Sri Aman, album

Aaaah, finally, way too late, but here it is, all the photos (35) of the festival in Sri Aman in 2008.

Click here to view the album.

Click here for the index.

And click here for the story on Sri Aman.

Tha Professional

Yes! Finally something went right online.

Took them long enough, almost three weeks and an extra email, but I'm now officially a Canon Professional, hahaha, whatever that means... and I've got a neat little plastic card with my name on it to prove it!

It does mean I won't be standing in line at their counter when I go for the sensor cleaning (although you could say I've been standing in line for 3 weeks), no sir, champagne and caviar, whilst they sweat on my camera, somewhere soon now I hope...

Sri Aman

Sri Aman is a small village in Sarawak (which is a state of Malaysia on Borneo).

Sri Aman is really the embodiment of 'the middle of nowhere' and probably one of the most remote places I’ve ever been to. It reminded me a bit of my own home town. It’s small and there’s nothing to do. No cinema, no clubs, nothing to do for young people besides hang out at the KFC, the one 'foreign' establishment I could detect there.

School and church, temple and mosque... smack in the middle of the state, surrounded by green.

The difference with the place I was born in is that that village is close to a big city. Not Sri Aman. It’s about three hours drive from Kuching, the capital of Sarawak.

Not really an option when you’re in your teens and growing up in Sri Aman.

I was invited to Sri Aman by Erick in February 2008, who’s born there, and he and his family were visiting relatives who still live there. They also went back to Sri Aman to witness and celebrate the last day of the Chinese New Year festivities, 14 days after the start of it - that was the year of the Rat.

Sri Aman is small and remote, but the end of the Chinese new year is not going by unnoticed. There’s a huge festival going on (relatively speaking) and it’s a bit of a strange one. It’s a mix of nature religion, tradition and fancy fair and somewhat hard to describe. The religious aspect is about several gods, who come down on that evening to possess a few selected people. These people are then carried through the streets in the evening in a big parade, stopping at every Chinese shop to ‘bless’ it. For prosperity in the new year and all that.

Now, to an outsider the whole parade seems a bit ridiculous: cute, but not to be taken too seriously. But when you observe it, you quickly notice this isn’t taken lightly. The beliefs are strong and there’s utmost respect for the people being 'possessed' and carried around. This whole process also involves self mutilation and 'torture' devices like seats with spikes, and pins being stuck through flesh. You can see that on some of the pictures I took (although close study of some of the photos do show some 'cheating', I'm not fully sure how far they take this).

And to top it all off there was professional fireworks going on at the end of the ceremony that lasted for so long that it almost became boring. Usually fireworks of that magnitude don’t last for longer than 10 or 15 minutes. This one must have lasted for more than half an hour. Never ever I would have thought that I would experience the longest fireworks I ever saw in such a small place in the middle of Borneo.

Pictures were all shot with my 35mm lens, without flash. I make it somewhat of a point not to use flash in the evening. Besides the fact I hardly know how to use flash properly – flash photography basically is a study in its own - I like the pics better without. Of course the hit rate goes down quickly without flash. The percentage of blurry shots was quite high - it’s impossible to freeze action without flash and with the resulting slow shutter times - but I managed to make a few ok ones nevertheless...

Also quite clear on some of the pictures is that they’re not really used to tourists in Sri Aman. The curious looks I got are also quite visible on some of the pics and espcially kids seem to love to make the V-sign as soon as they spot a camera (much similar to kids in Cambodia, who did the same).

Here's a few photos. Click on them for the full album.

Beijing album V - Summer Palace

Well, the shortest album so far.

I didn't have a good day. I was a bit moody and tired and it shows in the pictures. There's only one really good shot that day, and that wasn't even in the Summer Palace, but at the KFC in Beijing, of all places.

The Summer Palace was just too big. Another really 'hot' tourist spot, with too many people standing in front of everything.

It's like they do it on purpose. You point your lens and poof, there's someone in front of it... At some objects they're even queueing!

Truly, I never fully understood the desire to stand in front of an object and have your picture taken. It has something to do with showing off I suppose 'look, I was there'. But just taking the picture also proves that you were there. You don't need to have your face in it, unless people you show it to won't believe you were the one who actually took the picture? But how likely is that?

This attitude needs to change, I will campaign for it! Photographers of the world unite!

Ok, I'm done campaigning... my sensor isn't cleaned yet, so who cares anyway...

Thus, hardly any good shots, and the few that potentially were, got spoiled by people or strange objects sitting in the way (like support bars for trees etc).

But in the end it was simply me having a bad day...

Click here to view the 10 photos of this album.

For the complete index of all the albums, click here.

About that sunrise...

Well, these are the best I could make of it...

In the meantime the sensor drama continues. I managed to remove the hair. As I suspected it was actually not on the sensor, but sort of hanging in front of it. Standing actually, stuck somewhere at the bottom. I forgot that the picture on the sensor is flipped, so for a while I was looking in the wrong corner.

But during the nerve wrecking process I managed to dirty the sensor itself even more. Less visible on lower apertures, but still not very satisfying. This week probably the Canon Service Center, to have it cleaned by professionals...

I'm awaiting 'professional status' at Canon, which is sort of a perk if you buy at least a camera and one L-lens (which I have). It means they handle you like a business class passenger. Once that status is approved, the whole process of servicing should be swift...

Added to the photographic misery was a drop of the L-lens on the tiles of my apartment. Not from high, it sort of rolled off the camera bag, which was on the floor, and it dropped probably about 10cm. But it made a nasty smack. The lens still works, but there's a weird sound now when you gently shake it, and I don't know if that was there before or not. L-lenses are built to withstand some abuse. There's a story on the Internet of someone who dropped a similar lens from an elephant onto cobble stones, and the lens still worked fine. But as to not suddenly end up with a dead lens on a holiday, I'll include it in the service check... Apparently with 'professional status' they look at that for free...

Welcome to my hobby... :-)

Sunrise over Chempedak Beach...

Click on the photos for a bigger version...