© 2011 Wazari Wazir | The Photojournalist During UMNO General Assembly 2011 at Putra World Trade Centre PWTC | Kuala Lumpur

It is always interesting to read a debate or discussion about whether it is the camera or is it the person behind the camera that make a difference, some people say, the camera doesn’t matter but the photographers and vice versa. You will get a different answer depending who you ask. I don’t want to wasting my time discussing about that in depth but just wanted to share something with you that maybe will gives you a better understanding about the camera equipment that we photojournalist use.

The photographs above were taken during UMNO General Assembly 2011 last year at Putra World Trade Centre, there were politician on the stage delivering their speech and there is a VVIP sitting on the front row facing the stage, meaning that we can’t easily move there. Some people who have no ideas about photography might tend to ask, why we need to use such a big long lens for this event, some people only think that this kind of lens usually found its place in wildlife photography, sports photography and birds photography and not something like this but time and time again we will use this lens covering this event and nothing will gonna change that.

The reason is simple, for one thing we wanted to minimize our movement and not to be a distractions to this event by moving here and there, by using this lens we can get a tight shot of the politician on the stage without being too close with them and yes before the event start we take a lot of wide angle shot, wide view shot, to show the crowds and after that most photojournalist will concentrate on getting a tight shot of the politicians.

Our task is to captured a politician expressions while delivering their speech, it’s the moment that we are after, whether they are smiling, their body gesture, their expression does make a lot of difference here and just imagine  if we use wide angle lens to take the shot, we will never have the same impact like what we can have with telephoto lens. Just for your information, basically photojournalist will use 300mm – 600mm for this event and to be honest with you we don’t use this lens to show off but to help us get the shot better.

Other than having the right lens, we also need to have a camera with High ISO capability without too much digital noise (grainy). The reason is that, using flash for this event will be a distractions, even though from the picture above you can see some photographers attached flash on their camera body, but most of the time they are switch off.

The light on this hall is quite dim, for the shot above I use ISO 1600 and it’s normal to use ISO1000 – 2000 here with f/2.8 lens. Actually the point of this article is not so much about camera equipment but the right equipment for a any given task. Every photographers need the right camera equipment to do their job effectively. Luckily nowadays most professional DSLR camera are very good at High ISO with less noise, yes sometimes it is still visible but to photojournalist, the noise will be a second factor compared to the moment captured but off-course it will be better if it was noise free and I think todays camera are very good at it.

You can’t be wildlife photographer or sports photographer if all you have is just a kit lens like 18-70mm lens, but you can be a photojournalist even if all you have is a compact camera but like I said again, it’s all depend on your task, if you wanted to take natural disaster picture like floods, tsunami or car accident on the highway, any decent compact camera will do that, because most of the times, you can get close to the scene and normally it’s about the subject and the environment and having a compact camera with a wide angle lens like what most compact camera have will do the job and I know also that some of the images taken with a compact camera has made into the front page of our local newspaper and some of them also made it into the wire.

Since this is not an in depth writing about photographer and camera equipment, hopefully by now you will know that as a photographer we just need the right equipment, for those of you who take photography as a hobby, they can buy the most expensive camera to satisfy themselves because they don’t have any client to worry about but for working photographers, be it photojournalist, wedding photographer, food photographer or whoever makes photography as their career to support their family, we just need the right camera and its equipment and most of the times we don’t really need the most expensive camera but just the right camera and talking about “the right camera”, it will depend on the assignment given.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Little Shepherd at The Village | My Son Feeding the Goat With Tapioca Leaf Outside My Mother in Law House

To those of you who live in the countryside, this picture maybe meant nothing to you but I believe our family will appreciated this photograph in the future. I took this photograph during school holiday December 2011 at my mother in law house and in fact this photograph were taken just outside my mother in law house (unseen here), not the green house back there but just right behind me. We live in big city of Kuala Lumpur and we can hardly find any goat just outside our home except cars.

This is not our family goat but it was belongs to my son aunty who have quite a few herd of goats. When capturing this photograph, I can’t help it but but it remind me of my journey in India (2010) where I see a lot of shepherd along the way from the train on our way from New Delhi to Rajasthan, the different is that, the view in Rajasthan is way much more picturesque than what you seen here.

