[Landscape] Merbok jetty

The Merbok river, being part of the historical Bujang Valley in Kedah, was once an important maritime trading port more than a thousand years ago. Although large boats are now unable to sail in, there is still a jetty for fishing activities on the river. The government is also intent to develop the area into a tourism attraction, if ever so slowly and ineffectively.

Nevertheless the river, the jetty and the mangrove forests, together with nice sunset lighting, make up for a good landscape scene.

[Landscape] Pangkor

A recent trip to Pangkor island with course mates yielded some landscape photos of the island, though not so spectacular. The main part of the trip was to enjoy the holiday upon completion of studies, so landscapes shooting was only done as we moved around.















 

[Portrait] Futsal

My course mates have always been playing futsal (indoor mini football) about once a week. Nearing graduation I took an opportunity to go along with them to take some portraits. We were at the courts at midnight – due to availability of the courts – and I set up for the shoot before they played. I used a shoot through umbrella for the main lighting, placed on the subject’s left; and a bare flash for rear lighting on subject’s right. 










 


I also shot the games as they played. Owning to the very low ambient light of the courts, I could only shot at my highest useable ISO 12800. With the lens hunting for focus half the time it wasn’t a smooth ride. The images are useable however.

Lightning

It was 15th August of Lunar calendar, otherwise known as ‘Mid Autumn’. Like most other mid autumns of previous years I could remember, it always rain on the night… whether heavy or light. In fact on that night, there was lightning in my area. So I took some time off studying and spent some time exposing lightning.



As the lightning happened just behind another condo from my balcony, I decided to include some of the hills and condo as foreground. Occasionally there would be a succession of several huge burst of lightning strikes, which simply blew the shot into overexposure; and then there are some that are just too faint to be useful.

The best result of the night is the shot below. With that I think I can say that the night was not wasted.