About a month ago, we headed off to Sydney for the Hillsong Conference. Altogether there were about 20 of us which was pretty cool…unfortunately, we didn’t all travel together (nor did we all stay together). I headed a group of 11, nine of which were gonna fly to and from Brisbane together, while one of them took the flight before and the other came from Singapore! Here’s our group of 9 after we disembarked from the plane:

Okay, that creepy non-Asian white guy in the back is a advert poster…Will isn’t in the shot coz we were on the horizontal escalator where as he wasn’t…of course I was behind the camera…
After countless hours (yes, literally HOURS) or arguing which would be the best transport to get to our accommodation we finally decided on a big shuttle bus which brought us on a 40 minute drive to Parramatta, which is located to the West of Sydney. We happily unpacked our bags and was out the door! We took the train down to the city where we were just in time for dinner before heading toward the Harbour to meet up with Christoph.

Meet Christoph:

Christoph was our housemate back in Toowoomba for a year. He’s currently somewhere between Thailand and Singapore on his holiday before heading back to Germany where he comes from. He moved out by this time and happened to be in Sydney that night so we planned to meet up…being Asians, we had to take a lot of group pics…

How many people can you spot? One of us had relatives in Sydney so he didn’t join us…thats why there’s only 10 ppl. *EDIT* Actually theres less coz I cropped Edna out of the frame…Sorry Edna! I didn’t have my tripod and so I had to improvise…this next shot is heavily cropped so the lamp post I used wouldn’t get in the picture of the Eye of Sydney.

I think its funny how every major city now has an “Eye”…

We walked along the harbour past the Sydney Aquarium and other attractions which were almost closing as it was rather late by this time…We checked the schedule for the ferry and saw that we would be able to make the last one so while we waited for the ferry we walked back to the Sydney Aquarium where they had a nice backlit billboard of Spongebob Squarepants. I noticed it on the way to the ferry and went back for one purpose and one purpose only: to get this shot:

That’s my friend Patrick (which also happens to be from Miri). This picture is titled, “Patrick & Patrick”.

Anyway, we then headed to a place called the Rocks to have some sort of famous pancake. Indeed it was a pancake house franchise which had been sort of springing up all over the place. We went in for dessert. Now, let me make it clear that I do NOT take pictures of the food I eat…its sooooooooooooooooooooo cliche doncha think? …but they insisted so I took a happy snap of my chocolate strawberry pancake…YUM!

Hmm…I’m really sorry but my timeline of the events that occured after this pitstop seems to have screwed itself up in my brain so I can’t remember what we did when we did…All I remember is that along the… (this crossed out paragraph corresponds to the “Patrick & Patrick” picture and the paragraph above it…)

Although I took a bunch of pics after that I’m not going to share anymore simply because I still have a lot to cover…by the way, the current time now is exactly 5.13am. I don’t plan to sleep and I want to finish by dawn-ish so we can go to the Sunday Market before church Who’s “we” you ask? That’s me and Steph…I’m not sleeping tonight because I slept this arvo…what’s “arvo” you ask? its Aussie for “afternoon”. What’s “Aussie”? It’s short for “Australia”. What’s “Australia” you ask? A big island surrounded with water which has a severe water problem. Go figure.

Fast forward through the night and early the next morning…

Yours truly together with his team of intrepid explorers, Patrick and Stephanie, went to pit their strength against the wrath of the mighty Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains is one of Australia’s biggest tourist destination. It is a collection of mountains that expand across the landscape that when looked at appear to be blue in colour. Its blue haze is of a different hue and deeper than anywhere else in the world. This is caused primarily by Eucalyptus trees emitting oil vapour into the atmosphere which along with fine dust particles and droplets of water vapour scatter the blue light (blue light is short wave light) more than any other colour in the spectrum. (That last sentence was taken from the guide book. If you’re interested, look for it on wikipedia.)

Also the home to the Three Sisters, a natural rock formation which is sort of difficult to explain so I’ll show you a picture:

You can see the Blue Mountains in the background. I’ve already warmed up the tones to make the Three Sisters more prominent in the frame of this picture and even so the mountains appear so blue so you can imagine how blue it actually was!

