Batu Berlayar AMTB Battery - An Urban Exploration

Number 2 Director Tower

Tonight I'm thrilled to share with you on my first urban exploration since 2013. I've always wanted to explore this place but do not know how. So I want to thank my friend (you know who you are if you're reading this) for showing me the way.

Weather was pretty good on that day and we made our way there in the evening while it was still bright for visibility. We checked out each empty dusty cobwebbed store room in which broken wooden shelves and racks were found. We climbed up onto two 4-storey director towers for some scenic views which turned out not very pretty because most of its surrounding perimeter were covered with thick foliage and canopies. The image above clearly shows what I mean.

Number 1 Director Tower

One common sight at an abandoned place is the graffito and no exception for this historical fort. They can be seen on the walls in the Number 1 Emplacement and some can be found in the director towers' interiors. My apology for not able to show you any image here.

Despite of its environmental condition, no words can describe how much I enjoyed exploring this place and I was overwhelmed so much so that I only took these 2 photographs during the entire evening. I was trying to find vantage spots for some good nocturnal photography.

As the sun set and darkness set in, we quickly settled down and set up our tripods and cameras, and off we went to create some interesting and fun night photographs.

Coming at this point, I will leave you to your imaginations. So until then in the next blog, I will post those night photographs I made. If you like my work and want to keep updated, do subscribe to my blogs. For more historical details of this Fort Berlayar, click here.

I thank you for your time to read and view my work here.
Good night and lights off!

A Night at Little Guilin

For the past 3 weeks, air condition in Singapore wasn't good as the smoky haze came back to haunt us. The main cause of this hazard was caused by illegal forest burnings in Sumatra, Indonesia. With average PSI (Pollutant Standard Index) level range from 130-200, it's considered unhealthy for any outdoor activities which I suppose any form of photography activities is included. Not if I'm wearing a good protective face mask.

Prior to the haze attack, I've planned to visit Little Guilin, located at Bukit Gombak, west side of Singapore. So I'd like to take advantage of this hazy condition to create some interesting and moody night photographs. While making night photographs in the park, the haze condition started to clear up. Not that I have had expected and so I carried on.

Light Trails with an iPhone

Last night I had the pleasure of making some light trails photos with my iPhone. Of course with a useful app named Slow Shutter Cam. By default most phone cameras are unable to make long exposure photos. After downloaded this app for a week, I wanted to try out some interesting light trails shots and so I went down to Little India for its light decors as the Festival of Light a.k.a. Deepavali, is coming in a month's time.

I want to clarify here that I'm not doing an app review whatsoever but merely to share my experience using this app and of course showing the results.

After a night of shooting, I find this app is very easy to use and it produces pretty good results. It has 3 long exposure capture modes namely Motion Blur, Light Trails and Low Light. For all the photos shown here, all were made in the second capture mode. As you can see for yourself, you can make beautiful light trails photos with this app and it's as good as using your dSLR cameras.

Well as u know, making such long exposures requires you to have a sturdy tripod which is a MUST for night photography, and a Smartphone mounting system. For the latter, I use the simple spring mount which is part of a selfie stick system, to be mounted on a used Giottos ball head. Below images show how the whole set up looks like.

Basically I was able to travel light without the burden of a camera bag, a heavy dSLR camera and lenses. Free and easy! Setting up time is short and fast. Mounting and dismounting the phone camera is so simple and the tripod is quite light-weighed yet sturdy to carry around. I would say if you want some fun and interesting yet light and simple set up, this is the one to go for.

OK here are the rest of the light trails photos I made for your viewing pleasure.

Tutorials on using Slow Shutter Cam app is available here.

All light trails were created on Apple iPhone 6 Plus with Slow Shutter Cam app except the 2 phone camera set up images.

App settings:

Capture Mode set on Light Trail • 1/16 Light Sensitivity • 15 seconds Shutter Speed • 3 seconds Self-timer • Intervalometer off • Picture Resolution at HD1080 • Picture Aspect Ratio - Native • Picture File Format - JPG • Post-processed in Snapseed 2.0 except last image was merged with 2 images in Adobe Photoshop Mix 2.0 and further adjusted in Snapseed 2.0

Hazy Night Photography - An Inspiration

Currently Singapore is experiencing one of the worst air pollutions since 2012. The haze was caused by the illegal forest burnings in Sumatra, Indonesia. During this period of the monsoon, the wind has had carried the smoky haze across Singapore and Malaysia which affects many people's daily lives.

I came upon this night photograph by Mila Plum's on Adore Noir Magazine Facebook page and later on I found it on her 500px website. I thought this night photo is an inspiring work that would motivate me to get out there at night for some awesome night photography. Whilst taking advantages of this hazy condition for night photography, a good protective face mask is a must for health's sake.

Time to pack up for some awesome night shootings.

Night Street Photo - Kinship

Kinship

Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm at 17mm f/5.6 1/60 second ISO 400 • Auto WB Spot metering • Nikon SB-900 on TTL mode with Nikon SC-29 sync cable - Hand held off-camera

Night Street Photo - Curiosity

Curiosity

Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm at 24mm f/5.0 1/60 second ISO 400 • Auto WB Spot metering • Nikon SB-900 on TTL mode with Nikon SC-29 sync cable - Hand held off-camera

Night Street Photo - Shopping Panic

Shopping Panic

Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm at 24mm f/4.0 1/60 second ISO 800 • Auto WB Spot metering • Nikon SB-900 on TTL mode with Nikon SC-29 sync cable - Hand held off-camera

Night Street Photo - Glossy Sari

Glossy Sari

Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm at 26mm f/5.0 1/60 second ISO 400 • Flashlight WB Spot metering • Nikon SB-900 on TTL mode with Nikon SC-29 sync cable - Hand held off-camera

Night Street Photo - All That Bluesy Chat

All That Bluesy Chat

Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm at 24mm f/5.6 1/60 second ISO 800 • Auto WB Spot metering • Nikon SB-900 on TTL mode with Nikon SC-29 sync cable - Hand held off-camera

Singapore SG50 Through The Years - A School Project

In mid May this year, I received a comment on one of my blogs here in regards of the closing ceremony of our former National Stadium. The comment was made by a nice local teacher from Serangoon Secondary School. They were doing this SG50 project in celebration of our 50th Anniversary of Independence as a Nation, where they would produce a booklet that documents the past 50 major events in Singapore.

The teacher was seeking my permission to use 2 of my photographs which I took back in 2007.  Well you can refer to the blog here. Yeah I was quite excited about this project. I told her about licensing my photos and she gladly agreed to my licensing terms and conditions with a reasonable rate.

So after 2 months of preparation, designs and printing, the booklets are completed and ready for their school distribution in prior to our National Day. Today I received a copy. I am really delighted that my photographs are published in their booklets.

Night Street Portrait - Big Grey Beard

I was out in the street last night, armed myself with an old Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm lens. With past shooting experience, my old dSLR camera's limitations couldn't allow me to take quick sharp images due to slow shutter speed. So for this particular night, I brought along a Nikon Speedlight SB-900 and a flash sync cable SC-29, shooting on TTL mode.

I was roaming around in Little India when something caught my attention. I saw this old man with big grey bread and a walking stick, standing outside an eatery house. I thought he would be a good subject to photograph. He stood there for a few moments and I quickly went over and asked him if I could take his pictures. He gladly agreed. I was thrilled and took 3 shots, off-camera flash and this is the best shot.

More night street photography with off-camera flash will be posting here soon. Do subscribe for new updates.