I took few pictures of my son playing and feeding the goat and then just spent my time watching them having fun. While some big city children having fun playing with computer games, iPhone, iPad games, well, at least I’ve something different for my son to be remembered when he grows up. I think it is natural for a children like my son age to like an animal, as you can see form the photograph on my son yellow t-shirt there.

Most of the times they can only see the animal on the television, in the books or at the zoo but very rarely they can interact with them, let alone touching them, so this is something I believes every children will cherished. At first my son was a little bit afraid to get close to the white hairy animal but after awhile, he get used to it.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | An elephant leads the procession of the arrival of Malaysia’s outgoing king Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin and queen Nur Zahirah (unseen) before departing for their home state of Terengganu, at an airport in Sepang outside Kuala Lumpur on December 12, 2011. Sultan Mizan, Malaysia’s 13 king, proclaimed in 2006, completed his reign on Monday (Dec 12, 2011) after a five-year rotation period. Sultan Mizan is the sultan for the northeastern state of Terengganu.

What is point of view? Basically it is the position, direction, heigh of the camera that will define the point of view of a picture. If you asked me what is the best point of view? My answer is, it depends, it depends on your intention, how do you wanted to tell the story. In this historical event above, my intention is to tell a story about how grand this procession is and for me the best vantage point is from a higher angle. I wish  there is a much higher angle for me but unfortunately, there were no other higher angle for me other than to share my position with live camera TV platform. It is not that hight as you can see from the result of the picture above but this is the highest that I can go.

I chose to use telephoto lens 70-200mm to get the picture, I just want to pull the background together to have more impact. I’ve to carefully chose my angle because I just can’t stop the elephant on track and chose another angle, so I’ve to decide which is the best angle to tell the story in it’s grandeur. For this type of assignment, our photography department sent few photographers covering this event, actually there were five of us. Each photographers were assign to different position and the reason to do so is to make sure each angle is covered since this event does not happen everyday and we don’t want to leave anything slip away.

Choosing the best or the right point of view will either make or break your photograph and for this kind of event it is crucial to decide what is the best point of view to tell the story the way you wanted it to be told or the way your news agency wanted t to be told. Unlike taking architectural or landscape picture where the subject does not run away, you can freely change your position as you wish but for this event where the subject is moving and where it is not easily for me to move around because of the crowds, the security an et cetera, it is crucial to just pick one position and wait. I stay in this position until the official car of the king pass by which is rightly behind the dancers carrying the yellow umbrella procession.

Next time when you wanted to photograph something grand like this procession, always keep in mind about the point of view, which is the best or the right point of view to tell the story, the way you wanted it to be, your intention or the way your news agency or your department required it to be told.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Bohey Dulang Island | Tun Sakaran Marine Park

© Azman Jumat | Photograph of me taking picture at Bohey Dulang taken by Azman Jumat

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Tun Sakaran Marine Park | Bohey Dulang Island | Sabah | Malaysia North Borneo

Tun Sakaran Marine Park (TSMP) are situated at the entrance to Darvel Bay, off the East coast of Sabah near the town of Semporna, it took about 45 minutes by speed boat from the jetty of this small town. Named after then the Head of State of Sabah, Tun Sakaran Dandai, it was gazetted in July 2004 as Sabah’s seventh park. The Park is the largest Marine Park and covering 340 sq kilometers of sea and corals reef and 10 sq kilometers of land.

This Marine Park, which is also known as the Semporna Islands Park, comprises of eight islands—Bohey Dulang, Bodgaya, Sebangkat, Selakan, Mantabuan, Sibuan, Maiga, as well as the Church Reef and Kapikan Reef. Bohey Dulang and Bodgaya islands are extinct volcanic remnants while Sebangkat and Selakan are two islands of raised limestone platforms.