We took the ExplorerBus to Scenic World, home to the steepest railway which has a maximum gradient of 52 degrees!  It feels like its almost 90 degrees!

See how the trees are straight? If I left my bag on the empty seat im front it would’ve ended up right at the front! When we got to the bottom Partrick helped me take a picture of me and Steph and the three sisters…thx Pat!

We continued by foot through the forest to the bottom where we would take one cablecar up to the main platform and another back to the place the bus dropped us. We managed to sneek in a strobist shot while walking through the forest. After a few attempts we got it right…credit to Steph for taking the picture and Patrick for holding the flash:

Heres Steph in the cable car enjoying herself on one of the cablecar rides:

Oh, by the way, this is our ExplorerBus…the hop-on hop-off tour bus we used to get between places…the bus driver was kind enough to let us take a picture before he zoomed off to the next stop:

The driver was very friendly. There are actually two busses but this one seemed to always be the next one up! We walked through the cold forest to Leura Cascades. Its a beautiful stream of water falling all the way to the bottom. Be warned that I LOVE LOVE LOOOOOOOVVVEEE waterfalls. If I see a waterfall I MUST take a picture of it…that means I have to take out my ND filters and spend a good 15 minutes taking the fall from almost every conceivable angle. These are my three favourite shots:

How convenient the series is actually in order of how I shot them and its going from top down so you can actually sort of visualize the waterfall as it slowly cascades down to the bottom where you can see the pool in the last pic…

After this we continued our jungle trek for another hour or so until we finally reached the end and waited for the bus to pick us up. These were the last few shots I took during the day because I was too tired by the time we were out of the forest.

A view from one of the many many lookout points.

Patrick at the bus pick up point to head back to the main town.

The rest of the group actually asked us to go back to the Sydney CBD after our trip to the Blue Mountains but we were just too tired to bother…otherwise we could have met up with Rachel who lives there… By the time we got back to the accommodation (which is 2hr + away from the Blue Mountains) it was about 9pm and I couldn’t wait to sleep!

Fast forward through the night and early the next morning…

Today we had big plans. Places to go, things to see, and stuff to do…unfortunately, we were late.

…sooooooooooooooooo we ended up going to see the Sydney Opera House and then went to some small town for lunch before we did some other things which I can’t remember…crap this is the second time in this post! Well, that doesn’t matter because I only want to share my pics of the Opera House and ask you a question.

This is a rather famous bridge. The Sydney Harbour Bridge. Now for the question. Which of the following two photos do you think is better? They are both the same picture just differently cropped.

Personally, I like the second one. That’s all I got. The day after this was the conference so I’ll get working on it right away! Til then, thanks for reading!

Its when I’m free from obligations that I actually push myself. Why I don’t know. I guess its because when I’m shootin’ for myself, I’m shooting against myself…and myself is very competitive…geddit? Also, I don’t feel confined to do what I know works and works well…instead I do things that others don’t think about…what others don’t see…and most importantly, what others couldn’t be bothered turn a second glance at.

Its when I can look at something simple. Something everyday. Something “normal”. For example, a calculator:

Ok, nothing really special about that…just wanted an excuse to show off the tiny DOF of an f/1.2! Thats right! 50mm f/1.2 right there…at 50cm the DOF is a mere 6mm!!! SHWEEEEET!!! Here are a couple of shots taken at f/1.2…

Notice how sharp the web in focus is? I don’t know why everyone keeps complaining about the f/1.2s?! They’re tack sharp wide open!

Someone founds this little bead on the floor at church so I took a picture of it…(after the service of course…)

Toowoomba’s own shopping mall – Grand Central.

This, my friends, is where the f/1.2 REALLY shines! The picture is taken handheld at 1/60 with nothing more than a dim street lamp!

After that,…well…actually it was before that coz I just recently got the f/1.2…We were testing the shoot through umbrella for strobing…

No comment.

Needless to say this post will contain excessive Steph.

