A Night at a Fishing Village - Kukup, Malaysia.

Sunrise over Kukup streets

For my second visit to Kukup after 11 years, it was a fruitful one indeed. Of course after all these years, Kukup has changed a lot and more Singaporeans are visiting Kukup for a short getaway trip from our city's hustle and bustle. Guesthouse businesses are getting more competitive than ever before.

Make the jump to view the night photographs I made in a single night...

Well I didn't stay up the whole night but I would love to and perhaps I would leave it for my next visit. I did not expect that there would be abandoned houses in Kukup as most Guesthouse owners have had upgraded or expanded their territory areas so as to cater to more larger group of tourists / guests. What I found out really surprised me. There is this small dilapidated house which I recognize from my first visit a decade ago and it is still there. Here's how it looks like.

I managed to capture this shot, hand-held just for fun. This was taken the next morning, an hour prior to sunrise.

Here's another photograph I made on the first night, with a little light trail of passing by motorbike.

Further inside this fishing village, I discovered this house (shown below) which is quite isolated from the rest, stands alone in this dark corner with a thick swamp vegetation right behind. It seems to be abandoned. Nonetheless I was really thrilled to find this subject for night photography.

I did make a few photographs of it during the day time, just to get to one or two vantage spots with my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 ultra wide angle lens. I went back during sunset and as darkness sat in, I made a few test shots with a Variable ND filter lens on. There is this sodium vapor street lamp right behind camera left which started to illuminate the left side of the wooden house with orangish yellow color cast.

As I was trying out different colors on light-painting the mosquitoes attacked. It was unbearable to stay any longer, so eventually I made a few quick nocturnes and this is the result of merging three photographs into one using Masking technique in Photoshop.

On my next visit to Kukup, I will definitely stay up all night to make as many night photographs of this unique fishing village as I can. Well probably similar photographic serial to Kampung Lorong Buangkok. Until then, I hope you enjoy viewing these nocturnal images as much as I enjoyed making them. Good night!