Over last weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in an event organized by my firm’s Photography Group (PSIG) together with the Singapore Office’s photography club, Aperture in Malacca. The idea was to have a street photography competition between the two clubs and the winner will get some prizes.
Everyone’s mind was filled with thoughts about eating actually and by the time we arrived in Malacca, it was really true! First order of the day was lunch at Equitorial Hotel and surprisingly the nonya food there was really good. All the dishes were delicious and the only downside was that the egg “cincalok” didn’t have enough “cincalok“.
By the time we were done with lunch, the group headed out to Jonker Walk and started firing away.
Luckily enough there were some events going on at the street itself which gave all participants plenty of things to shoot. I started out with a theme in mind and I wanted to capture the workers at Jonker Street. Trust me, it wasn’t easy to capture all of them and I have to really give it to both Fazli and Johan for being able to go up to people and start shooting them in their faces.
It took me a cup of iced coffee, a cup of iced “mata kuching”, two bottles of mineral water and a bottle of 100plus before I got completely worned out. That was because I decided to walk through Jonker Walk twice to capture what I thought would be interesting.
After that, I decided to take a break along the Malacca River. That was when I truly enjoyed the breeze and also the view of many tourist boats. Whilst I was dangling off a small wooden jetty, directly behind the new Hard Rock Cafe, I took the opportunity to shoot the area.
As the clouds grew darker, it looked like it would rain and I decided to head back towards the hotel. I took the long route back, walking along the Malacca river towards the mouth where it joins with the Straits of Malacca.
After a quick 5 minute walk, I arrived at “Menara Taming Sari” where for the first time in my life, I took a ride up the tower. The view from the top was amazing! Absolutely mind blowing.
From the top of the tower I was able to capture the video above and the image below.
After the short ride, I walked about the main museum area located next to A-Famosa and took the following shots.
Being the blur fella that I am, I thought dinner was nearby the hotel but instead it was located at Jonker Walk. After walking all the way back to the hotel, I then proceeded back towards Jonker Walk during magic hour.
Dinner was at a place called restaurant Kucik if I am not mistaken. It was located at the street parallel to Jonker Walk. The food there was not too bad but I preferred the food during lunch. But I did save my stomach space for some street food which I was drooling over whilst I was walking along Jonker Walk.
After dinner we went about for another walk, to me it was more of an eating walk instead.
After walking through the streets, a bunch of us decided that it was a wrap and headed to Hard Rock Cafe. Over there we realised that chocolate milkshakes together with beer towers as well as the durian puffs I had prior to stopping at Hard Rock do not go well together.
The walk back to the hotel wasn’t easy especially after a long day and after all that consumption. But as part of the competition rules, we needed to choose our best 3 photos, and submit them. I submitted the following images.
The next morning, everyone gathered together to vote our favourite images. It was a simple system but it worked. Everyone rushed to submit their photos and also every tried to access the site to vote due to limited internet connections.
At the end of the day, I am glad to say that I won first place for the image below.
But out of the top 11, Malaysia lost as Singapore got 8 out of the top 11 spots. We tried our best!
We learned that in order to get great images, we needed a tripod and to also wake up at 5.30am in order to catch the sunrise. As for me, it took me a 70-200mm lens to capture the image and also around 20 minutes of waiting about. Initially I wanted to capture this exact scene when I saw an old man with a yellow shirt sitting on the edge of his motorcycle smoking but by the time I was in place, he went off. After attempting to shoot a couple of other subjects, I saw a guy in a pink shirt cycling towards the wall and I just positioned myself there.
Honestly, it has been a very long time since I last went on a photowalk let alone street photography and this definitely was a fun trip that everyone wanted to plan one in Penang next. I definitely can’t wait for that.
To check out more of my photos from the trip, check out my Flickr set below.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markleo/sets/72157641446830064/