Poor guinea pig Steph has to become my model for all my weird shooting needs…

After some fun indoor portraits we went outside to shoot some more portraits…real strobist stuff! This next picture is definitely my fave of this set! Check them out!

By the way, thie series of outdoor portraits were taken at the University of Southern Queensland’s Japanese Garden…

I also really like this above picture…

Thanks Steph!

Thats about it for today…I also took some pictures of the Brisbane Floating Boardwalk which I’ve already uploaded on Flickr…will post about it tomorrow…I still have a lot of these sort of shots lying aroung the HDD but I needed to get some of it out to make space for next week. If you didn’t know I’m going to the Hillsong Conference in Sydney next week. We’re leaving this Sunday morning so I’ll try to keep the blog updated as the conference is held…Its gonna be LEGENDARY!

]]> http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/07/04/strobing-and-misc/feed/ 6 http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/02/01/mission-trip-to-cambodia/ http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/02/01/mission-trip-to-cambodia/#comments Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:51:38 +0000 Jiaren http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/?p=209 My travel holiday officially started on the 13th December 2008. I’m pretty sure this is the best holiday ever! …and the best part: ITS NOT EVEN OVER YET!!! too bad Steph is in M’sia…would be nice to have her company

Anyway, so my holiday goes like this:

BRISBANE – KUALA LUMPUR (13 Dec ‘08)

KUALA LUMPUR – PHNOM PENH (17 Dec ‘08)

PHNOM PENH – KUALA LUMPUR – SINGAPORE (21 Dec ‘08)

SINGAPORE – LONDON (24 Dec ‘08)

**drove back to Holland: LONDON – FRANCE – BELGIUM – HOLLAND (28 Dec ‘08)

HOLLAND – ABERDEEN via EDINBURGH (27 Jan ‘09)

ABERDEEN – LONDON (04 Feb ‘09)

LONDON – KUALA LUMPUR – MIRI (05 – 06 Feb ‘09)

MIRI – KUALA LUMPUR (18 Feb ‘09)

KUALA LUMPUR – SINGAPORE (dunno…unbought)

SINGAPORE – BRISBANE via DARWIN (19 Feb ‘09)

sort of complicated but you get the idea...

*Phew* thats a heck of an itinerary huh? now you know the backlog of my blog posts, haha…and so, I present the Captain’s Log.

Day 1: 13th December 2008

I am embarking on my journey around the world in 70 days. Weather is calm, flight departure is on time. Stephanie is accompanying me for the first leg of the journey. No events to report.

Day 2: 14th December 2008

Safely arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Retrieved luggage and proceeded through immigration. Upon exiting the terminal, taxi driver with my name is present. Two hours drive to Ipoh to visit my grandmother and relatives, as well as little 1 year, 8 month old Eanne.

Grandma and grand daughter

Fumbly hands ...check.

Pudgy feet ...check.

Girl talk ...check.

Headshot 1

Headshot 2

Head and Shoulder

my failed attempt at hi-key...too lazy to photoshop...

Mother & Daughter (My Auntie Chritz)

Father & Daughter (My Uncle Ming)

...and finish it off with a family portrait.

Day 3: 15th December 2008

Took train back down to Kuala Lumpur. Roamed around the city for a bit. First stop: NANDO’S CHICKEN!!! No events to report.

Day 4: 16th December 2008

Today we were scheduled to meet up five more of the people that would be accompanying us on the mission trip to Cambodia. However, they were only to arrive in the late afternoon. Therefore, Steph and I decided to pay a visit to the Bird Park in Lake Gardens. Unfortunately, on the way there the cab driver convinced us that the butterfly park wouldve been a better place to visit …and so, we went to the butterfly park instead.

taken by Steph at the Butterfly Park, Lake Gardens, Kuala Lumpur.

This is kinda cool...not exactly a butterfly so what is it?

Taken with Sigma 10-20mm @ f/16 + ND8 Cokin P154 (I love wide angles!)

