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