Swordie Bloggie

It has been 31 months since my last post on 12th April 2013… minus a few days. Yes, that is a very very long lapse… I don’t even sure if anyone is reading this blog. And worse, I’ve forgotten how to FTP to this site.

Since I’ve forgotten how to FTP, I use another way to upload photos to this site. I’m still figuring out how to do the right way.

Anyway, I won’t write a long entry for now… I just want to share some photos I took during my unofficial visit to Kuala Lumpur on 1 – 4 November.

Onboard AirAsia AK5109 (1st November 2015), approaching KLIA

View from MidValley… sunny and less haze.

Touring alone at KLCC and toying around with Sony Alpha 7 II camera.

Inside KLCC.

KLCC train station.

KL-Central train station.

View from Mid Valley, heavy rain at far away. The rain barely reach Mid Valley, only a few drops hit my hotel window.

KLIA2

Somewhere above South China Sea on board of AirAsia AK5118 (04.50pm) which was delayed coz we have to wait 8 aircrafts in front of us to take off.

Inside AirAsia AK5118 (4th November 2015) before touchdown at KKIA.

Last Sunday, 13 February, four of us… Disney, Malcolm, Stevenson and Me went to Tuaran & Kota Belud. We have been planning for this trip since last month and we supposed to go on 6 February but unfortunately everyone has plan on that day. We also having difficulty choosing a suitable date for this trip coz of the wet season… we need to have clear sky to take the Mount Kinabalu photo… yea, that was our mission, to take the Mount Kinabalu photos.

The rainy season for almost 3 months already made it uncertain for us to go… unless we all have waterproof cameras then we don’t have to worry about the heavy rain… but still, the mountain will not be visible or clear when it rain and when clouds surround the mountain. But luck was with us on last Sunday… although it was raining the whole day on Saturday, I was surprised to see the sky so clear on Saturday night… I can see thousands of stars on the sky… no clouds… wow… 😀

I woke up around 4.15am and immediately went to prepare for breakfast… all I have to do was make a cup of tea and put the hams and sausages into to microwave oven… I have fried the hams and sausages the night before… I packed the rest of the sausages to bring along for the trip. Disney picked me up around 5.15am and met the rest at KK. We stopped at Mc Donald, Jalan Sulaman to pack breakfast coz the others have not take their heavy breakfast… I bought a cup of tea which I did not drink… but I drank it on our way home around 1.30pm.

The trip was wonderful… the sky was a bit cloudy but it was actually very hot and I received sunburned on my neck. And it was for me to test my new Canon 7D which I just received on Friday after waiting for it for almost a week 😀 That camera is damm good… my old Canon 400D and 40D looks like dinosaur… 😆 All together we stop like five times at five different places to capture the mountain… the sunrise and the clouds surrounding the mountain is very challenging.

Along the trip, we stop at one hanging bridge and saw a family bathing and washing their cloths at the river… we took the opportunity to capture their life. It was great… I feel like going back there next time and do different way to capture their life… Then we stop at Kota Belud Tamu… this is my first time here… and it also a wow… then we had our lunch at the Kota Belud Pasar Tani… the food is damm bloody tasty… and I even got a shocked when we paid for the food… for four of us, the food is just RM16… that RM4 each… In KK it will cost us more than RM25… :O

Then on the way back, we saw funny stuffs too… like excavator bathing itself… I was frozen when I saw it… can’t even lift the camera and snap the moment… then saw an almost accident… a Viva suddenly did an acrobatic in front of us by doing 90 degree and luckily manage to recover while overtaking on a bend… on a bridge… 😛 Then lastly we saw a lion dance show at Mengatal Town…

Today is Saturday, tomorrow is Sunday 23 January 2010… and tomorrow morning we are planning to go out early in the morning around 3.00 am for photography session at Kota Kinabalu Central market… we want to capture the life of people starting their business early in the morning… yes, starting and not ending or retiring from the night work.

Sometimes I don’t sleep till pass 3.00 am… but waking up at 3.00 am was never… as far as I can remember… will this mean I have to stay awake all the time?… that will make me feel walking on air!!! Yea, when I don’t get enough sleep, I will feel like walking on air… so what is my option tonight?… should I rent a motorhome? But wait, we don’t have motorhomes here… how nice if I can get a motorhome…. can park at the central market, sleep inside the motorhome and jump out from it anytime!!!

