewers the best of their skills. There were the performance where the pole was supported using the forehead, mouth as well as other high risk stunts. The viewers were not stingy with their roaring and cheering although the rain is hitting on all the umbrellas.

Chingay Performance






Dragon dance




Boatman Dance






Fan Dance



24 Drums Performance

Not forgetting to capture some viewers that night as it was meant to be a meaningful day with gathering among family members. Around the field was bunch of friends, parents and their kids, couples as well as performers. Oh... not forgetting Miss Pesta 2008 3rd Runner Up was there to join the celebration.

Rain rain rain...

Father and daughter

Miss Pesta 2008 3rd Runner Up

Performers after the show

As we are walking towards the Town Hall, we spotted some bubbles floating in the air and saw a lil girl is playing with her bubble gun. Kelvin suggested to go take some picture of that lil girl and she's really adorable. She was kind of enjoying being taken her photos and start to get giggly and laughing all the way. But the photos was kind of reddish as the picture was on vivid mode which carries high saturation as well as contrast. In love with the last photo where the reflection of the bubbles through the cute girl's eye was captured.