Frankly speaking, I’m quite clueless when it comes to penning this entry – should it make it more narrator-like, for example, the one I wrote for my photoshooting trip with Jeremy in my homecountry’s bustling capital, or should I make it a strictly photos-only post? My aunt suggested that I should just post the photos and then direct you guys to where all they are dumped, but I’ve decided to write a little, just so that I won’t overwhelm you with the story and my rather terrible grammar… and my eternal confusion in when to use to, with, of and for.
All of the photos can be found in the complete Flickr set I’ve made for this trip – Genting Highlands June ‘09. You can also view it in the gallery. Only a handful of selected photos will be featured in this post.
Interjection: Fonty Friday
Here’s this week’s dose of good type – who says that monospace fonts are ugly? Raph Levien, the designer behind the monospace typeface Inconsolata draws inspiration from some Japanese gothic fonts, making it more legible at small font sizes.
Told you, monospace fonts don’t have to be ugly to be called monospace.
A short introduction
The photos I’ve taken during the trip are processed differently from my usual photos – I experimented with my new post-processing actions, which is crafted to make photos slightly darker, smoother (thanks to Noise Ninja), has higher contrast and a pseudo-HDR touch to it. Now, read more to view the photos!
Day 1 – Of flowers and water
I arrived at Genting Highlands in the early afternoon of Thursday, in tow were my grandparents, parents and brother. Clear, clean mountain air immediately filled up lungs as we unloaded our luggage to the smiling luggage guy greeting us at the steps in front of the lobby. Mist spilled from the tunnel leading up to the hotel into the waiting area, white puffs of crystalised air we exhaled. Just. Heaven.
I combed the walls of Coffee Bean for empty sockets, heaved a sigh of relief as one awaits to be plugged in. As brother plopped his lazy bum on the seat, I ordered two honey sticks, 50 cents each, to justify our presence. It will be nice if we bought something from them, in a way to say thank you for your wifi connection, I thought.
Later in the day I visited the park alone, equipped with my Konica Minolta f/1.7 50mm lens. This is my first time trying my hands on closeup floral photography using this new baby. It didn’t turn out half bad:
Flowers and bokeh. Yummy!
The bokeh effect was beautiful. I thought that its beauty only shows when you’re photographing lights. Now the myth is debunked – I like how the leaves blurred away gracefully from the flower.
Splashing, splashing water.
One more thing I love about my bokeh lens – it’s huge aperture allows around 2x more light to reach the camera sensor than my 18-70mm kit lens, so it’s definitely a plus when it comes to photographing water. Ember has a few really nice water shots (#1, #2 and #3), some of which are done with his bokeh lens as well – thanks for the pointers, Ember!
False Heather, Cuphea hyssopifolia
False Heather, known by its scientific name Cuphea hyssopifolia, is a flowering shrub native to the Americas. It doesn’t flower as much as those planted in the hot and humid capital, but oh boy, they definitely bloom in the cool, wet highland climate. The tiny flowers are one of my favourite subjects of photography – not too big and overbearing.
Day 2 – Of people, of rides
The fun starts on Friday – I visited the amusement park. Now the management is smarter in finance management and raises the entry ticket price on school holidays. The wristband I wore costed me around 50 bucks, and I’m in to take photos only, not to hop on to any of the rides. But, it’s definitely worth it.
I spent an hour or so exploring the wave-swinger located directly in front of the entrance, and started shooting away.
The smiling dude and... Velma?!
The canopy of the ride starts to spin very slowly at first as it raises the riders to a higher height, before accelerating and then tilting, sending the riders into a screaming frenzy. The guy looked in my general direction and, spotting my camera, flashed a photogenic smile. And to the right was… Velma?! I laughed a little when I realize the resemblance when handpicking the photos.
Up and away
Riders fly above spectators standing outside the perimeter of the ride, designed such that the riders’ legs will not hit anyone of them. Since the canopy of the ride tilts, it is not every time that the riders hover close enough above the spectators that they get into the frame.
Koi feeding
A pond full of koi at the bottom of the huge waterfall eagerly awaits for visitors to feed them with overpriced fish food sold from a nearby stall. As long as they enjoy feeding the koi, I guess their parents don’t mind forking out a few bucks.
Entertainers smiling for the camera
This shot took a little more courage than usual. I spotted them somewhere near the waterfall (the place where the kids fed the koi) but didn’t have enough courage to ask them to pose of a photo. I trailed them all the way to the other end of the amusement park and they greeted and visited the stalls of other park employees, and even chatted with some of the ride operators.
