Felt like a time traveller when I step into this ancient temple in Malacca. Built in 1637, the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple is the oldest functioning Chinese temple in the country.
I like how disarray on the candle stand disrupt an otherwise very ordered and sombre atmosphere.
Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f4, 1/640 sec.
The Nine Emperor Gods Festival culminates tonight with a fire-walking ritual to send off the gods (and the rain). Devotees will walk on a bed of hot burning charcoal (embers) in what they believe is a supernatural feat of faith. There is science behind it and the science is sometimes integrated into modern corporate team-building exercises.
There is a little science to apply in photographing the event, too. In this picture from a previous ceremony, I used a slow shutter combined with 2nd curtain flash sync. Because of smoke and range, the flash could only reach the foreground walkers as soft fill light. Slight motion blur of distant background added the element of urgency. Whoever slows down, gets burnt.
To photograph the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, you really need to spend at least half a day there. Go in the afternoon, stay there until night. Twilight hour is magical when sunlight and artificial light mix. Add rain to it and you have plenty of unique photo opportunities such as this puddle of rainwater on a table.
This is the 9th post of the 9-day Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2012. Thank you for the 900 odd likes on Instagram. Hope you enjoyed the series and found some of the photography tips useful.
Back to regular eclectic programming after this.