Oh, well… my option now is to sleep early… probably by 9.00 pm tonight in my bedroom… 😛 I hope my can get sleep that early…

Supposed to do gym tonight… but unfortunately it was blackout at City Mall. I arrived there around 7.10pm… only certain parts of the mall are lit up. I ask one of the shop keepers how long the blackout has been… he said quite sometime… 😛

The gym is totally out… there is no single light I can see inside the gym… on the 1st and 2nd floor of the mall. So, I called Disney… who is also coming to the gym… he was still on his way. I told him about the blackout… then we decide to abandon the gym… and decided to go for night photography instead…

Since I did not bring my camera, I have to go back home… same with him. Going back is another hard part… there was a massive traffic jam at the main road outside the mall… and I was stuck there about half hour before manage to make a U-turn.

For the photography, we went to Kota Kinabalu’s Central Market… around it, there are many stalls selling foods… its quite lively… so we spend quite a long time there… and I was sweating and damm tired walking around… but well, since we did not go for gym, this is good way to do quick weight loss… 😀

After that, we proceeded to KDCA to take photos of the dragon lanterns… and it was so tiring… worse than doing exercise at the gym… I have to use every part of my muscle to stretch out to have a good view of the dragons… 😛

Yesterday, Saturday… 3rd October 2009, I help my friend to take photos for their paint ball game at Karambunai Lagoon Park… the lagoon is part of the Karambunai Resort. The park has many extensive sport and recreational activities… kayaking, water skiing, mangrove cruise and many more… will talk about that next time 😀

This is my second time covering a paint ball game… the first one was in April for the same friend for their woodsball game at KKIP.

Last time it was held in an open space area… a site for constructing building. This time it is held in woods next to the sea… at the lagoon 😀

It is quite difficult to take photos in the woods… especially when the players are dashing behind the woods… my camera can’t lock its focus on the player…

I reach the park a couple of minutes before 10am as promised since I have to replace my 3 years old back tires before that…

The first game started before 10.30 am with a cloudy weather… but still I got a bad sunburn on my neck and both hands 😛

The second game started before 11.50 am with a bit of cloud…

And the third game started before 1.00 pm with rain… I did not enter the arena coz I don’t have rain protection for my camera.

And the third game ended in less than 20 minutes because the players’ goggles are forging… if you never wear a paint ball mask with goggles before, let me tell you how it feels… it is hard to breath underneath it… and with the cold rain, it make the goggle fogging badly inside…

And luckily I have a ponco… a thin plastic rain coat… it was given to me by Disney when we were covering the Borneo Downhill Challenge 2009 in May.

You can either swim in the lagoon or use the shower area to clean yourself… but the shower area was quite a distance from the arena… fresh water supply?… yes they do have… in fact they have many pipes without faucets around the park… it would be nice if they have it working so that guest can clean themselves without taking a long journey to the shower area.

Anyway here are some of the photos I took… will post the full album later… after I finish editing them… 😀

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Last Saturday, 9 May 2009, went to Jesselton Point jetty to take photos with a friend, Willy. Nothing much to do there I guess. We were there from around 10 to 12 I think… lucky it was not that hot that day, probably still consider morning… but it was quite hot in the late afternoon.

The plan was to test my new lens… Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. Formerly I was using my friend’s Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS. For now, I don’t feel much different other than the extra 50mm and the USM. But it’s cool to hold the lens… feels more solid and big.

Then on Sunday, after sending off my sister to the KK airport, I took my nephews to the Tanjung Aru 3rd beach to watch the airplanes landing and taking off. If you are familiar with the airplanes viewing spot, you will be saddened… if you have not been there for sometimes the place has been fenced.

Previously there are some areas where you can park the car near the runways and watch the airplanes. But now, the fence has been moved right next to the road until there are no more places to park cars.

I spotted a photographer… he is an airplanes spotter I guess. He use a tall ladder so that he can snap the airplanes landing and taking off above the fence. I did talk to him and he is an airplanes spotter for BKI… the Kota Kinabalu International Airport… KKIA.
 

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Nothing much to do today except went to hit some balls at Lintas driving range at 9.00 am. Wanted to finish the 200 balls, but it seems impossible. I only manage to hit about 120 balls and headed for some food at the nearby shop… breakfast with noodles and fish 😀

Then do some adjustment to my shutterbomb photo blog. Do you know that the Google custom search is so powerful?… But the only drawback is I can’t make the search box centered… anyone knows how to do it?… I tried to ‘center’ it with the ‘p’ and ‘div’ tag.

And I’ve been neglecting shutterbomb… maybe it is time for me to upload photos there… coz my 250gb mobile drive is half full with photos I taken.

Today, went to attend Digital Photography Talk at Pan Pacific Sutera in conjunction with the Federation Asian of Photography Association (FAPA) convention. It started around 10.30am. The FAPA convention is held at 1Borneo… about 15km from here.

Me and a friend was the first few registering at the Level 1 of Pan Pacific Sutera… we arrived just after 10am… we are the non member of the FAPA convention registering I guess… coz most of them are busy with photography session outside the hotel near the swimming pool.

