By the roadside

How often you slow down your pace, just to appreciate tiny little things around you?

On the way to UKM, campus Bangi

University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) is the place where I spent my happiest innocent years. Here I am again after 10 years! (OMG!) My sis got into the same faculty as me, currently studying her first year. I couldn’t resist to snap few photos of my beloved campus.

Infront of library

Faculty of Economy

Opposite Kolej Ungku Omar

Pusanika, view from behind

Dewan Serbaguna

Sometimes you do really miss your campus don’t you?

To all the friends still studying, treasure your time in university, and yes, enjoy it too.

Talk a walk, and you’ll find delicious Peranakan (Baba & Nyonya) Food. Spend some time to chat with locals and you’ll unveil the beauty of Melaka!

Dog lover's house

One of the Cafe

Inside restaurant 88, famous for laksa and cendol

Chillin @ Geographer Cafe

Inside a painter's shophouse

Painter's kitchen

View from Hotel Twenty @ Jonker Street

Ceramic master's tools

Printing

View from A Farmosa

Tioman Island

So, what kind of activity we can do in Tioman? Normally most people go for a 3 days 2 night trip.  We reached Mersing Jetty on Friday afternoon 3.30pm… the ‘fast’ ferry suppose to come at 4.30pm but we waited till 5pm ++. I didn’t keep track of the time, all I know, by the  time we reached Kg Genting’s jetty, it was already 7.30pm just in time for dinner! There goes my first day itinerary hahaha!

We stayed at the resort called Island Reef Resort located in Genting Village. It’s more like a budgeted resort but without a budgeted price. We need to climb a lot of wooden stair case to access the resort as it is situated on the hill slope… so now you know why the place is called Genting village! (just guessin)

After the so-so edible 3 dishes 1 soup buffet dinner, my friends suggested to go for fishing at jetty. Not really excited with the idea but I did tag along. As soon as they bought the fishing line, hook and squid as bait, we walk to the jetty and started the ultimate fishing task!

Seriously I don’t put much hope in our fishing project as the wind was strong and jetty was too high to fish without proper fishing gear. Everybody else were well equiped with proper gears and looked very professional too.. compare to 4 crazy girls at the corner, happily holding 2 empty cans rolled with fishing line hoping to catch something…

View from Kg Tekek Jetty

Weather was good the next day, just a little bit hazy from the opening burning in Sumatera. After a simple nasi lemak breakfast, we went for shopping at Duty Free shop in Kg Tekek. After that, we spent 2 hours at the marine park and the tourist guide (sorry he’s not a beach boy) explained the usage of snorkelling mask and basic swimming skill. (Mask and life jacket cost RM8 each for one day rent) I did learned one useful tips, that is our saliva have anti-fog properties, so just rub your saliva on the snorkelling mask and you’ll be free from fog

Snorkeling @ Marine Park, Tioman

We had packed lunch around 12.30pm and then continue to the next destination, Coral Island which is just few minutes away from Kg Tekek jetty. I couldn’t join the snorkeling session as I left my prescription swimming goggle on the beach. Bad luck for me, as I was stung by a wasp on the beach and that’s why I left in hurry without checking on my stuff.

Coral Island Snorkeling

After snorkeling, it was free and easy time. We can’t do anything as the weather was so hot, so all end up playing poker in chalet. We went out around 6pm with hope to view yolk type of sunset, but can’t see anything as the sun disappeared behind thick clouds. My friends were so disappointed and all left for BBQ dinner, leaving me behind all alone shooting the twilight.

Kg Genting Beach, Tioman

I think I don’t have to mention about the charcoal black BBQ chicken, very black burnt fish and squid hahaha.

After dinner, my friends went excited again about their fishing project. This time round, we targeted on squid (as the day before, almost everyone around us managed to get a foot long squid) so I bought a squid bait for RM7 and off we go again. Actually squid fishing is not that exciting at all, but due to the fact I was with 3 timid ladies, everything become different. Squid will squirt out water and black ink for quite a distance, so whenever our neighbour try pulling up a squid, 3 of the pretty ladies will start screaming and run away, one of them even throw away her fishing can!

Of course, many people were quite concerned about our fishing skill, we really wish to prove them wrong, yet we fail to prove anything throughout the night!

