Cameron Highlands

Steamboat


Cafe


Tea Hills


Cloud forest


Raju's strawberries


Butterfly park


Wild orchid


Rafflesia


Lakehouse


Inside the Lakehouse

Hong Kong

Sunset over Hong Kong
No touch up. Just timing and framing to catch this boat, the Luna Aqua, passing by the Avenue of Stars on Kowloon.



Star Ferry
The famous old ferries that ply between Kowloon and Hong Kong island.


Link to large

The view from Victoria Peak at night
Learning points: A panorama of 2 shots, I used a bean bag to keep the camera steady on a binocular post meant for tourists on top of The Peak's viewing gallery. Made sure to use only ISO100 for noise, the live view to ensure focus, and to review to ensure sharpness.



O'Brien St

The distinctive taxis of HK, which were ubiquitous. Taken from a 2nd story pedestrian walkway, the 'bean bag' I mentioned earlier is actually rice in a ziplock bag which I brought from home - a useful tip I read. Worked like a charm and I didn't need a tripod at all.

Beach series

From My Photo Blog

Was just trying to create a mood with this series of pictures. Learning point for me is to create a consistent scale and horizon.

Panuba Bay

From My Photo Blog ISO: 400 Exposure: 30.0 sec Aperture: f/5.0 Focal Length: 18mm

Here's version 2. I added a black border in photoshop, masked out the rubbish in the corner, and brought the beauty of the rocks out while keeping the dark of the bay. May have to zoom in to see more. Hope you like it!

I took this photo from my room overlooking the bay in Tioman. It is a 30 sec long exposure and the scene is lit by the moon as well as white lights from the pier. It creates a beautiful purple and blue colour in the water and the sea is rendered super clear and calm on the long exposure. I also like the colours and exposure on the rocks (will photoshop the rubbish in the bottom corner out). I had focused using manual exposure and the LiveView mode on the lights in the distance, and set the camera on the banister with a 2 sec timer. Surreal and beautiful.

Portraits on sunsets

From My Photo Blog

Along Tioman beach. I was experimenting with shots of Loretta against the sunset, but she was rendered a silhouette everytime. I thus tried to add in a bit of fill-flash - I had to play with the flash exposure compensation and brought it down about 1/3 stops. When I took this shot, I thought "Oops I cut off her head" but then it proved the most interesting shot out of the lot I took. Goes to show that sometimes 'artistic' shots go against certain conventions - such as cutting off the top of people's heads.

I would like to bring the exposure of the sunset down a little more while retaining the exposure for the potrait. Can only do that by separating the two in photoshop.

By the rocks

From My Photo Blog

One of my favourite photos, this one sits on my desk at work. We were on a crazy hike on Tioman all the way from Berjaya resort to Salang village in the north. Along the way was this hidden cove of rocks. The blue-green-orange of the sea-forest-shirt is so vibrant and alive.The branch and bag are slight distractions but I suppose the branches provide framing to the picture. When I look at this I can smell the sea and become transported to a faraway paradise. This was taken with my PnS without any major tweaks.

Moonset over the pier

From My Photo Blog ISO: 800 Exposure: 2.0 sec Aperture: f/5.0 Focal Length: 40mm

I woke up in the middle of the night to see the moon setting and creating a reflection and silhouette of the pier. I needed to rest the camera on the banister for this 2 sec exposure, but I think the tilted horizon adds to the interest. The moon is blown but that's the problem with any photo with the sun/moon in it - the dynamic range is too high. I'll have to experiment with combining several bracketed exposures in HDR, or experiment with a polarising or neutral density filter. I'm not sure what you think of this photo. What about you?

Sunset over the pier

From My Photo Blog ISO: 400 Exposure: 1/400 sec Aperture: f/14.0 Focal Length: 27mm

This was from my room in tioman, overlooking the pier. I just love the glow of the setting sun on the wooden boardwalk in this picture. The boat on the left and bouys in the middle are distracting, but I could photoshop them out. The sun is blown and has no details - will experiment with some HDR (high dynamic range) for this photo as I took multiple exposure using AEB (auto exposure bracketing.

Mangrove

From My Photo Blog

When I walked past this patch of mangrove roots, I thought the trees provided a nice frame for an interesting shot. I pushed up the saturation quite a bit to get a rather more colourful and fantastical shot.

Dingalan

From My Photo Blog

Group shots shouldn't be boring! Here, I posed them beside the distinctive catamaran style of Filipino boats and with the mountains in the background.

Gabaldon

From My Photo Blog

Since I started with Philippines, I decided to share some other photos from the trip. As you can tell, I like beautiful scenery. Here, my friends are climbing up the hill that overlooks the village and the flood plains. This whole area is ringed by mountains and is extremely beautiful.

The sky is blown, but the rule of thirds is very evident. A line of interest leads up to my friends, and Geraldine's orange shirt nicely contrasts with the grass. Maybe I can correct the sky in using photoshop's highlight reduction, but I hope to get a circular polariser for future shots like this.

Navotas

From My Photo Blog

This picture is Loretta's favourite from travels in the Philippines. It is a picture from the house where I stayed in on the illegal slums built over Manila Bay. The sunsets there are just beautiful. As the evening faded, people milled around and they settled down for the night, children played on the planks. The houses don't have electricity and whole families will sit around a candle to have their dinner - a pityful amount of rice for the poorer families. But, you don't see that in this picture. You see the people as they are - laughing- happy and not bitter - in what they call home.

For this picture, the exposure was tricky. I simply used the widest angle I could, composed the picture, and tried not to overexpose the sky or underexpose the boardwalk. In the end I had to brighten the dark portions a little with post processing and there are some blown parts in the sky, but it works. It's interesting because of the people and the place. The beautiful sunset is an interesting contrast. The leading lines and rule of thirds I hope add to the composure.

A View of Manila Bay

From My Photo Blog

I shall begin this blog with one of my favourite photos, taken with my simple PnS camera. It is a view of the setting sun over the bay of Manila. Basically, all I did was expose for the sun behind the clouds and waited for the boat in the middle to move somewhere interesting. The fact that the sun was behind the clouds meant that it would not be overexposed. The rays of the sun, the orange glow, the blue water and sky, and the mountain and boat in the background -the best photos sometimes cannot be planned for. You just have to be there to capture the moment.

What makes this photo more special for me was the context of where I took this from, which was from the edge of a slum built over the waters of Manila Bay. The water is actually filthy and the poverty of the people who live there completely contrasts with the beauty over the bay. For me, the sunset reminded me of the wonderful beauty of this place. Manila was actually a paradise and a wonderfully developed city in its heydey. It's just that over the years since, the grime of political, economic and environmental mismanagement has covered this city, and you have to dig a bit to see it.

Tags

In order to catalog the photos on this site, I have decided to use the following:

• Macro - Insects, flowers, anything really close-up.
• Landscape - Nature, Sunsets, etc.
• People - Culture, Portraits, etc.
• Abstract
• Urban - Buildings
• Wildlife - Birds, etc., usually zoom shots.

Click on the Tags at the left column to view the photos in that category.