20090517 - sekinchan paddy fields

As scheduled, our club trip to Sekinchan took place. We had wanted to photograph the near harvest scenes when everything would be shimmering gold and yellow. We heard from the friend of a friend that now would be around the right time, but as the pictures will show, everything was still lucsious juicy green...with no signs of ripenning soon. Guess we'll have to try out luck again ! But all is not lost...green is beautiful too ! We even chanced upon a bitter gourd farm...bonus !

We left KL at about 8am. Took us about 45 mins to get there. Photographed for a couple of hours and decided to call it a day when the sun got too hot. Tip...get there ealier ! As we were driving there, we saw how beautiful everything was in the glow of the warm morning sun. Finally, had the famous seafood lunch at Kuala Selangor, which was ok lah. Good price but not as lipsmacking as expected.

20090415 - tioman island

It's been 2 years since my last dive trip to the Philippines. As this group consists of beginner divers and serious photokakis, this is meant to be a very easy and leisurely 5 day 4 night dive trip with plenty of photo opportunities.

Salang Jetty

Dive instructors, Junie and Ita conducting refresher briefing before entering water.

local kids we met under the jetty

20090416 - yes ! beautiful sunset as per ordered...thank you !

20090418 - another spectacular going down. Repeat order ...mucho gracias !!

20090418 - at 7.30 am, I missed the first ray of lights as I was late waking up ( a constant problem with me !). But luckily the sun wasn't very strong yet. Just a tinge of pink and yellow to give warmth to the morning blue skies.

A note of warning - these pictures (both sunset and sunrise) came with a price. Standing on the beach, stationary even for minutes, my beautiful legs became scrumptious meals to the %#&*ing hundreds of sandflies. And I was thereafter scratching and scratching for the next couple of weeks !!

20090419-silhouette of Tioman in the horizon as we left the island.

20090404 - sepang f1

Another first !!

The International Sepang Circuits have been in existence for years. I however, not being a avid F1 fan, have never had the urge shoot this event...therefore have never been there. So last month when a friend offered me a grand stand ticket, I thought, well...why not. The ticket was valid for a 3day weekend. Since I work on Fri, and didn't want to wrestle the crowd on the Sun race day, Anne (another 1st timer !) and I decided to check out the circuit Sat morning. It was a terribly hot day and the walk from the gate to the grand stand was at least 1 km long...promise !! Not many people were around and so we could sit anywhere we fancied. Disappointingly the seats were dirty and dusty ! Anyway, not knowing what to expect we just waited. Eventually the race started after a little parade. And the acoustics, my oh my...was pure torture...like buzzing flies magnified a thousandfold...and never ending ! My advice...stick to watching F1 on TV !! But, never mind, we're here on free tickets, to experience and shoot...not to complain.

Anyway, here comes the anticlimax. After showing our photos to some friends, we were told that the race that we've been shooting was not F1, but some G2 thing !! G2 ?? (I'd rather have a G10, thanks.) Sad to say, we couldn't tell the difference. Well...at least I can say that I've been to the Sepang F1 Circuit ! Or was that a G2 circuit ??!!