Beach babes @ Kg Genting, Tioman

The next morning, we decided to try out our colourful beach cloth bought from duty free shop. The girls enjoyed their photo taken and the photographer enjoyed being a photography director hahaha. I’m glad everybody enjoyed the shooting session even though we just have 1 hour time.

Beach babes @ Kg Genting, Tioman

We heading back to Mersing Jetty after lunch. Seriously, the lunch was the best meal served throughout our 3days 2 night stay in Tioman. The ferry pick us up at Kg Genting first before heading to other jetties as far as Kampung Tekek for paperwork. We waited for a long long time in the ferry. Around 4pm plus, we are still in Tioman Island and only reached Mersing at 7.30pm. Nearly seasick!

Overall the trip was enjoyable due to crazy companions, we had a lot of laughter and fun, especially during fishing and photography shooting. Beaches are clean with clear water too. Tioman left us craving for more and of course, a plate of fresh sambal sotong pedas!

What's in your heart?

I went for an outing yesterday, organised by Photographic Society of Kluang. It was actually Hibiscus flower shooting outing… but as usual… my heart always wander for something else…

I noticed a little yellow flower with very beautiful anther (male reproductive cells that contains pollen)! Fell in love immediately! Too bad I don’t know the name of the flower.

Would like to dedicate this photo to my fellow photog friend Jacky as lately he complained about my long forgotten blog and my Tamron 90mm macro lens that suffers in my dry cabinet! I hope I do the lens justice Jack!

Note: Sorry if the flower look very yellow… that’s the real colour of the flower.

Malacca five foot way shophouses

Five foot way is the typical architecture style that is unique and native in South East Asia shophouses. The covered walk way is within shophouse property but is for public use, providing shade from sun and rain. This design is by law requirement for shophouses since British Malaya era. Thus the footway infront of shophouses must be at least five feet in the clear.

This photo was taken in Malacca. We stopped at the wrong place far away from our destination. Yet I believe this is the only row of shops that have their wooden window all opened at the same time. Lucky for me : )

Hereby I attached a copy of colour version too.. I cropped to square size as currently I’m studying on film medium format camera such as Rolleiflex. The most common aspect ratio are 6×6cm or 6×4.5cm using 120mm film. So the photos will be in square shape, giving a touch of vintage feel.

Malacca five foot way shophouses

Foreign worker quarters in B&W

Hello everyone. This is the first time I’m using Wordpress version 2.7! It’s amazing, I would say the layout and functionlity are much better and user friendly than the previous version. Thanks a lot to my brother James Pang, who upgraded the Wordpress for me.

This is also the first time I’m posting a photo in black and white. I’m always amazed by a lot of impressive black and white photos that I came across all these years. The only regret is, I’m not belong to the B&W film era and don’t know a thing about dark room processing, all the techniques, chemicals and papers…  So I never know how it feels to shoot in film and the process in the dark room, the feeling of anticipation by looking at the image revealing itself on the photo paper. It might be time consuming, yet the satisfaction feeling you get will make a good compensation for that.

In the current digital era, less and lesser people know how to appreciate the beauty of black and white nor to understand it. Why black and white? What’s the different between shooting in black and white compare to colour photo? Well, black and white photo doesn’t attract your attention with its play of colour. It solely depends on its ability to communicate rather than on its appealing visual presentation like colourful photographs. Therefore, it requires more attention in composition, lighting, perspective and the context that the photographer try to present.

Here is my first attempt of black and white. I came across this simple bicycle in front of foreign worker quarters of a pineapple farm in Simpang Renggam. Of course, I shoot it in colour digital format using my trusty Nikon D80 camera. B&W conversion was later carried out in Photoshop CS2. I also attach an original photo in colour format. Do let me know, which one you prefer. Before that, I must admit that I shoot this photo because of the attraction of mixed colours of all the hanging cloth. Bear with me, as I’m yet to see the world in black and white : )

Remember, black and white photo can be powerful as well. It tells a story in both emotional and beautiful way… Hope those who interested in black and white photography can try it out often. Cheers!

Foreign worker quarters in colour

p/s:

If you need extra dose of B&W poison, please visit PhotoMalaysia forum. There are plenty of veteran/expert/master that will be glad to answer all your questions.

