While Fiona was away on her vacation and me needing to take time off away to get away from the norm, I recently purchased a set of Kenko Extension tubes. Well if you’re wondering, extension tubes are meant for the sole purpose of macro photography…the cheaper alternative. Its nothing more than a barrel with no glass in the middle.

So anyway, I took some time off and headed over to Bukit Cahaya, Shah Alam to shoot down some flower/bugs.

Its an entirely different world when you’re shooting macro. Everything that you feel to notice and sometimes take for granted is just so intriguing and sometimes scary when its blown up to this proportion.

Using a cheaper alternative to a macro lens does have its disadvantageous. A few of the many, you can no longer focus to infinity and your auto-focus goes out the window. Everything is done manually from the settings all the way to the focusing. And shooting ants is no easy feat. Luckily I managed to capture this tiny bugger bringing home his lunch…

And then you’ll also see insects you never knew existed like the one below. It had a cotton-like coating on its body and it can also hop around like a grasshopper. I’ve never seen such an insect before… and still don’t know what it is really.

There are also some weird thorny berries…

Some dragonflies…which I didnt quite manage to shoot due to the fact I had a limited focusing distance thanks to the tubes.

And here’s my favorite shot of the outing. It kinda reminds me of life…lots of greens with obstacles and bumps along the way.

I had a fun time on this outing and am seriously considering to get a proper macro lens. Its just a vast tiny world waiting to be explored.

On the last two weekends of July, David & I shot Lavinia & Kuljit’s wedding with an interesting mix of sikh, baba nyonya and indian culture, a true epitomy of Malaysian multiculturalism. Kuljit is Punjabi and Lavinia is mix Chinese-Indian. Their professional background is an interesting one too! They both work in the same company but Kuljit is based in Algeria and Lavinia is based in Norway!

The eve of the wedding started in Segamat with the Mainyanh Ceremony, where the groom followed by the bride is seated underneath a patri, a red cloth held above by four female relatives. Married women of the household, led by the mother, rub paste of tumeric, flour and mustard oil on their faces, arms and legs.

The night proceeded with a number of interesting ceremonies and rituals – Choora is the ritual whereby a set of ivory and red bangles is worn on the bride her maternal uncles. It followed with the Sangeet, an Indian version of the Western bridal shower whereby both sides of the couple come together to enjoy a night of celebration with great food, dancing and singing. And boy, was there dancing!!! The DJs played lively Bhangra music, remixed to techno beats and EVERYONE was dancing! David and I were excited and thrilled by the photo opp!

The evening ended with the Mehndi ceremony whereby intricate henna patterns are drawn on the hands and feet of the bride.

The next morning was the temple wedding ceremony. The Sikh men wore turbans while the women wore scarves over their heads. We were not informed of this so we ended up wearing the temple bandanas!

Click here to see more temple photos!

A Chinese tea ceremony and a dinner reception was held the following weekend for the bride’s side of the family in Melaka. The morning started with the tea ceremony and the ladies looked elegant in their traditional kebayas!

The lunch prepared by Lavinia’s mom and uncle was to die for! The black soy sauce chicken was my favorite! (I haven’t had such good home-cooked food for ages!)

We were pretty lucky that their house was within walking distance to a lovely beach and we decided to take some portraits albeit the searing midday sun. Thanks to our ever-handy reflector, the photos turned out great! (Of course, we had great models to work with!)

Love this candid shot (on right, below) by David!!!

Here’s one of my favorite portrait shots – the sky was beautiful! (Again, I’m not surprised how cooperative the weather always is!)

Click here to see more tea ceremony and portrait photos!

The dinner reception was held at the Equatorial, Melaka, and the couple looked outstanding! Lavinia looked stunning in both the sarees she wore that night accessorized by the intricate jewelry and Kuljit looked stately in his sherwani.

Here’s my favorite shot for the night…

The evening ended with more dancing! (I love their families! They all love to dance!)

I’m starting off my very first blog with my holiday in Hong Kong! I’ve been here for almost two weeks now and have only been able to take photos this week, having submitted my Strategy Organization Learning (SOL) paper for my summer MBA class last Fri.

Allen’s apartment is located right in the heart of central and it’s fantastic as the wet market is 20 steps down from where we live! We’ve been walking around this area since we got here and I’ve been making mental notes as to what I’d like to photograph when I finally have the chance to! (Photos to come later…)

Hong Kong is a lovely hustling and bustling city! The SOHO area is very quaint, with pubs, restaurants and boutiques sprawled throughout the streets. Lan Kwai Fong (LKF) is another interesting area where all the expats hangout and is particularly loud and dirty over the weekends! (You don’t feel like you’re in Asia when you’re at LKF because 7 out of the 10 people you walk by are expats!). Central is central – always busy and crazy hectic during peak hours. In HK, you walk A LOT!

Everything here from accomodation to transport is expensive and it definitely takes some getting used to but the food and shopping is great and I can’t wait to spend more time here!

The weather has been good this week. We experienced our first Typhoon 8 last week (this is the signal the HK Observatory issues which requires everyone to stay home, or if they’re at work, to go home. How awesome!) and it’s been raining quite a bit until these past two days when I brought my camera out. Somehow I’m not surprised how cooperative the weather has been!

On Wed, Gricia (our friend from KL who lives here now) and I went around HK to take photos. Our journey was a lot more pleasant with her around as she could communicate with the locals (and I got less shouting at this time!) We started off at the wet market at central and took the tram to Wan Chai.

This lady was one of the nicer people in the market, considering I was shouted at a number of times and told to bugger off! She happily allowed me to take photos of her store and even posed with her fresh squid!

She was also selling frogs… (I had a phobia they would jump out at me but I took it anyway!)

Here’s another sweet guy (guy on left) – he said it was OK for me to take photos as he repaired a watch…

On our way to take the tram…

On the tram, on our way to Wan Chai…

At the wet market in Wan Chai… the people here are much friendlier!

Photo by Gricia…

Here’s one of my favorite shots…

We’ve been eating a LOT but we’ve been pretty healthy too and have hiked up the peak twice over the past two weekends. The first part of the trail is very steep but once you’re up there, the view is spectacular, overlooking the entire HK island and Kowloon peninsula. I’ve also done yoga 3 times this week! On Thursday, Gricia, Allen and I took a cab up the peak to take photos of the lovely view and then had dinner at the Peak Lookout.

Having some fun with the lights!

To view more photos of Hong Kong, click here!

To view more photos of the Lights & Effects photos, click here!