Then when it started, it is in Chinese… OMG… how lah?… ayoyo… never mind lah… just listen lah…

Lucky, the speaker is talking about how to enhance photos with Photoshop… so can guest what he is doing… ‘agak agak saja lah’… but even his Windows is in Chinese character… odoiiii dogo…

The talk end at around 12pm. Since nothing to do, we decided to have lunch at 1Borneo, where the FAPA thingy and Photo Exhibition held.

After lunch, we walk to the South Atrium of 1Borneo where the photography exhibition is held. The photographs displayed are great… Then I noticed someone familiar… at the corner of the stage. They are doing some photography thingy. I went there and ask if he is Flanagen… aahh… correct lah. Then there is another familiar face… Edgar… I never met them before in real life… only in their blog… 😀 Another ‘famous’ photographer is with them… but forgot lah the name/blog… hope Flanagen and Edgar can enlighten me here… I can add him in my blogroll.

They are doing a ‘noble project’… 999 Portrait Project… to capture 999 portraits to put into Canon magazine… I think lah… you can read at Flanagen’s “We want you for 999 Portrait Project!!” and Edgar’s “999 Portrait in 1 Week Project and We Want YOU!”

But I did not know what they are really doing at that time… although they did ask me to participate… I think I was still ‘pening-pening’ after attending the talk in Chinese. Feel bad did not participate… I only know more about it after reading their blog after I went back… but hopefully I will go there again on Saturday or Sunday… to see the Canon booth… I want to see their gears… hopefully they will showcase their super duper gears… just like what they did in KL… but I doubt it… and hopefully they will be still there doing the noble project… OK, to those of you who want to participate in the 999 Portrait Project, go to 1Borneo… I think they are doing it for 1 week… not sure when it going to end… hope they can tell… 😀

After the fireworks photo session in the previous night, I went back to 1Borneo for the Big Boyz Toys – Beauty & The Beast the next afternoon for car show. The cars are displayed at the LG and G floors.

At the LG floor, they put all the not so cool cars… MPV, mini, sedan etc.

At the G floor, they put all the so called Big Boyz Toys… Z4, Lotus, Lexus, Ferrari etc… Although they called it big boyz toys, I don’t think those cool cars have any PS3 on it like what the Pimp My Ride usually installs. They are all the standard kind of boyz toys… none with ICE.

There wasn’t much car on display too, but good enough for the big boyz toys model photo sessions 😀

They also have photography competition but I’m sure the organizer did not do a proper event plan for the photography competition… nobody knows what to do or how to enter the competition. I approach the MC and ask about it, but he also doesn’t know what’s going on… he asked me to talk to the ‘event manager’… I went to meet the ‘event manager’… he admitted everything are last minute… at the end I did not enter the competition because I only carried my Sony T200 with me although I manage to get some shots at the models 😀

I called my friends and told about it because there will be another session next day, Sunday… And they did go for the event… but I did not coz I was so tired.

I almost cancelled my plan to join the others for the fireworks events at 1Borneo last night. It all because me and my boss went to meet the Director at 5pm. We only came out around 6.15pm! Furthermore, after that I have to send someone to Hungab and another at Kolopis!

I reach home around 7pm and immediately change my office cloths, grab my sling bag and back on the road again… destination 1Borneo, that is about 20km away! And no dinner! In my bag are my big gun, a video cam and the T200. Everything is in tip top condition… fully charged and full of storage. The video cam even has 8GB of memory stick under its hood 😀

Less then 5km from Alam Mesra… our new meeting place which is opposite to 1Borneo… CRAPP!!! Traffic Jam!!!… Clock shows 7.40pm

Lucky the jam was not that long… I manage to meet them at the kedai kopi around 8pm. Ordered my drink and food… fried rice only 😛 Eat quickly then 2 of my friends hop into my car and we went further away so that we can get better view… about 1km – 1.5km away from 1Borneo. We set our gear on the road island… there was not much people there. Only the 3 of us using tripod 😀 Wonder where the other photographers…

The show did not start at 8.30pm… we got ‘insider info’ that it’s going to be delayed to 9pm and it’s going to be shoot from the top of the hotels at 1Borneo… Novotel or Mercure. Exactly at 9.02pm the show started… and I was still posing for photo 😛

The weather was so good… so clear… our position is great… using my 17-85mm lens at its widest setting, I can capture everything… BUT the only unfortunate was ‘what I requested did not come!’… NO WIND!!! It turns out like a nuclear bomb being released at 1Borneo. The show only lasted for 5 minutes… and can’t do much becoz of the smoke! And… please comment how to take fireworks… this is my first time using M on DSLR, and I did learned few things last night. Normally I just use P. I set my shutter speed to 2.5 seconds… I should have set it to 4 or 5 seconds 🙁