But our journey were cut short, or rather, unsuccessful where we had to make a U-turn back to Kuching City due to bad weather, and as darkness closed in, we dare not venture into the unfamiliar territory. There are no lights nor residence for as long as the eyes could see and the terrain is rough. Wrong timing for a trip like this.

But despite not reaching our destination, we’ve came back with a few satisfying shots for our HDR project. The subject this time, The River and the Ferry. (Click for larger view)

The water was green and cold, and there’s a mixture of different rubber texture in the tyres.

The rusty objects were perfect subjects for a photography project of this category, where HDR imaging brings out the sharp details of rusted iron.

Surreal cold seawater, rubbery tyres, iron rusts, dark, haunting clouds over the lush green forests. This is the full package.

We were back in Kuching and we had several good shots at Kuching Waterfront, and this is just one of them.

The new State Parliament Assembly Hall over the Kuching river. I personally love the blue sky and the golden colored roofing of the structure. Magnificent piece of architecture I would say.

Stay tuned for more HDR series from us!

In 2001, Wah Tat Bank merged with Hong Leong Bank to form the Hong Leong Bank Berhad that you see today.

The now defunct Sibu Wah Tat Bank building. Shot taken from the Sibu Tua Pek Kong temple’s pagoda. Click for larger view.

Let’s start off with some of our virgin works of HDR photos.

Sibu Old Town. The building with a green oval-shaped roof is the Sibu’s Hawker Centre, the biggest of its kind in Sarawak (or Malaysia?). Most of the shops here were built around the 1950s, surviving the World war II. Taken from the Sibu Tua Pek Kong temple’s pagoda.

Sanyan Tower and RH Hotel. High temperature HDR.

Another one in Low temperature.

Our favorite shot. The Sibu Tua Pek Kong Temple.

Can someone give me the name of this God?

Some shots from Bintulu

We were on our way back to Sibu from Miri. Stopped by Bintulu to take some photos. This is Bintulu’s Tanjung Batu Beach.

Bintulu’s Seaview Apartment. A property by Shin Yang Group.

Some Infrared Photos

Sanyan Tower in Infrared photography.

Sibu Town Square memorial monument with two isolated trees.

This is our first attempt at HDR photography. We’ve seen much better pictures elsewhere and hoping we could improve by experiments. Until next time, I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos!

Put your dull, colorless photos into Photoshop and turn them into something that will make your friends ask, “Hey, when did you get a DSLR?”

I took this photo (below) of Cafe Cafe in Sibu a while back. I thought it lacks vibrancy in its color. For sure, without the comparison, most of us amateur photographer would be satisfied with the first picture. I’ll be showing LAB Color mode technique to add vibrancy to your photo. This technique works great on photos with rich color elements.

Before and After – The power of a little adjustment on the Lab color mode.

This will be the original photo we’ll be working. The photo was taken during our last trip to Bangkok from an overhead bridge over the busy streets of Bangkok.

The photo is perfect for this type of technique as it’s filled with rich color variations in its fruits.

First I’m gonna duplicate the original layer and work on the duplicated layer. It’ll be called “Background copy”.

Go to Image > Mode > Lab Color. It’ll turn the color mode of the duplicated layer to Lab mode. Photoshop will prompt you to Flatten the images.

Choose “Don’t Flatten”. You’ll be needing the original layer so you can blend the editted layer into it.

Next, go to Image > Adjustment > Curves

Channel: Lightness. You can leave this as is, or you can adjust your picture to get better lighting.

Choose a from the Channel drop-down list. Move the top and bottom point of the graph so you get something like above. Note that you’ll need to move the same amount of column for the top and bottom point. If you move 2 columns on the top point, do the same on the bottom point.

Repeat the same step to Channel: b.

Now, right click on the “Background copy” and select Blending Option.

Select “Overlay” as the Blend mode and opacity. You can play around with the opacity to get the result you desired.

Before

After

You’ll end up with a vibrant, colorful photo like this. Now who said the original photo looked okay? Try this today and wow your friends!

Here’s another technique to create a sharp and vivid photo but yet, soft to look at. So I surf around blogs and found this photos which I think suits my intention tonight. With permission, I grabbed the photo of MiriCommunity.net’s Favorite blogger, Miss Goolooloo, and loaded it up in my Photoshop.

This is the original pic. Many would think that the color is good enough already and thus, need no editting. But as always, a little effort can go a long way in making the photo looks more vibrant.

Duplicate the background layer so you get something like this. I renamed it Layer 1 and further work will be done on this layer. Highlight the layer by selecting it.

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, then apply about 20-30 pixels to its radius, make it blur enough so you can’t see the detail of the original photo.

After that, right click on “Layer 1″ in the layer window and select “Blending Option”. You’ll come up with this window where you’ll pick “Overlay” as the Blend mode and set Opacity at around 85%. You can play with the opacity from 0-100% until you get the perfect picture that you desire.

