Category

Landscape and cityscape

The controversial Christ the Redeemer statue in Portuguese Settlement Melaka

The controversial replica Christ the Redeemer statue in Portuguese Settlement Melaka

By Beautiful Melaka, Landscape and cityscape
The controversial Christ the Redeemer statue in Portuguese Settlement Melaka

The controversial replica Christ the Redeemer statue, under construction in Portuguese Settlement Melaka

The controversial replica statue of Christ the Redeemer is built recently by the residents of Portuguese Settlement Melaka hoping to complete the construction before Christmas. As it is built without local city council, Melaka Historic City Council (MBMB)’s approval, the construction has been put on hold and has been given a notice to tear down the statue.

Since Portuguese Settlement Melaka is only miles away from where I stay, I dropped by to capture a shot of the headless statue as memory. Let’s hope the issue can be resolved peacefully, and hopefully before Christmas.

Marina Barrage in the late afternoon

Marina Barrage and Gardens by the Bay, places for outdoor activities in Singapore

By Landscape and cityscape, Lifestyle, My journey
Marina Barrage in the late afternoon (iPhonegraphy)

Marina Barrage in the late afternoon (iPhonegraphy)

Mid of October, during my visit to Singapore for meeting with clients for upcoming wedding assignment, we had a chance to visit to Marina Barrage for the first time.

Henry, my childhood friend traveled together and we then met up with our good friend, Koh Yiaw who works in Singapore. He was generous to bring us around in Singapore.

After meeting up with my clients, we told Koh Yiaw that we had not been to Marina Barrage and Gardens by the Bay, although we had been to Singapore for so many times.

The afternoon in Singapore was warm and windy, a fine day for outdoor activities. While waiting for the Big Trees of the Gardens by the Bay to light up in the evening, we drove to Marina Barrage which is next to the it within 5-10 minutes walking distance, to spend the afternoon before the sun set.

The Marina Barrage is a dam built across the mouth of Marina Channel, to help alleviating floods of same areas and supplying water. On top of that, the facility is further utilized by providing a rooftop park for recreational activities.

Koh Yiaw showed us around the dam and brought us to the rooftop park. There were people there hanging out with friends, picnic, kite-surfing, exercising, drone flying, and some even lying on the grass for sun-bathing.

Henry (left) and Koh Yiaw enjoying sunset at the rooftop park of Marina Barrage (iPhonegraphy)

Henry (left) and Koh Yiaw enjoying sunset at the rooftop park of Marina Barrage (iPhonegraphy)

Later afternoon, as sun was going to set, the crowd started to come in, with groups of tourists, prewedding shooting couples, landscape and cityscape photographers, evening yoga lovers and so on. It was the best time to have the view of sunset over Singapore city with Marina Bay Sands in silhouette.

We could see Big Trees of Gardens by the Bay, the gigantic artificial trees were lighted up after the sun set. We then left Marina Barrage and headed for the Big Trees before the sky turned completely dark.

Big Trees of Gardens by the Bay with Marina Bay Sands in scene (iPhonegraphy

Big Trees of Gardens by the Bay with Marina Bay Sands in scene (iPhonegraphy

The parking of Gardens by the Bay was full and cars were queuing for parking spaces. We did a quick stop to get close to the Big Trees near the ticketing counters, to experience how gigantic the lighted trees. Before the sky went dark, photographing the lighted trees with the colorful sky as backdrop can be interesting and spiced up the mood of the photographs.

Thank you Koh Yiaw again for spending half the day with us showing the two interesting places of Singapore, and also brought us for wonderful meals and coffee.

If you would love to visit the two places, just Google Map and search for Marina Barrage or Gardens by the Bay. The places are reachable with public transport including MRT.

They are next to each other and the admission is free for Marina Barrage and ticket is required on certain areas of Gardens by the Bay. Visit of the outdoor gardens and the Big Trees is however free.

The Desert of Melaka – Padang Pasir Klebang with iPhone

By Beautiful Melaka, Landscape and cityscape, Photography
Klebang desert (also known as Padang Pasir Klebang in Bahasa) in Melaka (iPhonegraphy)

Klebang desert (also known as Padang Pasir Klebang in Bahasa) in Melaka (iPhonegraphy)

One of recent and new tourist spots in Melaka is the sand dune in Klebang. It is not far to Dataran 1Malaysia Klebang, the beach of Klebang. Ironically being a Malaccan, I came across this place 4 years ago from a non-Malaccan friend who came to visit to Melaka and told me about this place.

Back then, even many locals didn’t know about this place. And now, in every morning and evening, many locals and tourists are here to visit the sand dune and take photos as if they were in the Gobi or Sahara. Thus the place is also known as ‘the desert’. To reach the desert, it takes a 30 to 45 minutes walk to the desert from the barriers, which stop the cars to enter the desert for safety purposes.

So months back in April, I started evening walk for two weeks to prepare for my backpacking journey to India and Nepal in May. I walked to the desert on every evening, explored not only the sand dune, but the area nearby. During the week of my walk, I captured some photos with the only camera I had with me, my mobile phone.