Tun Sakaran Marine Park is not equipped with facilities for tourists; however, visitors are welcome to explore the marine park’s dive sites with their snorkels and scuba gears. Divers have reported many sightings of eagle rays, turtles, barracuda, bumphead parrotfish, and plenty of nudibranchs. There are large walls and a cornucopia of macrolife in the Bodgaya lagoon, while the sandy areas are home to big gorgonian fans and sea pens.

Before you plan to visit here, it is better for you to get some information from Sabah Park , my visit here was organized by 48th Studio Kota Kinabalu Sabah and they have made some arrangement prior to this visit to make it possible.

This is my third times visiting Semporna and its surrounding which comprise of small islands and whenever I’m here I’ve always dreaming to be on Bohey Dulang Island because it looks quite mysterious to me. There are few Bajau Laut (Sea Gypsies) stays on this island. I highly suggest you to stay at least two to three days to fully enjoy this area.

It took us around 45 minutes to get on the top of Bohey Dulang Island, where the pictures above were taken. Maybe you can reach here faster depending on the pace that you are taking. Since our level of fitness is not the same, we took 45 minutes to get here starting from the jetty below which not seen in the picture ( the jetty is located on the far left from the jetty that you seen on the picture above ).

Some people who have seen this pictures said that it was almost unbelievable, yes it was so true, and yes I did enhance the colors a bit but the original pictures is good enough. I highly recommended you to visit here in the afternoon, because if you came and visit this island in the morning, this area will be under the shadows, lack contrast, this photograph were taken around 3Pm – 4PM in the afternoon. From the group photograph above you can see where the light is coming from, the sun is on the left side of this island. All of the photographs above were taken with 24mm prime lens on full frame camera body except the group photo shot which were taken with 17-35mm lens at 17mm also on FF body.

* The colors of the photograph above were enhance a little bit with one of the technique in my Master of Colors eBook, hit the banner below for more info ;

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Semporna | Life By The Sea

Depending to whom you ask for, Semporna is a gateway to paradise, gateway to beautiful island of Sabah especially to Sipadan Island which is considered among the top dive site in the world, but there is more in Semporna than Sipadan Island, there is Mataking, Kapalai and Mabul, just to name a few that are famous with divers.

Since this is a photography blog, most photographers that I’ve known come to Semporna for a different reason, unless they are underwater photographers. Most of the photographers that I’ve known like to come here to visit the life of Sea Gypsies here, especially on the island of Mabul, Kalapuan, Omadal, Maiga and some other small island that look much more interesting to some photographers than Sipadan Island. To my foreigner friends who have come to visit my blog here, I would like to let you know here that, photographs taken around this area, around this island which is just less than an hour from Semporna has won many photography competitions time and time again.

Semporna is the gateway to great photographic opportunity around the island. Some of my friends from peninsular have come to Semporna every year without fails. If you come from Kuala Lumpur, there is a daily flight from Kuala Lumpur International Airport KLIA in Sepang to Tawau and from here to Semporna will take you around one hour journey.

Once you get here, there are many tour operator that will get you into the island or if you prefer to island hopping, you can ask some of the boatman at this area, in front of the Semporna Fish market, where I took this photograph. To make everything easy, I will suggest you make your booking in advance, so you don’t have to waste your precious times looking for the boatman or the tour operator that suit your budget.

Nowadays I think you really need not to worry so much about finding a hotel here, unlike many years ago, now there is plenty of hotel here that you can choose from. During my visit here I stay at Sipadan INN 2 which is located just  a walk away from the Semporna Fish Market, very close to where the photograph above were taken. Most people only spent one night here before spending their night in Mabul Island, especially the photographers, but I believe it is worthwhile  to spend few more days here if time permit.

This area especially around fish market area is not picturesque, is not postcard type of a picture but to my eyes, this place offer plenty of photography opportunity but unfortunately during my visit here, we don’t have much times because we have some other activity or itinerary that we have to stick. If I ever come here again, I will make sure at least I will spent at least two night here and really explore this area before heading into the island. For the picture above, I spent more than half an hour at the same spot just watching the activity there. It was very colorful, busy and lively especially in the early morning when most people from the island nearby came here to buy something or to sell something.