Day 5: 17rd December 2008

Today we venture into the uncharted territories of…*drum roll* …CAMBODIA! *thunder in background*

We were on a mission trip to Phnom Penh where we would be ministering to three small villages as part of an outreach by New Life Fellowship (NLF), the organization which allowed us to come. They have been building the community for a couple of years now. They are basically a church that have provided the community with a place to worship and learn about God. Besides that, they also provide English lessons as well as computer training to the locals which greatly increase their chances of getting a decent job…and they’re VERY good too! Our translators were taught by NLC and are proficient in both English and Cambodian (obviously!)…Not only that but they provide medicine and first aid medical treatment to the locals. SO much so that the government has actually recognized their contribution to society and are actually funding them in some parts as their own hospitals and clinics are inadequate to meet the demand. Seriously, they’re very very good so if you are reading this I urge you to continue to pray for this organization and that Gods hand be upon them.

Upon arrival we were greeted by Pastor Kim and made our way to our accomodation by tuk-tuk.

Very dusty and my nose is very sensitive so I used my hanky to cover my face, hehe...

Townview Hotel, our accomodation for the first 3 nights.

Below is our first dinner. You can see the team from our Mission Trip. The first three on the left is Pastor Kim, an Australian pastor that moved here a couple of years ago. The two beside him are his wife and daughter.

From the Left side of the Table: Pastor Kim, Nicole, ?, Pastor Yew Meng, Seng Yee, Jason, Patrick, Andrix, Edna, Ben, Stephanie, and Auntie Elena.

IF SOMEONE CAN REMIND ME WHAT PASTOR KIMS WIFE’S NAME WAS PLEASE LET ME KNOW YA!

As you can see they've already adapted to the local culture...

Day 6: 18th December 2008

This was an awesome day! We went to a local program thingie where they look after small children including first aid medical attention and washing of their feet. However, the main purpose of the program is to expose these youngsters to Christ and Christianity. We had a blast, we were humbled, we were amazed, we were so blessed that day…and…

…

erm…

…

*sniff*

…

…

*sigh*…

…I…forgot…to…bring…

…my…

…

…CAMERA!

Lousy stupid friggin #%#@%!!!!!!!!!

In my defense, I didn’t actually forget, it was that I woke up late for breakfast so instead of walking back to the hotel and taking my bag I had to go straight to the church from the restaurant…

…at least I managed to get some pictures of what we did at night. I’ll let the pictures tell the story:

We visited this house sort of like a boys hostel which housed quite a lot of them. We were invited for dinner and got to know some of them.

You can see me in my "relentless for Christ" shirt...the guy to my right is Si Hua, the guy I met and got to know a little bit better. Credit to Steph for taking the picture.

After that, we prayed for them and took a nice group photo. (the houses in Cambodia are such that they

Even though we were only there for an hour or so we felt that we had really bonded. However, it was time to bid farewell and it was really quite touching.

Day 7: 19th December 2008

Today we had a day off…a day completely to ourselves. What normal people do on such an occasion is to visit the Angkor Wut…one of the 7 wonders of the world! …but instead we go to a museum of torture and the killing fields where a regime that took place was so cruel and so merciless that their exploits made Hitler look like kindergarden.

Toulsleng Genocide Musuem

Read it. Seriously. Read it.

Pictures too small to see...but basically what they do is hoist the prisoners up by their hands which are tied behind their back. They automatically hang upside down. The torturers interrogate them until they pass out. Then, they are lowered so their head go inside the pots which are filled with some smelly fertilizer thing. This causes them to immediately regain consciousness so the interrogation can continue.

This picture depicts how they kill babies. The first torturer throws the babies in the air. The second holds a rifle up towards the baby. On the tip of the rifle is a knife. The baby falls on the knife which pierces it before the torturer flicks the baby onto the mass pile of bodies of previous babies. Some babies do not immediately die but because of blood loss.

This was just the beginning. There are many more but I’ll stop there. Theres more gruesomeness to come…Next, we paid a visit to the killing fields, where thousands of people were slaughtered to death and left to die in mass graves which are all over the place.

Choeungek Genocidal Center. Credit Will for taking the photo. (I think)

The Killing Tree. Another form of how babies were killed. The executioner would hold the baby by thier feet, swing their head against the tree so that they crack open their skulls, and thrown into a pit (which is just to the right of the tree which I didnt picture).