Go Karts
The inspiration of taking this photo came from the tilt-shift photography post Grace wrote some time ago. I love the angle of her photo of the Go Karts, so I visited the bridge above the tracks and took a similar shot.
Turbo Drop
Initially it operated in the same manner as Space Shot, which uses compressed air to rapidly propel riders up the tower then gently lower them with a series of air-cushioned bounces back to the loading platform. After a fatal accident (the management bribed people to shut them up), the ride mode was switched to that of a Turbo Drop – compressed air is used to lift the car to the top of the tower, at an approximate and average speed of 12 miles per hour. The car is held for multiple seconds, before it is released, dropping almost to the ground. The mist cleared for a brief moment, so grabbed my camera and took this shot when I was queuing for this ride. Yeap, this is the only ride I took in the amusement park during my whole visit, but I rode it 8 times!
Dangling by a thread, and in 10 seconds...
… they will freefall towards the ground from a height of 185 feet. The falling feeling is scary, but exciting – you’ll find yourself floating a few inches off your seat because of the negative G.
Corkscrew and Go Karts
It’s turning dark. The lights went up, while the sky is still a little brighter than usual (because it’s a highland, the sun sets a wee bit later). Corkscrew, which is unfortunately closed for maintenance that day, looms above the tracks.
The glowing flying machine
When the sky turned dark, the real beauty of the wave-swinger emerged. Hundreds of lightbulbs mounted to the plates on the ride sparkle in the darkness, spinning at the same dizzying speed as the riders were rotated.
The glowing flying machine, bokeh-ed
A bokeh shot of the canopy of the wave-swinger. The lightbulbs add this amazing touch to the photo :) bokeh FTW!
Shell Lamp
The shell lamp sits lonely in the hotel lobby when darkness falls. I can hear a pin drop.
Down the hotel corridor
I lived in room 12126. Anyone wants that room? It’s huge, has a sofa, one extra wardrobe, gigantic working desk and costs just $30 more than the other rooms down the hallway. Teehee!
So that wraps up my trip!
WOW, great photos.. me loving the flower and bokeh so so muchh!
If the lighting for the last photo was a wee bit darker, it would look like a scene in a horror movie :P
Beautiful photos! I want to go to Genting too :( I was supposed to go there a few years back, but then our family vacation was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. Ah well, I’ll make it a point to go there when I grow up :P
Ahha, I did a little photoshopping job – perhaps this is the scene you’re looking for?
I’m so sorry to hear about the cancelled trip. After returning from a recent roadtrip where my aunt, her friend, my brother and I lived in different backpackers’ lodging night after night, my definition of a true vacation changed. Now, I would love to trade my Genting Highland trips to visit other small shanty towns in Malaysia :) I love the rustic feel of it.
Yep, this was the effect I was looking for lol.
Ooh maybe you should come and visit Brunei someday :D Brunei has a lot to offer, even though it isn’t that well known, but our rainforest is the bomb ;)
Ah, now the image inspired me of making a video (not plausible for the moment being) of a dolly zoom of the same scene. I love dolly zooms! Here’s a video of examples – pretty apt for a long corridor like this!
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I wish I can visit Brunei someday! It must be a lovely place ;)
LOL, that’s what I also think about the hotel corridor. If you add one figure of a woman with long hair and white dress at the end of that corridor I would shriek and close this page right away. XD
Btw, nice pics teddy! I need to try that Turbo Drop to release the stress. Haha..
Ah! I can actually make it into an animated gif where a ghost lady suddenly appears and enlarges until she covers the entire image (of course, in a few milliseconds). Like the many other shock animated gifs online, teehee!
Turbo Drop makes you scream so much I bet it’s a good stress zapper ;) you okay there?
Wow, I love all the photos that you’ve taken (: Especially the water splashing one and the koi feeding!
The others (Genting Highland’s) are just like the ones I saw in the advertisements (: Great photos!
Oh my goodness, is the bokeh effect not BEAUTIFUL for flowers, though? It’s one of the things that totally endeared me to my prime lens (aside from the fact that if you’re good in manual, you can flip the prime lens around, mount it backwards, and you have a fully functional macro lens too).
I never though the bokeh effect worked so darn well for foliage as well! I thought it’s only fit for lights. Looks like I’m wrong, teehee!
I didn’t know that one can mount the lens backwards! My prime lens can only be attached in one orientation though. Care to explain more about the backward mounting? It sounds very interesting to me, heh.