I wish I can share more pictures from this area but like I said before, we don’t have much time exploring this area and to those of you who plan to make a visit here, please do take your time to explore this area especially the fish market area and I believe there is plenty of subject to be photographed and I do suggest if you want to take a picture here, don’t straight away take your camera and take pictures, instead, slow down, just watch the activity here, blend with the environment, talk to some of the people that you met there and once they no longer pay attention to you and once you don’t look like a stranger here, take your picture. That is what I do to get this picture, I let myself blend with the environment first.

]]> http://www.wazariwazir.com/2011/12/25/once-upon-a-time-in-semporna-sabah-life-by-the-sea/feed/ 0 http://www.wazariwazir.com/2011/12/23/photography-mabul-island-a-gift-of-a-photographs/ http://www.wazariwazir.com/2011/12/23/photography-mabul-island-a-gift-of-a-photographs/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:45:56 +0000 Wazari Wazir http://www.wazariwazir.com/?p=4007

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Mabul Island Sabah | A Gift of a Photographs

“A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.” | Albert Einstein

This Island Photo Safari were organized by Fahad Nasir from 48th Studio Kota Kinabalu from 18 to 21st November 2011 in conjunction with his newly open studio. About 11 photographers involved with this photography outing. We visit many small island on this trip, island hopping, I would say but on this particularly outing we did not spent our night here in Mabul but we stay at Kapalai Island, less than twenty minutes from Mabul Island.

There is no particular agenda during this trip, we just having fun visiting one island to another, some of the island that we visited on this trip is new to me like Maiga, Kalapauan and Bohey Dulang. I’ve visited Mabul Island three times including this trip. Once I know that Mabul was on our itinerary, I decided to make some prints of the pictures that I took when I visit Mabul Island on 2008. Just a small 4r size photograph and hopefully I can met those that I’ve photograph back then and hand it to them the printed pictures personally.

While some of my other friends are busy taking pictures of the people especially the kids on the island, I was busy asking people whether they knew someone in the photograph that I’ve show them. I think there is a lot of changes within three years especially the face of the children there, they grew up quite fast and I can’t hardly recognize them myself.

Some of them quickly recognize their face and asking for the pictures and some of them when knowing it is their pictures simply get hold of it and never return it back to me, maybe they were quite shy especially those little girl that I’ve photograph before, some of them quite reluctant to let me take their pictures with their photograph, I just wanted to record some of their facial changes or how they have grew up.

I did not make any serious portrait photography here as I hope for before coming here but nevertheless I’m very happy, I’m so much happy to make someone else happy. I just can’t describe how I feel when I see them happy showing their printed pictures with their friends and family and some of them also help me to find where the people in the photograph are staying and some of them have move to the big island for a better future I guess.

I’m glad also that by giving them the photograph, they did not asking any money from us and instead they voluntarily asking our friends to take their pictures hoping that someday we will came back and gives their pictures. I think a gift of a photograph to these people especially to their kids is so much more valuable that if we gave them a candy which will be melt in their mouth in less than five minutes but this photograph if they know how to take care off will stay will them for generations and I believe also that most of this family here doesn’t have so many pictures of their childrens while they are still small and I hope this picture will cherished them.

I think the more we give, the more we get. Hopefully also to those of you who have visited this island before and wanted to make a return visit can prints some of the photograph and give it to the person and make them happy. In the long run, hopefully we can be friends with them and not just as a stranger with big camera pointing lens at their face.

We spent less than three hours here on this Mabul Island before moving back to Kapalai Island. I will make sure when I came back here again, I will stay here maybe for a couple of  days and I’ve a very good reason to came back here again because during just few hours here, I’ve taken quite a lot of “group” photograph with them and I did tell them that I will came back and gives the pictures to them.

Our visit here is just a brief, a very short visit but hopefully our memories with them together, the people of Mabul Island will stay with them forever, after all the gift of a photographs is priceless and hopefully they take a very good care of them.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Sea Gypsies | Semporna | Sabah | Malaysia North Borneo

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”.