See those indents in the ground? Each one holds the remains of over 100 bodies.

This monumet was erected to pay respects to the people who were killed during this time. The centre is housed with thousands of human skulls which have been excavated from the killing fields and placed on shelves.

Will decided he should start giving money away...nah, just kidding, but thats what we thought!

The Royal Palace - at least the gate anyway.

After a full day out around the town we went back to Pastor Kims “Healing Home” The healing home concept is hie brainchild where a set of decentralized houses act as a sort of nursing home or clinic where they can take care of the less fortunate and people who cannot afford to stay in private (or public) hospitals. Instead of having a single hospital like building, his plan is to have at least one healing home in ever province and eventually in every town or village. Below is the first healing home. They provide basic ammenities free of charge and at present can accomodate 4-6 people.

This is one of the rooms where patients stay. On the bottom right you can see a door. That leads to the attached toilet.

This is the toilet. Its basic but sufficient.

In case you’re wondering, they don’t simply give medicine to the patients. If the case is severe, they will have the patient examined beforehand by a certified practitioner before following carefully their treatment procedure. They employ certified nurses to administer the treatments.

After that we had dinner at a nice little coffee shop. Our group was so big that we took the entire upstairs area! lol...Credit Ben for taking the picture.

Day 8: 20th December 2008

Today we checked out of Townview Hotel on our quest to the remote parts of the country. We visited a place called Kampong Thom, some 3 hours drive North (I think) of Phnon Penh, the capital city.

On the way there we stopped at a petrol station for a toilet break. This is an interesting petrol station. Scroll down to find out why.

There are four steps to the operation of this technology. It really makes you appreciate what we have.

Step 1: Put the nozzle into the petrol tank of the vehicle.

Step 2: Push the flap so that the petrol flows into the vehicle. This is done by something called gravity.

Step 3: Watch the measurement on the side of the cylinder to see how much petrol was released. This calculates the cost of the petrol.

Step 4: Rotate the lever so petrol pumps up into the cylinder once again and stop when the measurement hits zero “0″.

Simple as that.

When we arrived for lunch beside the hotel which we stayed at we were greeted with the sight on deep fried crickets. Needless to say I tried it. ...can't say it tastes like chicken though!

After our lunch (which did NOT consist of insects) we had a little bit of time to unwind before heading to our first destination in Kampong Thom.

This is the church where the first celebration took place. The house in the background in the church and they erected a stage outside to accommodate enough people.

While they were setting up stage we played volleyball with the local kids! Thanks KEC otherwise I'd be uber crap.

When the celebration began it was already dark.

They had singing...

They had breakdancing...

...and as you can see there was a lot of people!

Finally, it was our turn. We presented 3 songs. Credit to Auntie Elena for taking the picture.

You cant see it from the picture but at the time there were bugs flying all over our heads and it was so difficult to try pretend that it wasn’t bothering us! After we finished our presentation we headed back straight away because it was already late and it wasn’t exactly a “friendly” neighbourhood.

Day 9: 21st December 2008

The very next day we were to visit a small local church. By small and mean REALLY small. Our pastor was set to preach today. Of course there were translators there too.

The wide angle lens literally got the whole church in this shot. Is a small zink hut with a zink roof.

We wore our C2C shirts today. Can anyone guess what it stands for? It says "R U C2C?".

Heres a shot of the congregation from the front.

This is the pastor of the local church.

We also did half the praise and worship. We did actions with our songs and got the congregation to join in as well!

Needless to say we were quite thirsty after that.

After the service we gave all the little children gift bags which had different things ranging from Koala key chains (see pic.) to Australian candy bars!

Group photo of the whole church.

Pastor noticed a motorcycle that belonged to the pastors wife who gave him permission to ride it. According to his wife (on bike) he used to bring her out like this when they were dating...over 20 years ago! Good times!

That night was our third and final appearance as we did the same thing as the first celebration but in a different church. Needless to say I won’t dwell into the details.