I visited Bako National Park few month back during Labour Day holiday. Due to time constrain, I only made a day trip to Bako and visited 1 out of 17 trails in the park.

From Kuching town, it will take around 45mins drive to the boat terminal. From there, we need to pay RM10 for registration and fill in a form to be submitted to the park office during arrival. A boat to Bako National Park cost RM47.00 per way, or RM94.00 return trip for max 5 person. So if you want to save cost, you may need to wait for more passenger to share a boat.

The boat journey to Bako National Park took around 30 mins. Before we reach the park, we decided to visit Bako’s famous landmark first, ie the unique sea stack which the local calls it “Batu Belah” (the split rock). This iconic landmark is situated between Teluk Pandan Kecil and Teluk Paku and the boat trip will require additional RM35.

We reached Bako National Park main office at around 11am.  Once completed the registration, we visited a simple park exhibition that introduced the history, geographic, flora and founa and visitor statistic of the park. There are 17 trails in the park for you to explore and we decided trek to Teluk Pandan Besar, one of the famous trail recommended by the park ranger for day trippers.

The trail runs for 2 and a half km from the park’s headquarter. We passed by mangrove area where the Proboscis Monkey can be spotted. After that is where the ascending starts… you will enter the high humidity rainforest jungle trail with steep slopes and moss covered rocks. This is definately not suitable for those who dislike sports. I’m already exhausted before I reach the top, yet I still need to lug along my camera and heavy tripod.

Well, I nearly suffered from sunburn as I didn’t know I need to trek at least 1 hour under hot burning sun. From mangrove till rainforest and suddenly, we reached a place with less vegetation which known as sandstone plateau or Kerangas forest. It consist of siliceous rocks, sandy and acidic soils, so only small shrub and shorter trees can be seen along the way. There are plenty of pitcher plant along the trail, really a bonus for pitcher plant lover. However, I’m very regret to say that I didn’t even take a single shoot of pitcher plant as I was nearly dehydrated under the hot burning sun and all I can think of was walk as fast as I could and hide under any shade that I can find (there were barely none!). I saw a lot of dried up pitcher plant on the shrubs too, not sure if it is due to the hot weather.

After some struggle, we finally reach Teluk Pandan Besar, cliff by the seaside. Nothing spectacular with the view (probably I’m too exhausted to enjoy the scenery) so after few clicks of photos as record, we headed way back once again under hot burning sun, back to the waiting boat that will bring us back to the terminal.

The lesson I’ve learned through this trip was, 1st, make sure you search extra info before travel, so you can prepare well. 2nd, Never bring along tripod to climb mountain unless you are physically very fit person. Sun block lotion or small unbrella and extra water supply (1.5 Liter is not enough!).

Dear all my friends,At last I finally post something after missing for 4 months… there you go…These photos were taken in Zenxin Organic Park, which situated along Jalan Batu Pahat , Kluang (right turn from Air Hitam PLUS toll exit, 5 mins distance on the left side).Basically, this organic vegetable and dragon fruit farm is getting popular as family getaway and recreation center for the pass 2 years. It is under Ministry of Agriculture’s modern farm project in Johor.

The good news is, the entrance is free of charge : ). You can buy fresh organic vegetables and local products from its farm mart and there is a HALAL restaurant serving all types of food and steamboat. There is a 700 meter long walkway in the 100 acre farm attached to a viewing pavilion on a small hill, where you can enjoy the lush green scenery and soft breezing wind.

Rent a bicycle or take a walk around the farm to experience the farming life. Join the fish catching game, or the vegetable growing and harvesting program to get close to the nature.

The dragon fruit planted in Zenxin Organic Park is the red type, which personally I think it taste better than white type. If you are lucky, then you will get to see the dragon fruit flower, Queen of the Night which only blossom at night. Try to visit the park in the morning around 7-8am before the flower withered under bright sunlight.

I love the big trees in the organic park, and of course the photography opportunities, from macro to landscape.Zenxin Organic Park is a must stop place the next time you visit Kluang. Free tourist guide will be provided. You may call the number below for more information for reservation or to organise your own program in the park. Please contact their marketing department’s Ms Goh or Ms Lim at 07-7595196/0197738985 Fax: 07-7595193 or visit their website.

All the photos were taken using Tokina 12-24mm F4 lens, straight out from camera without cropping.

The world needs more green plants…