My Hong Kong & China Trip

To be honest I never though that I will travel that often in a year, especially when I am officially jobless and work as a freelancer now. In fact, this year along I am travel ways more often that how I was few years ago, usually I will only flight at most once a year, and look at me now I have travel to 5 country in 5 month! I wouldn’t mind to fly various destination, the only issues is that so far all this travel don’t bring foods to my table. Nevertheless I really enjoyed the trip.

It is my first ever trip to Hong Kong & China, it is a exposure trip with me & my friends, I didn’t have a lot of chances to take photo since we are constantly walking, train and bus.

This is a hill view from the hostel we stay while we are in Hong Kong

Here is the night view

On the journey of bus /train / foot

Arrived Shenzhen 深圳

We have our lunch at one of the local stall for ramee, ramee taste so so much better than the one we have in Brunei! Absolutely no comparison!!!

Another lunch we have in Shenzhen 深圳

Checking in one of the Dongguan东莞 hotel. It take about 2 hour from ShenZhen to arrive Dongguan by bus.

After a overnight we have in Dongguan, we took a MRT from there to arrive Guangzhou 广州, and we go straight to this restaurant. Apparently this restaurant have been operate over 100+ years or more and their policy is to keep the foods as authentic as possible. The foods taste really really good.

After that we have about 2 hour plus of shopping in the Guangzhou shopping street. For those love cheap and fashion clothing (without brand name intact) this will be your paradise! Anyway, almost everything in the world is made in China. From one end walk to the other end is like walking from Bandar town all the way to Seri Complex.

My only time to have some quick street candid

Now, this will be my first encounter of photo bully. The moment when I hold up my camera to snap the shoot. This guy wearing red T-shirt was shouting and screaming at me if not mistaken. I just continue walking without any care, since I am well aware that near by me there are 2 policeman and worse case scenario I just have to delete this photo. Well, only those that did something wrong will be very conscious of peoples taking photo around me, so maybe he is so sort of mafia? Whatever? Move on ^w^

It take 2 hour express train from Guangzho to reach ShenZhen station, from then on we walk back across the immigration to HongKong for the night.

And no Hong Kong trip is completed without a HongKong DimSum!!!

Through out the journey I have Canon 7D gripped  with EFS 17-55mm for most of the shoot couple it with Black Rapid strap. I can honestly said I will never go back to conventional neck strap anymore as far as I am concern now, it is really flexible, versatile, secure and fast!

All in all I really enjoyed this trip, and definitely wouldn’t be my last! While it is really rushing to go from place to place, and losing a lot of opportunity to take photo, but I gain the experience of how vast is China. Surprisingly the road traffic here in better than my experience in Indonesia, however the air pollution is way worse than Jakarta so kind of balance out between the two.

No sure when will be my next trip to Hong Kong /China but I wish I will have more time to take photo on my next trip ^W^

You can view more photo from my facebook album

Happy Chinese New Year

If there are one major event that Chinese shouldn’t miss in their entire year, if will be 年三十(direct translation will be year thirty or we called it new year eve) it is the major time that as a family far and near gather together and have a big feast dinner. While this year we can’t really gather the whole family members since my brother one in Ireland while the other one in New Zealand, those of us are here in Brunei continue with this tradition of feasting.

Then during the night, we played a few fireworks to keep the kids happy and excited and blasted a 36shot firework canon!

First day of Chinese New year, spend the whole morning trying to setup and capture some family portraits. Using 2 flash as strobe with umbrella, I got a decent result with studio lighting. But the whole scenario was frustrating to me in a way that the 2nd flash didn’t fire most of the time, due to slow recycle speed and it eat battery like crazy. Simple term : unreliable!

Then the second issues I have is the backdrop, the background that I have at home wasn’t suitable for a full family portraits so the result wasn’t as satisfying as I want, gonna need to do some photoshop or retaking if necessary if I want a better result. 

   This is one of the technique that I learned during my times in KL, this is actually shooted with one flash as a strobe gelled with a full CTO (orange color) filter to give a sunset look. It was taking around 12plus pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But other than that I have plenty of fun shooting them, knowing that whatever it is, I manage to capture a memory and moments of our family history.

After conference

After attending the conference, the way I view photography have changed dramastically! One of the obvious change is when I look back some of my photo and I think all of them suck! XD I began to be more critical towards photo, but my way of composition and vision is still kind of lacking, I suppose this have to come with more practice? But one thing for sure, I started to see more detail in the view finder compare to last time where I will just happily snapping away.

While this look like a normal dog portrait, this was snap without into the view finder and holding it below my knees almost touching the ground. It was one of the technique that I learned during the conference, it is a technique make you more versatile and able to come out with more interesting angle. I actually tried a few other technique that I learned from Michael; the more I tried, the more I know how good Michael is, the flash in one hand, shooting without looking at view finder and his signature panorama shoot is a skill and ability that show how much time he have spend to master it / his ability to photography it. Of course I don’t expect to be like him right after the 2day workshop, but I know what I learn from him is something that I can continue to work on.