This was funny: Steph saw this cure little girl and wanted to take a picture with her. The other kids are like insects who are attracted to the light from the camera flashgun. After I took this shot Ben said he also wanted a picture with her but when the other kids noticed they quickly gathered around to be in the photo as well.

As the other kids crammed into the frame they ended up squishing the little girl (see pic) while Ben was still happily smiling to the camera. ...poor girl.

Later on in order to entertain them Jason thought of leading with the song "Christ is the Vessel" and its actions and the kids followed on...the kids follow everything you do...and so...that gave me and INGENIUS IDEA!

Thanks to Andy I started singing "MAKING MELODIES IN MY HEART"!!! ...and everybody followed! It was awesome!

As you can see once again this christmas celebration did in fact draw a huge audience!

And that was it for our mission trip. We were done. Finitimo. Habis. Kaput. The next day we were to catch our flight back to Kuala Lumpur (and for myself, Ben and Edna, straight on to Singapore).

Day 10: 22nd December 2008

The last day in Cambodia…and what do we do?

SHOPPING! We had a couple hourse to kill before we had to be at the airport.

They sell clothes, souvenirs, bags, ornaments, electronics, etc...

They also sell food and drinks!

To the Cambodians, this is the Russian Market

To the Australians, this is like the Sunday market.

To the Malaysians, this is like Petaling Street.

To the Dutch, this is like Hobbyma.

To the Scots, this is like Primark! haha!

back at the airport and all in one piece! The last group photo before we went our seperate ways.

Flying back to Kuala Lumpur.

After this, the three of us flew directly to Singapore. Thats Captains Log Day 11…and we’ll save that for another day.

I’m late again (whats new eh?) and have decided to stop apologizing everytime it takes me so long to update…coz its only gonna make it worse, lol..

I’ve been busy and have been extremely enjoying this holiday…unfortunately, my brother went back to school today and my sister went back to Scotland so I’ve got plenty of time now…btw, this is going to be a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong post.

“why?”

“…well, because I have to update on everything that happened in December so I can hurry up and start on this new year…this post is playing catch up.”

The Queen Mary Falls will be the main thingie but I’ll also throw in some pictures of our pre-christmas party (long overdue) and whatever I find in my December folder.

Queen Mary Falls

Ok, so Queen Mary Falls is located in South East Queensland – very very close to the border between QLD and NSW. The story goes something like this:

Queen Mary of England herself rode a horse through the waterfalls and loved the place. This was long ago when she was still a child. Well…either it was her or Queen Elizabeth but its called Queen Mary Falls so I guess the former would be correct. I’m about 10% sure.

I actually went twice. The first was to scout the place out as all good photogs do. The second was to pinpoint the good spots. (By first I meant my friendship parent took me there and by second, I meant I told my friends about it ad ended up planning another trip there!

Didn’t take many pics the first time as there were just the three of us: Me, Steph, and Mark (friednship parent). The upside is that I can some good pictures with steph!

Yes, I’ve cut my hair since then…

Oh, one thing cool about the first trip was that I got to test out my ND and ND grad filters…but me being me I forgot to bring my tripod AND filter holder that day!. Darn. For those of you who don’t know (which I’m guessing are most of you) an ND is a Neutral Density filter. Basically its like sunglasses for your camera so you can take slower shots in broad daylight. A graduated ND filter is the same thing but only the top half is darkened…anyway, you get this sort of effect:

You can see my finger holding the filter on the bottom right hand corner there! Anyway, the second time around the clouds weren’t as beautiful but I brought my tripod so got some nice shots.

Now I’m gonna stop blabbering and throw a bunch of photos so I can get to the next topic. The following pictures were taken on the second trip:

Perhaps this is a good time to explain that the Queen Mary Falls National Park is a nature reserve that consists of three main waterfalls and small streams. The main one is of course Queen Mary Falls followed by Brown Falls and the smallest one being Daggs Falls.

The walk to Daggs falls is amazing. Stop and appreciate Gods work.

…and its 1am…forget it, I’m done for the night…Will continue later…below is a gallery of the shots above and more. 91 pics altogether. Click for a 640×480 picture and feel free to request the pics u want forwarded to you. See ya soon!