Tag Archives: johor

Wichita Lineman

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A long telephone line connected by poles that lean in different directions. Alongside, is an undulating road with pools of water that turned out to be mirages. Wichita Lineman was playing on the radio and I felt like a storm chaser in rural Kansas. But I was driving from Jelebu to Segamat via the lonesome Keratong Road that tarverses three states.

At 7pm, there was blazing sunset on one side and blistering rain on the other. It was the golden hour, nevertheless. I stopped by the side, set the camera on the ground and used a 5-second exposure to turn the intermittent traffic into molten lava. The drops of water are splashes from the vehicles flying by.

“I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road. Searchin’ in the sun for another overload…”

Wichita Lineman

In The Rainforest, No One Can Hear You Scream

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You can go equipped with heavy-duty winches, knobby tyres and a 500 horsepower engine. The sneering rainforest takes no prisoners. It will swallow your shiny 4wd vehicle into a giant mudhole and spit it out as colourless vomit, if you are lucky.

Sometimes torrential rain, floods or mudslides sweep away the vehicle before one can even grab the camera bag. It has happened before and will happen again. This is the nature of the merciless monsoon and tropical terrain. And it is these risks and challenges that attract international participants from as far as Russia and the USA.

The torturous journey for men, women and vehicles in the annual Rainforest Challenge (RFC) makes tough but interesting photography subjects. I try to follow the gruelling expedition whenever schedule allows. Here’s looking forward to this year’s coverage with the new all-terrain Olympus OM-D 🙂

In The Rainforest, No One Can Hear You Scream

Twilight Zone

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A lone mollusc fisherman trawls the shore north of Cape Leman, Johor. This isolated and pristine beach is sandwiched by the South China Sea and the hostile rainforest.

I was photographing the annual Rainforest Challenge Expedition on a 4wd. Having missed the convoy earlier, I needed to drive another 12 kilometres on the deserted coast to get to the base camp nicknamed Twilight Zone.

Tyre tracks that can serve as additional breadcrumbs to the GPS were washed away or submerged quickly. The vehicle was caught between the rising ocean and the impenetrable mangrove forest. It was a race against tide and nightfall.

As it turned out, the journey was fairly easy compared to the many hardcore participants who came in via the hazardous swamps ahead. More on the next pic…

Cape Leman