I drove around Harris on my first evening, looking for the right vantage point for an end of day shot. I spoke to a local farmer, who recommended an isolate beach situated on the far side of his land. Once there, I had the whole place to myself and perhaps one of the finest sunsets I have been fortunate enough to witness. The colours were so vibrant, the water looked like it was gold, lapping against my feet.
tranquil
Shot for the Day (3 September 2015)
Following on from my last entry, this was taken a few minutes prior to the last shot (below) in Alcudia, Mallorca. Unfortunately, I was not well positioned for the sunrise, which was behind the head of the peninsula, to my left. The reason for this was main due to the fact that the westerly facing headland was several kilometres on the other side of a private golf course and I had no idea how long it would have taken me to walk there. Has anybody ever made this journey?
One thing that resonated with me the most about this particular dawn was the strength of the yellow in the sky. Singapore tends to be far more orange due to pollutants in the atmosphere.
Shot for the Day (1 September 2015)
I awoke well before dawn on my penultimate day in Mallorca this summer. I wanted the experience the serenity one finds at the birth of a new day, surrounded by nature. My home town of Singapore does have many green spaces but they are a patch of nature juxtaposed against the greyness of manmade objects. I was craving for the antithesis.
A yacht had moored the previous night and bobbed gently on the rising tide as the first light of day bathed the foreground in a rich golden light. The moon was cradled amongst the wisps of cloud as they glided silently across the sky overhead, travelling on the a light breeze, which rustled the branches ever so slightly.
I think this is going to be my go to calm place for this year.
Shot for the Day (25 June 2015)
This weekend, I went for a walk with my family in a place called Bukit Brown Cemetery. It is a secluded, overgrown graveyard in Singapore. It is unique in that you are in the middle of a metropolis that is Singapore but be standing in the solitude of a rainforest.
Bukit Brown Cemetery is also known to the local community as Kopi Sua or Coffee Hill. It is a Chinese cemetery, established in the early 20th Century and was the biggest Chinese graveyard outside China. The cemetery was named after its first owner, George Henry Brown, who was a ship owner and arrived in Singapore from Calcutta in the 1840s. He bought the area and named it Mount Pleasant.
As I wondered around this oasis of nature and calmness, it was very distressing to see all the construction work underway, something very common in Singapore. The issue here is that Bukit Brown Cemetery is slowly but sure being sacrificed to the god of progress. Large swathes of land have already been dug up and this beautify setting will soon be replaced by suburbia, concrete and glass.
In a place like Singapore, where such places are rare and revered, it is a shame that such a tranquil and spiritual place is being ruined to make way for apartments and the MRT (underground system).
If you are keen to see this wonderful place before it disappears forever, you can find it located between Lornie Road and Mount Pleasant Road, off Sime Road and Kheam Hock Road.
For further information about Bukit Brown Cemetery, here are some links, including a site to help save it from extinction:
1) Information about the cemetery: http://bukitbrown.com/main/
2) Save the cemetery site: https://sosbukitbrown.wordpress.com/
3) Preserving the history of Bukit Brown: http://www.bukitbrown.info/
Shot for the Day (17 September 2013)
Whilst out in Colorado earlier this year, we drove past a field of horses each day on the way to Snowmass. Aside form a few cars passing, the scene was tranquil with only the occasional sound of crunching snow as the horses walked towards the fence to see what I was up to.
Shot for the Day (11 September 2013)
An early morning slow sunrise over the channel in east Devon. There was very little movement in the water and yet the clouds moved at a quickened pace above me.
This shots was taken about 30 minutes after dawn had broken, just as the sun finally cleared the bank of cloud hugging the horizon.
Shot for the Day (22 August 2013)
Still getting used to mixing light levels between graduate ND filters and a Big Stopper. This was a 2 minute exposure on the Devonshire coastline, as the afterglow of the sunset dwindled just long enough to be captured on film. To the naked eye, the scene was almost devoid of colour, verging on the black and white.
All Terrain Photography 