Johor Bahru City Council Photography contest.

Last week, I found out a photography competition organized by the Johor Bahru city council (MBJB). Unfortunately I found it 3 days before the closing date, so deducting the last day for printing and submitting in the required form, I only have 2 days left to shoot around Johor Bahru, my hometown.

So for one day, I spent some time taking picture of Sultan Abu Bakar Mosque. My intention was to wait for the sunset, so I went there a couple of hours before it. Was walking around looking for angles, trying to find a nice composition for my sunset+building shot, but as I was surprised to see how nice the light is hitting the building at that moment. I quickly grab some shot, and sat down waiting for the sunset. Luckily i came a bit earlier, if not i will have missed out the nice lighting situation before sunset.

This is the building our City Square(dataran bandaraya). Went there also at a evening. Those are the three photos I submitted for the contest. The contest has two kategory, one is the open category where you can submit  photos you taken any time, it just has to follow the theme stated-JohorBahru in my heart. The other category is where you only can submit photos taken during their event.

So for the second category, I submitted this photo. And this photo won me the 3rd price, which is Rm400 + Certificate. Additionally i also got invited to the royal banquette diner with the Sultan of my state. 🙂 such honor. I was informed that I also won a consolation price in the open category, but they don’t allow a person to win more than one prices. 😦

From participating in this event/contest, I’m much motivated to shoot more good and creative photos. So next, I’ll go to Singapore and do some traveling and taking on some personal photographic assignment. 😀

Macro-ing

I like this type of fly a lot, they are all shinny and colorful. 😀 They are not that hard to be found in my backyard, but they are very sensitive and fast. A lot of patience and some luck i get this shot.

Orang Asli Village, Belum Lake

On our last day on the lake, we visited the Orang Asli Village (aboriginal people village). Our trip members bought some goodies for the kids there, our guide help us to hand out the treats to the kids there. At the village you can only see young children and elderly people, I’m guessing those young people went out of the jungle to work.

They are very happy to receive such treats from us, this only make me feel more sorry for them, as Belum lake is a man-made lake from construction of  a dam. The water must have flooded many orang asli villages, a huge part of the forest was flooded and what it’s left for them is just small patches of hilly land for them to live and survive in. Jut imagine, how much they have lost.

Some photos of the Orang Asli kids ( aboriginal children)

 

Young girl taking care of her younger sibling.

They live in a very poor condition, they already lost their homeland, now just hope that the tourism there will benefits them. 🙂

BoatHouse on Belum Lake. 2

Woke up early on the “mother ship” looking forward for a beautiful sunrise, but didn’t get what I’ve hope for. 😥  It was so cloudy i can’t even find where the sun is. So I took some photos and get back to sleep mode on the couch waiting for others to wake up.

Luckily the day clear up quite quickly, after our breakfast we headed to another “parking” spot for our “mother ship” . Then we left with the speed boats to a waterfall hiking entrance. Took the photo sitting at the tip of the houseboat, I felt so nice sitting there, alone, with a spectacular view and moving forward, its almost like i m flying.

We hike along the waterfall upwards. We are wearing our live-jackets as we will be swimming around the waterfall.

The water around the waterfall is packed with fishes, and at freezing temperature, but that doesn’t stop us from going in. 😀

There are many balanced rock formation around the water.

I brought my tripod along with em all the time, but this tie i didn’t use it. Since the place is shaded, and the water falling are very fast, I just lean my camera against a tree to this not-so-long exposure shot. But I did regret not using my tripod, at least try a longer exposure. 😦

 

BoatHouse on Belum Lake.

During my last trip to Belum with my uncle, we stayed on a boat house for 2 nights. Located in Gerik and covering 15,200 hectares, Belum Lake is the largest man-made lake in Perak. There are quite some activity to do there, like jungle tracking to water falls, kayaking around the boathouse. But overall this boat house experience is very relaxing.

Our mother boat house towing her kids. 😀 We can kayak and take speed boat out to fish. The “mother ship” will normally park at somewhere and we will ride the speedboats to entrance of hiking trail.

Butterflies are everywhere. They landed on my hand when i was trying to take photo of them, so I was also shooting them with only one hand, holding the camera. It was very challenging as the depth of field from such close focusing is very narrow, and shooting with one hand is not very stable. After some struggling with focus on the right spot, keeping my hand steady, and working out the composition of the two butterflies on my hand, I get the shot above, and I was quite happy with it. 😀

My first time meeting with a Rafflesia plant. Apparently there are more then one type of refflesia and this type is among the smaller species, and they don’t stink as well.

According to our guide, rafflesia need 3 and a half year to bloom from their bud form, and only for seven days, they will turn black slowly and start fermenting by the last couple of days.

After our rafflesia hike, it’s water activity time, then fishing time before diner. I went with the other speedboat, it started to rain when we are fishing so we headed back to the “mother ship”, while the other speed boat continue fishing after the rain. After diner there are pretty much nothing else to do but snacking and chatting among ourselves. Oh ya, and also staring at hundreds of insects flying around the light bulb too. 🙂

 

SukaSuka Lake Retreat, Lenggong

On the first day of my trip with my uncle and cousin, we spent our night in Suka Suka homestay. This homestay is quite remote and hard to find, there are no signboard at all. We were led to this place by one of my uncle’s friend. The photo above is shot next day before we left, early in the morning, i almost overslept for this. 😀