Buntal 24.08.08 – looking at the surrounding landscape

Before everyone dies from portrait overload, should at least put 1 picture of the sunrise which didn’t happen because of the rain, since that was the whole point of the trip originally:

The fishermen were already working away despite the early hour:

Fancy seafood?

Make no mistake though, it’s a hard life for some.

Buntal 24.08.08 – village people

The gloomy weather in actual fact turned out to be a blessing in disguise of sorts for me, because it allowed a rare glimpse into village life on a weekend. What do the kampung men do? Either they sit and smoke:

thinking...

or they gossip in the kopitiam (smoke optional ):

relaxed

The ladies leh….will go hang-kai!

pergi mana makcik?

ah moi, u ambik gambar kah?

housewives are beautiful too

If you’re wondering about the colour, I was messing around with Adobe Lightroom and I somehow ended up with these post-processing colours. A lil addicted to them at the moment so you’ll see them in a few more pictures…

Buntal 24.08.08 – boys will be boys (updated)

According to Dtg, kids ‘love’ me….so it’s only appropriate that this post be all about the village kids. For some strange reason, children just love to cling to me in general. Even though as a rule, I’m not all into them as much as they are into me.

I’ve never really put down in words why I love photographing children so much. I could say all sorts of wonderful things about innocence and sing “we are the world, we are the future”. But in truth, it’s because they are the easiest things to photograph! So when I’m lazy to think of composition and can’t figure out the lines and diagonals around me, I go hunt down some kids. Kekeke…

What the boys from Mick and Alex's shots look like

I love dafa fish!

Whaddaya looking at?

Temptation....

Sorry if these look dark and underexposed on your monitor. I swear they looked super bright on my laptop screen! Last 2 pictures of the children:

wide-eyed

shy siblings

Buntal 24.08.08 – the Boss

The rain finally stopped around mid-morning and as we trudged to the beach at the other end of the village, our gang caught the eye of this bemused uncle. I noticed his expression and stopped to ask if I could take his picture. He happily obliged. The fact that his shop sign appeared in the shot is a complete bonus because I didn’t notice it at the time!

"Wah si Taukay"

Buntal – the Smoker

Under pressure here to upload pictures from last Sunday’s outing with Alex, Cecila, Gerald, Mick, Stephen, Alvin, Methos and good ol Derbs.

Processing is a pain….>_<, so some initial teaser shots for now:

Inhale

Exhale

We were killing time in the village coffee shop over our cups of tea/coffee/milo whilst waiting for the rain to subside. Our table was soon joined by 2 tables of men who came to have their morning gossip/smoke/coffee session. Armed with Derbs’ 55-200mm lens and since there wasn’t much else to do, I started aiming and shooting at them lah (much to the bemusement and slight horror of the rest of the gang I later found out). I took about 20 shots of this guy just to get these exact moments when the smoke is starting to come out of his mouth. Anyways, I don’t think they’re perfect shots because of the blown white stripe in the background. Ideas on how to prevent that in the future, anyone?