This will be the final picture. Fast and easy way to wow your friends with your photos!

But there’s more, I wanna make the photo look more dreamy. So here goes another round of gaussian blurring.

I duplicated the original photo at the “Background” layer. It’ll be automatically named “Background Copy”. We’ll be working on the duplicated layer.

Repeat the Gaussian blur step with the same value. Then repeat the Blending option step with Overlay as Blend mode and Opacity at around 80% depending on your desired dreaminess.

This is what I get after the blend. Dreamy and lovely!

Hope you guys have enjoyed the tutorial and make use of it in your next blog post! Stay tuned for more! Alright, time to go to bed. Good night bb!

But in this part of the world, people are busy clearing water out of their living rooms and building blockades to prevent flood water from spilling into their premises.

Welcome to Sibu, folks!

Well, this might not be the Great Flood of Sibu, where the town had seen worse floods in the 80’s and another one around 1999. But I’m documenting this as a reference point for more, inevitable, future floods, be it greater or not.

This is one of the worst hit areas in Sibu town. The Merlin region. Even if it’s not the flood season, heavy, overnight downpour would also turn this area into virtually a lake. Residence in this area had, over the years, got used to this customary flood season. It comes every year during the Christmas, and then the Chinese New Year.

Belian is a species of valuable timber valued at about RM4000/ton. FYI, most of Sibu’s road are named after timber species for it’s the main economy driver of the town. But as lavish as the road’s name, it’s always flood-prone.

This road, like many in Sibu, is dangerously designed and built with no proper barrier from the drain. The drain is wide and deep enough to be called a stream. This is a 4-way junction where cars, motorbikes, and cyclists goes vice versa everyday. The road is so narrow that if two 4×4 pick-ups is going head-to-head directions, they have to slow down and make sure they do not scratch each other, while at the same time, watch their distance from the longkang (drain).

You won’t see the road, it’s straight down the longkang from the passenger’s side. Sometimes, if you met an oncoming vehicle driven by a beginner, they will tend to lean towards your lane. It doesn’t matter if they crash into you or not, as long as they don’t end up in the longkang, it’s fine. End up, the one who avoided the beginner’s car, crashed into the longkang. Shit like this happens here.

JKR: “Who said we didn’t put barriers?”

They use Belian square logs as a barrier to the drain. How effective is it preventing vehicles from going into the drain? For more information, please call JKR Sibu. Try driving through that road at night, where the road lacks proper illumination. If you’re not a Siburian, I suggest you don’t try this. Worse case…

You can park your Caldina by the roadside and walk. Because you won’t want the Caldina to end up in the drain, or get the engine wet in the floods. Please stay dry.

Football field-sized swimming pool. In the past, kids used to like the floods as they can come out and swim in the drain. Nowadays, they stay in front of the PC reading blogs like this.

The Sibu town was founded and built on a swampy land. Most of the land in Sibu are still sinking, where the lucky houses get away with sinking a couple of inches in a decade, while the unlucky ones, ends up with almost half of their house in the drain.

Many houses in this area were abandoned. They were deemed to be in critical condition and unsafe to reside.

While for some of them who can’t afford a new house, lives on in those critical houses. Not without fear, as described by one of the resident. “We sleep in fear, but as time passed, we’re immune to the situation”. Who knows how long will the premise hold?

Yet another abandoned house. When night falls, this area looks more like a haunted town than a neighborhood.

Took a step wrong and you could end up in the drain. It makes no difference anymore now, the road is the drain, the drain is the road.

Motorcycles are parked on higher grounds to prevent them from being damaged by the flood. A black dog guards over them.

Someone should take responsibility for this. The timber tycoons, the local authority, the government, whoever promised a few days ago, that there will be no floods. The mass deforestation had worsen the soil erosion and gradual soil filling causes the river bed to rise. With the constant sinking ground of Sibu and the rising water level…

50 years later, your kids might be riding on boats to schools. No kidding.

Taken in the Siam Paragon’s 6-star Cineplex. I call it “The Paragon Cineplex Triplets”.

There was initially 2 small guys sitting on each side of the 3 chairs. Moments later, a big guy talking on the phone approached and occupied the chair in between and started spinning around. I had to wait for the perfect moment to capture them all aligned in one direction.

Air stewardess busy selling foods and merchandises.

Color spectrum.

The famous Pak Nasir’s nasi lemak. Tasted so-so.

Man talk. Frame of an eye-glass.

It says on the wing, “Do Not Walk Outside This Area”. Yeah, we know, but we can’t even get outside when the plane is flying! How do you expect us to walk that area?

Pssst…It’s meant for the engineers lah!

Tip of the Wing through the window. Eye-catching red.

The full-span Wing.

Date: March 21, 2008.
Time: 7:02pm.