Other than the conference, my another objective is to be able to meet up with some of my old friends from Perth. Is kind of waste that Shen Han unable to join us since he have to go back early. But indeed it was a joy to be able to meet them face to face again and caught up with how they doing in their life. I have a good time chit chatting with them and I am pretty sure I will try to caught them out again whenever I visit KL.

Creative Asia Conference 2011

Part of my 7days in KL is to attempt Creative Asia Conference, it is one of the first international photography conference that hosted in Malaysia which invite various big name photographers. Joe McNally, Michael Greenberg, Dane Sanders, Jason Magbanua, Manny Librodo, Daniel Capobianco, Louis Pang and Mike Langford, those name will link you to creative asia website which contain their portfolio information and link to their site, have a check on them if you like.

Basically this is a 3days conference which consist of photo judging, speech by various speakers, shootout within 3 photographers and award given night. It was intensive, inspirational and highly educating. But it also wasn’t for the faint hearted or for those have a DSLR but do not have any understanding with ISO, shutter speed, F-Stop etc.

Why I said that?

First and foremost, I actually submitted some of my photo to the competition, while hoping to win (which highly unlikely) but more on wanting to see where my photography skill stand, how well I am doing regard photography and how is it compare to other photographers.

 

And I was surprise to see all my photo won Bronze award! Especially if you look through all the top 125 finalist photo in real size, those photo will make you drop your jaws and may even make some of you drop photography altogether. It is that good! By the way, those photo entries doesn’t just limit to Malaysia, there are competitors from USA, Australia and some other countries, so the photo is really international standard. Go check the link if you can:

http://awards.creativeasia.tv/

The photo judging is delivered by the inviting speakers, sometime can be quiet discouraging in a way that all those photo that amazed you and wow you in so many ways only getting a score around 82 83, hardly any above 85 (silver award) and those photos that got a gold award is only a handful. But on other hand, the judge able to point out the strength and the flaws of the photo and let you know what it need to deliver a world class standard. So after the session, I learn to see photo in a more analyse way but on a flip side, all my photo sucks! XD

Speech by various speakers

All of the speakers during the conference is giving their top notch, informative, inspiration and challenging speech and some of their work is like out of this world. What I really like about them is that they don’t just share about their success, but also their failure and struggle while being humble and personnel; so photography as a profession wasn’t just about sunrise or flowery all the way. I particularly like Joe McNally, Jason Magbanua and Dane Sanders.

Joe McNally life as a photographer is really really amazing, and seeing him talk about his career as a Life Magazine Photographers, National Geography photographer and the inside story is really amazing stuffs.

 

Jason Magbanua is one of the top videographer base on Philippine, one of his trademark skill is capable to broadcast his wedding photography within a day, to be more precise is within a few hours while still producing top quality works. He talk a lot about his work, branding and marketing for videographer business.

Dane Sanders, it is a waste that he cannot make it to KL to deliver the speech. He is one of the speakers that I really like to meet, I have read his book and also some of his education video. What I can said is that he is the same person through the book, video and during the speech. So during his session he is basically having a live web seminar with us and answering question through twitter. He delivered a really inspiration speech about being unique, authentic and how to standout in a market that is really saturated.

Michael Greenberg, easily my flavour among the togs, attending his 2days workshop give him a unfair advantages among other speakers in term of impact and inspiration to me. Through the 2 days workshop, we get to know him better, the amount of knowledge and information that he gave to us is just mind blowing! He delivered a workshop not just good for you for the 2days and it will continue to linger in you for the rest of your life (provided you do what he told you) And his style of photographing his wedding is truly unique, orthodox yet classical and artistic (what a contradiction statement you may said). he is like the only photographer that don’t need to look into the viewfinder and yet able to capture amazing photo.

What I will wish or complaint regarding the conference will be having more booth regarding photographing stuffs. For whatever reason it is, the only company that is displaying is Epson with their Epson printing products. I really love to see some other products like lighting equipments, camera equipments or even books, album and etc. Then the 2nd thing is to have refreshment during the break, which will be easier for the participants to network with one another. Both of this points was also raised by other participants when I chit chat with them so hopefully CreativeAsia can look into this if they are planning their next conference.

Finally, I really like to thanks Louis Pang and his team for taking such responsibility and burden to host such an event. It wasn’t easy, it is tough and challenging, but the result is well worth the cost. While it is really tiring through out the conference, but I truly enjoyed my time through and I know many other participants shared the same views as me.

THANK YOU!!!

Creative Asia KL, Michael Greenberg workshop

Creative Asia Conference, Michael Greenberg workshop are the main reason that I decided to make my ways to KL. If you not sure about his work, you can go to www.phototerra.com, his work will astound & amazed you.
While being excited, I was also a bit of skeptical of fearing that the speaker cannot really deliver. While you can be among the top in your field, it isn't necessary mean that you can teach as well as you perform your job.  Ok, he is not those dynamic, charismatics speaker with lots of movement and action. In fact, most of the session he just sit down and talk, and answering our questions; but the amount of depths of information, though processes, how he work, and how he make use of locations bring you to the reigns of possibility to almost infinity. Putting into the facts that 15 participant can sit in his class all the ways til 6pm with minor break in between show how much we are trying to absorb from him (The class suppose to finish at 5pm)

A group photo of the participants with Michael GreenBerg, if you are from Brunei, you will realized Jason from Masamichi Studio & Sazali from Moments. Of course there are others from UK, Middle East and mainly Malaysia photographers. Great peoples to talk with!