- Mark Twain -

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Malaysia Prime Minister (L) Najib Razak and his Qatar’s  counterpart Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani talk during the state welcoming ceremony in Putrajaya, outside Kuala Lumpur, December 5, 2011.

My schedule is a little bit pack recently, lots of assignment going on here and there and I hardly can keep up with my blog. Some of them are with sharing here while others I just posted on my flickr. Feel free to visit there in case I haven’t posted it here just yet. This is part of my job but don’t worry though, I will not flooded my blog with all this political pictures, I know some of you might hated it but it depends on which angle you look at. Whether it is from photography perspective or political perspective.

I’m just doing my job, you may like or don’t like the subject but let’s be professional and hopefully you can appreciate the moment captured because whatever it is, this is part of Malaysian history and I’m here to do my job the best as humanly as possible, “insyaAllah,” God Willing.

© 2011 Craft and Vision | David duChemin | Vision is Better 2 | Free the Mind, Free The Camera Again | eBook

VISION IS BETTER II is a collection of 44 of the most recent essays about the photographic life and craft from David duChemin’s wildly popular PixelatedImage Blog. His insights on the how and why of photography, visual story telling, and life-lessons learned along the way make for a compelling and inspiring eBook that will captivate you from beginning to end.

This massive 95-spread eBook is the follow-up to one of Craft & Vision’s best-selling titles. The Vision is Better series acts like a PixelatedImage yearbook that gives readers a no-holds-barred vantage point into the adventures and life of David duChemin while at the same time providing you with fresh ideas and insights about making the most of your own photographic journey. Craft And Vision

I really get excited whenever there is new eBook coming from Craft And Vision especially those written by one of my favorite travel or humanitarian photographer David duChemin. This is his latest eBook entitled Vision is Better 2 , Free the Mind, Free the Camera Again.

I would like to say that this eBook is not written for the beginner, there is no tutorial about how to use a camera, which Aperture, ISO or Shutter Speed to use or which camera or what lenses is better than the other. This eBook is totally about vision and I like the way David share his thought and experience with the reader.

To me this eBook is more like motivation or inspiring tools to get me going, to look beyond camera equipment, to look beyond technical perfection. David wants us to take action, stop dreaming and start going, stop whining and start going. Forget about upgrading our photography equipment, instead be calculative when spending our money. He inspired us to travel the world, save some money and buy plane ticket instead of buying new camera or new lenses.

Sometimes what we really need is a new eyes, a new look and a new vision. Undoubtedly some photographic endeavor or assignment needs a better equipment to really do the job but for most of us, for serious amateur or even professional, what we already have is more than good enough. Sometimes we lack motivation after so many years taking pictures, we felt like our passion began to decline. What we really need is to sharpen our vision. Take a break if we have to and try out something new, travel to the place that we have yearn to go.

Start a new project, self assignment and I believe that most of us wanted to make something with our photographic journey, a special assignment but the problem is, we never start, we never begin and the idea remain as an idea that never executed. For those of you who wanted some kind of inspiration, motivation to get moving, I highly recommended that you take a look at what David duChemin share in his latest eBook entitled Vision is Better 2 and get it from Craft And Vision

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Father and Son | Photograph Taken by My Wife

“My father always told me, “Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

- Jim Fox -

I don’t think I can carry my son like this if he reach twenty years old if God Willing “InsyaAllah”, so I better get the picture first before its too late. My wife took this picture and I’m not someone who can easily get satisfied when someone else took a picture of me, not even my wife, so after each shot taken, I will take a look at the LCD just to make sure “everything was fine”.

I want to make sure that the clock tower is visible behind and I want to make sure that me and my son is sharp, not necessarily pin sharp but sharp enough to recognize my face. I didn’t notice that my son hold a little dinosaur with him, not until I see this picture. I think those little dinosaur makes a perfect “frame” for me and my son.

Sometimes as a photographer we have very little picture of or own, so whenever I go out with my family, I will always make sure that at least I’ve one or two pictures with them together. This photograph was taken at one of Malaysia famous landmark, which is at Independence Square or “Dataran Merdeka” which most Malaysian familiar with. The building behind is Sultan Abdul Samad Building.

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