It Never Rains In Southern Ampang

It never rains In Southern Ampang. It pours, man, it pours… Without fail, it will rain every year, throughout the nine-day Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Ampang. Rain is good for photography. Dark skies, fire, smoke present dramatic subjects for the lens.

When you shoot giant joss sticks, try to include a human figure so that the viewer can get a sense of scale or size. Similarly, see how I included spectators together with the stilt walkers in the previous pic.

Title inspired by one of my favourite Albert Hammond songs.

It Never Rains In Southern Ampang

Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2012

The annual Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Ampang will begin tomorrow. The 9-day festival is steep in Chinese mythology and Taoist rituals, making it a must-visit event for any photography enthusiast. On the eve tonight, devotees, lion-dance troupes and stilt-walkers marched to a nearby river to receive the deities.

Try to avoid firing the flash, if you can. A dose of direct flash will wash out the colours and kill the atmosphere. But then, without flash in dim ambient light, the auto-ISO will shoot up, noise will creep in and there will be slight blur of fast moving objects. But that is OK. The important thing is capturing the dynamism of the scene and the lighting as your eye saw it. Over the next few posts, I’ll share with you other tips on photographing this fascnating event.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 2500, f4, 1/30 sec

The Nine Emperor Gods Have Landed

Jeanne d’Arc Church, Ho Chi Minh City

The St Joan Of Arc Church and Synagogue is located in the Chinatown district of Saigon. Built in 1928, this Ho Chi Minh City landmark is almost always photographed straight-on with a wide-angle lens in travel brochures.

I walked down a bit and waited until these two street vendors arrived. Their Vietnamese conical straw hats provided juxtaposition against the pink Gothic architecture. The Church is known locally as Thánh Nữ Jeanne D’Arc and also Nhà thờ Ngã Sáu.

Jeanne d'Arc Church, Ho Chi Minh City