Great time, great peoples, and great workshop, so wish that we can extended  the workshop hour. Truly enjoy it and well worth the cost. Once I have enough time I will try to show and talk more about it. :)

Marilyn Birthday

Today is my nieces Marilyn birthday, so as usual. We have makan, birthday cake and etc. What make it unique is that we have the latest add on together with us tonight. My youngest nephew to date, the eldest son from my 3rd brother, Victor. Ezekiel Emmanuel Tan Ngee Ern!

 

It is definitely a joy to see that God has bless my brother with a wonderful boy and more years of responsibility ahead of him of coz :p But his presence has definitely bring joy to the household. Everyone just love him!!! But I think the dogs don’t really like him because of jealousy though :p

But for some reasons, today event actually kick me to reflect on my decision for taking up photography. I bought my first digital camera at the end of 2008 and first DSLR on july 2009; and in this 2 years I have learned so much on photography that I can never imagine I will 2 years ago.

Yet, I have never regret picking up photography, I think the only regret is I didn’t pick it up sooner. But at least it wasn’t too late. Photography in a way have change my life, it changed my perspective and also how I see things around me. As I look through photo that I took over this 2 year, it actually make me grateful with what God has done in my life, and also the decision of getting into photography.

The most important aspect of photography to me I believe is capturing the moment and memory. You may have the latest and the best camera equipment with you, yet it you fail the capture the moment / memory, it will be useless. Of course, it depends on the subject and the reason of your photo. When it come to family photography, personally I don’t believe any photo that you taken will be a waste. The photo that you took may not need anything to others, but for the family members it will be a monument that can last for a life time. When ever you flick open and see the photo, it will have the power to bring you back to that stage of event. For me that’s the power of photography can do, and for me, I feel grateful and privilege to journal down my family life into something that is tangible and memorial able. 

Moon Ring

I was dead tire when I arrived home, and it was around 12plus am at that time. But the moment I look up to the sky and saw the moon with the moon ring, my sleepiness was completely shine off by the beauty. I grabbed my camera and start playing around with the composition and settings. By the time I am done with the photo shooting, I have easily spend over half an hour there While I wasn’t satisfy with the outcome, but I think it is worth to share with you all.

Sometime we can be so engross with the task before us that we forgot to look at what is around us. If I have set my mind to rush to my room instead of looking up to the sky, I would have missed this opportunity. So, slow down, put down the stuffs that you are doing for 1 minute and start to appreciate the things that around it, who know you mind something interesting? This 1 minute of break and energized you beyond your belief. ^w^

Photo for the day @Brunei River

Here are some of my shoot after I decided to drop by Brunei river to explore on some of the sunset opportunity. Which is pretty interesting to me since when it come to sunset, my mind always fix on big sky and wide sea. This has force me to widen my perspective when it come to sunset photography. Nothing legendary, nevertheless here is my humble work.

Comment and constructive criticism is welcome ^w^

My walk around Tamu Kianggeh, Bandar. Brunei

I decided to walk around Tamu Kianggeh to build up my experience. For those who do not know, tamu is a malay words for market, it is one of the most happening place in Bandar Seri Begawan, especially during the weekend.

Due to its location beside the river bank and Kampung Ayer, you can see lot’s of water boat going around fetching people from one destination to another. It is also one of the main transport to travel between water village and the main land. In fact, a few of them asking me wanna take a boat ride to tour around Kampung Ayer (with a price tag). By the way I realized that it is not a common sight in Brunei to see chinese holding a DSLR and walk around. Maybe that’s why they assume me as one of those tourist?

Since it is a market, it is a place where you can find vast variety of local foods, fruit, meat, vegetable and souvenir with a pretty good price. Majority of the vendor is Malay while you can find some other races doing their business here.

Once again through this walk I have learned a few more lesson which I have to remind myself:

1. Research

Do some research on your destination and know your subject as much as possible.

2. Plan

This is one of the lesson that really strike me as I walked around. Without research and planning, I am basically like a headless chicken, not knowing what I should do and where should I go. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” which is so true for my case.

3. Be Bold

I am too reserve and shy, in another words too chicken >w< 

I have read handful of topic and blog with regarding street photography, and a lot of time they emphasis on being close to the subject. While it is easy to say about it, but doing it myself is a whole lot of different story. 

As I sit down and review through my collections of photo, in all honesty I can’t find any image that is particular immersing or striking , or tell much story at all. My skill set and composition skill still have a long way to go. The other thing is I really should be more courageous to approach the people for photo snapping, since most of them actually taught that I am a tourist (which can be an advantage on its own); and in general Bruneians is pretty polite.

Feel free to drop a comment for anything relate to this blog. Thanks :)