A Traveller from Oracle

Saturday is always a special day for me but this particular Saturday I just lost my guts to shoot the subject on the street as I used to be. I feel so dry, no push and no motivation. I am really not in a street shooting condition or mood.
Why?
Maybe I am tired and my mind is not creative and my vision of what to shoot just vapourise in thin air.
Maybe the night before I slept late and my body is a bit tired.

But deep within me still want to do the shutter therapy session. That I would say is passion for what I like to do. The push from within oneself.

Early in the morning, I did my morning prayer as normal but added a special petition which goes like this.

"O God, I am too weak today and yet I want to walk the street. Grant me the grace to meet Robin Wong or anyone that will walk with me. In Jesus name, I ask. Amen."

As we drive from Puncak Alam, I make a new plan with a change in shutter therapy route. Today I will cover Petaling Street, Pudu, Jalan Masjid India, Dataran Merdeka and Tugu Negara.
This means I am deverting from my normal route of Jalan TAR and Chow Kit Road.

As I roamed through Jalan Masjid India, I decided to move on to Dataran Merdeka and there by the road I saw a man looking at the signboard for direction.

I greet him with a simple, "Hi. Where do you want to go?"
He reply with "Masjid India!, I want to go to Masjid India."
I explain to him how to go to Masjid India but deep within me said, "Show him!"

Tanjung Sepat: Kelalang Beach

One of the thing that my wife and I like to do is travelling. If we have time we always want to visit new places and meet new people and learn more about that particular place.

During Hari Raya Puasa, we went to Kuala Selangor area namely Pasir Penambang, Kampung Bagan Pasir, Remis Beach and Pantai Jeram.

This time we headed South to Tanjung Sepat, Selangor.

We plan to visit the place of interest namely:
1. Pantai Kelalang/Kelalang Beach
2. Pantai Morib/Morib Beach - old and new
3. Ganofarm - A mushroom farm.
4. Lover Bridge and Passion fruit farm
5. Kwo Zha B Coffee at Lorong 3
6. Pernigaan Pao Hai Yew Hing at Lorong 3
7. Pantai Bagan Lalang/ Bagan Lalang Beach
8. Some nice Seafood Restaurant for dinner

For this trip, I bring along my two lens namely Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 VC and AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G. My Travel Photography gear will be more complete with Super Wide Lens such as Nikon 12-24mm f/4G or Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 (cost range at MYR 3K - 3.6K) or a cheaper Tamron SP 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di-II LD Aspherical (IF). We need this lens to capture the bigger picture to sum up the story of one particular place that we visit.

Our journey was 100% depend on the GPS device to guide us to our desired destination.

Practice makes Perfect

Practice is very important in our daily life when we want to excel in doing something.
Even in our daily work or martial art training, practice in the technique to get the best result is crucial.

Let's say you want to learn a jumping spinning kick which was one of my favorite in my Tae Kwon Do days. Your stance, focus and execution must be perfect or else your kick will not be effective in knocking down your opponent. First you have to master the basic stance and kick....PRACTICE.
Practice until you can execute the kick with perfection and only then you can jump and kick.

The same goes with photography.

First you have to master the crucial camera function and know which button to push in what situation such as when you have to use Aperture Priority and which f/numbers gives you your desired deep of field(DOF).
But not to forget the shutter speed and when to use the Shutter Priority also.
How to do that?
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Keep on shooting, if can do it daily.

Then you may ask, how about photography?
Others may have a different ideas on this but this is what I do.
In Tae Kwon Do, I visualise an opponent while executing my kicks.
In photography, visualise in your mind that you are painting the image that you see on a canvas.
Compose it, frame it and release the shutter.
(This does not mean you do not need the Basic of Photography knowledge, you have to learn that for sure.)

Not good enough? Shoot again until you get it right.
SHOOT and SHOOT and SHOOT.
Practice, Practice, Practice.

You may need to shoot thousand of times to get your desired result. The process of shooting will lead you to be a better shooter and a better communicator.

Where to shoot?
I would say hit the STREET as that is the best classroom with free models, ever changing interesting characters and different scenery.

What to shoot?
Any subject that attract you or a storytelling image or image touch you inside. Street has a lot of those images.

Most important defence: YOUR BIG SMILE. It's difficult to punch a smiling opponent.
That's one of the reason I lost some of my fights in my younger days as I normally bring down my guard when I see a smiling opponent.

Here are some of my shots using AF-S Nikkor 50mm F/1.8G and Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) .

The first two images were taken using Tamron 17-500mm f/2.8 VC in order to captured a wider area.


Movement effect using Slow shutter speed.

Shutter Therapy: How many time per month?

Morning News Headlines

Some may ask, "How times per month should I go for shutter therapy, a phrase normally used by  Robin Wong  or street photography?"

As I am working  during week days, I am only having free time during the weekend if my partner do not have her own plan like shopping or some other event like IT fare, PC fare or MATTA, then I would say that I can go for shutter therapy shooting when I am free.

But that is not the case as my partner and I had made a deal that I can ONLY go to Kuala Lumpur for shutter therapy session twice a month.

How about the time?
Normally I go down to Kuala Lumpur at around 10.00AM via Kelana Jaya LRT Station and arrive at Pasar Seni LRT station around 10.30AM.