Sharing some shots taken with iPhone and post-processed with iOS apps.

GPS location to the parking of the Klebang Desert :
2.210343, 102.191614

Supermoon before dawn over the Flyover Bandar Hilir of Jalan Syed Abdul Aziz Melaka

Supermoon sighting in Melaka

By Beautiful Melaka, Landscape and cityscape
Supermoon before dawn over the Flyover Bandar Hilir of Jalan Syed Abdul Aziz Melaka

Supermoon before dawn over the Flyover Bandar Hilir of Jalan Syed Abdul Aziz Melaka

Closer look of the supermoon, which appeared for 5 minutes as the weather was cloudy and rainy whole day in Melaka

Closer look of the supermoon, which appeared for 5 minutes as the weather was cloudy and rainy whole day in Melaka

Kenn and I was looking forward to see the supermoon here in Melaka but the weather was not promising. The sky was blanketed by dark clouds since last night. Right before 7:00am just now, there was a window in the sky which the supermoon shone through for 5 minutes. It was luck and we got to see it just before sunrise. πŸ˜€

This would be the closest full moon to earth since year 1948, and the next even closer to earth will be on 2034. See you again in 18 years!

Our first experience capturing the stars in Melaka (from left, tiny Vernon, tiny Ee, tiny Kenn Wai, tiny Chow Gui and tiny Jacky)

First experience with Milky Way photography in Melaka

By Landscape and cityscape
Our first experience capturing the stars in Melaka (from left, tiny Vernon, tiny Ee, tiny Kenn Wai, tiny Chow Gui and tiny Jacky)

Our first experience capturing the stars in Melaka (from left, tiny Vernon, tiny Ee, tiny Kenn Wai, tiny Chow Gui and tiny Jacky)

Often looking at the stunning photographs of Milky Way other landscape and cityscape photographers have taken, such as signature stars shots of Church of the Good Shepherd in New Zealand, Mt. Bromo in Indonesia and etc., I always wanted to do it here in our home town Melaka. I kept survey for locations far from light pollution especially from places away from houses or buildings or traffics, with minimal light visibility.

During an engagement portrait the Klebang beach of Melaka last month, where I was photographing a couple at a sand dune by the beach of the reclaimed land, there were no street lights, no buildings, purely land of sands dug from the sea, piling up like a sand dune desert. It seemed like an ideal place for shooting Milky Way, dark and far from light source.

Hari Raya’s eve was a good day, it was new moon and the weather was good after we checked the forecast. We organized a small group of friends (Kenn Wai, Ee, Vernon, Jacky and Chow Gui) to travel together to kill time and for safety purposes.

When we arrived at site on the evening of eve of Hari Raya, it was very dark and we had to park our cars far from the sand dune, where the tracks of tires ended in sand. It was too risky to drive further in to the sand dune and might get the cars stuck in sand. We carried our gears and walked about 500 meters on a wide open area of sand to the sand dune.

The weather was perfect. No clouds with little breeze, and the sky was absolutely beautiful, filled with stars. We used an IOS app to track the position of the Milky Way. We could see partial of it with naked eyes.

It was 11:00pm, one hour to Raya. The Milky Way was at the south-eastern direction. We setup our gears facing south which was the direction of the Strait of Malacca.

There were three light sources which somehow would pollute our exposure. One from the east, which was a berthing Star Cruise on the Strait of Malacca, and one from the from the west which might be the oil refinery at Tangga Batu’s beach, and lastly the spotlights and street lights from the north which was the Dataran 1 Malaysia ground. Three sources were far from us however could still make impact to the shots.

Our main objective was to capture the Milky Way with sand dune in our composition. As for myself, I was shooting using a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II lens. 16mm was the widest range I could get into.

On the first 2 hours of our shooting, it was difficult to capture both Milky Way and sand dune even with 16mm focal length as the Milky Way was high up from the horizon, at about 70 degree. And the spotlights from the Dataran 1 Malaysia ground was annoying even they were kilometers away.

Patiently we tried and tried, from different angles and various camera settings, yet we couldn’t get any ideal shots.

At about 1:00am, the game was changing. The spotlights were switched off. The Milky Way ‘moved’ too, from south-eastern to the south and closer to the horizon, at about 45 degree.

Milky Way and sand dune were in our frame. We continued to capture with long exposure. At last, Milky Way was clearly observable in our camera’s playback. We got it.

It was exciting for everyone of the group especially on this very first attempt. We had fun with shooting the Milky Way, and did some lighting-painting group photo as memory.

There are still lots of things to learn of shooting the stars. Setting up few challenges in the future, I started to follow some stars everyday and read more about landscape and cityscape photography always.

Below is one success shot of mine captured on that Raya’s morning 1:30am. Specially dedicated to all parents of the world!

May all bEE happy. πŸ™‚

Milky Way shot at the beach of Klebang in Melaka (Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II, ISO1000, f/3.5, 30sec exposure)

Milky Way shot at the beach of Klebang in Melaka (Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II, ISO1000, f/3.5, 30sec exposure)