Woah, you got some pretty cool pictures there.
nice edit man! those are great shot, and with a touch in it, you make it feel better. and the first pic, was the bokeh originally from lens? it looks nice!
Yeap, the bokeh effect in the first pic is as shot. I didn’t have to photoshop for depth because my prime lens did everything for me :)
Thanks for the compliments! Will be commenting on your roadtrip asap, I promise!
eeeeeeeeeeeee that flower shot! omg!
i like how the sharpest part of the pic still isnt that sharp, it has a soft feeling to the whole photo =)
argh ur genting shots. u make me wanna take a cable car up there now!
but anyway nice one! if only there were other rides too!
Thanks! Looks like the first photo is a rather hot favourite eh? :D One thing I really adore of my prime lens is that it can isolate the subject from the background, and creates an amazing sense of depth as well.
Now I no longer crave to visit Genting anymore, besides the cooling weather that is! Now I prefer Cameron Highlands because it has cheap backpackers hotel where I can live for a longer time without worrying about punching a big hole in my wallet. And it’s 400x bigger than Genting, teehee!
The Genting amusement park is getting boring by the year. Nothing new, except for new attractions that require you to pay and other money-cheating stuff (like the game stalls). LOL.
Those photos are absolutely amazing! You’re extremely talented.
Just want to let you know how much I enjoy looking at your shots. The splashing water one really jumped out at me. Cheers!
nice photos! I like how you write this entry too :)
I wonder if you take any tilt-shift photo theme, I’d love to see it xD That “corkscrews & go kart” can be turned into tilt-shift right? :p
Yay, your page is back up! :)
I thoroughly enjoyed this post! What a wonderful time you must have had — I can’t believe you didn’t ride more rides though! What is the matter with you!? :P Most of the attractions you shared is the same we have here! The swing-thing is soo much fun. And the ride that drops you from a very high tower is thrilling! I am glad to know you at least rode that one. :D If you put a penny on your lap, you will see it floating as your dropping. I must have road it a dozen times when I was @ the theme park in New Orleans.
I do love theme parks though! Especially at night with all the lights and excitement. Your photos were just beautiful. Have you ever thought about selling them? Seriously, some of your work would look so lovely on someone’s wall. Like the first one for example — gorgeous!
Hah, I can’t believe you actually got the picture of the entertainers. I would have been nervous to ask too, lol. But very cool you got it — it makes for one hell of a colorful and fun photo.
As for the last photo and all the effects you guys were talking about — eek! Those animated gifs are so creepy. I will never forget the first one I saw years ago — was terrifying, lol. A freaking witch-like-lady jumped out at the screen, eep! Not fun. :P Glad you stuck with the lighted one, hehe. Very cool photo though.
The dolly zooms though, so cool! I love that effect.
Wonderful post, Teddy. Thanks for sharing! Now I’m off to your flickr account to see more. :)
Have a wonderful week!
Yea, thank goodness the transfer was without a glitch. Actually I had a little problem transferring the domain – to my horror the registration of the domain was done on behalf of me by my previous host, and the credentials in the domain details were all not mine. Finally got it sorted out. Yay!
Haha, you said my parents’ line! They don’t understand why would a fun-loving teenager like me purchase a ticket to get his ass into the amusement park just to take photos and not to ride any rides. Well, at least I justified the ticket price with a few rides, but all my energy was devoted to photography :) The truth is that my parents had been brigning me to the same highland resort since I was an infant, and I’ve been to the amusement park countless times, so I kind of got bored with the rides already.
Yea, same here. Amusement parks look so beautiful at night – too bad the one I went wasn’t particularly concerned about their nighttime appeal (most kids will be to worn out to go at night already), so it looks pretty much normal. I’ve seen those really lovely amusement parks in the US – very lovely! I’m kind of envious that you live in such an amazing, colourful and diverse nation.
I have animated gifs that scare people! After being tricked a few times, I’m gronw use to avoid dark animated gifs at all cost, heh. I remembered screaming in the library *gasp* because my friend showed me one, which instructed me to stare at it for 20 seconds to see an ‘illusion’. Yea, right.
Have a great weekend, Trina!
@Scott: Thank you!
@Stanley: Thanks for the compliments. Ah, for that photo, I’ll have to thank my lens’ huge aperture. It helped to freeze the water droplets when they’re mid-air.
@Angels: Glad that you like it, teehee. Not every single photo is suitable for the fake tilt-shift effect though – preferably those that are shot from a higher ground, but it’s exactly the kind of photos that I’m currently lacking.
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