Langkawi – Day 2

To be honest, after being to islands like Phuket, Bali and even Singapore (no, I am not talking about people with an island mentality), I have come to realise the vast difference between Langkawi and these other tourist destinations. Seriously, the place could definitely use something to spruce it up but then, what does Langkawi really have to offer?

 Langkawi   Day 2

No, I don’t think the escaped Ian is always there in Langkawi as captured above!

 Langkawi   Day 2

No, there aren’t that many escaped jumping humans about. Perhaps you might catch a glimpse of some other interesting life forms there.

 Langkawi   Day 2

No, there aren’t that many beggars sitting by the sidewalk waiting for their other halves while they shop for 4 hours. (ok I was just kidding about the 4 hours).

 Langkawi   Day 2

I don’t think people usually come to visit the water bottle carrying man from Penang who hides in the deepest of alleys in the streets of Langkawi as well.

 Langkawi   Day 2

Like every other island, the relaxing sound of waves hitting the shores whilst the cool breeze skims through your hair is enough to melt away all of our tensions. Perhaps that is what people might head to Langkawi, to catch a little rest and relaxation. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was in Langkawi for a shoot and then for a little bit of R&R with the WeddingStory team. After a very very tiring first day, I totally overslept and skipped breakfast. That aside, I woke up definitely in time for lunch icon smile Langkawi   Day 2

After lunch, we all decided to walk along the beach and after several sessions of banana boat rides and watching Nigel and Lai Yeen defy gravity and got dragged across the ocean on a para-sail. It just took me 15 minutes standing under the bright sun to note that I was being cooked alive! Yes it was that hot so our time on the beach was cut short because we were heading out for our own photo shoot!

Yes, Grace and Alex planned that we needed to all dress up for a private shoot and did I really come unprepared. Whilst Munz brought a nice dress, I wore a polo shirt and shorts which she definitely made me change into something a little more formal. Oh well, I guess I had to suffer in the hot sun with slacks and a long sleeved shirt. After the whole fiasco with my clothes, we arrived at our destination.

 Langkawi   Day 2

We started off shooting and shooting and trying out various types of shots with various techniques. Personally, I was trying to utilize the natural lighting as much as I can and to use it to my advantage as well. Here are some of my shots from the session.

 Langkawi   Day 2

 Langkawi   Day 2

Took a couple of photos with Munz for a while whilst trying to figure out how to pose her for a couple of those shots. Not easy trying to pose your girlfriend especially when I am sweating like mad and my sweat was stinging my eyes! I must bring a towel on my next portrait shoots.

 Langkawi   Day 2

I liked this photo of both Alex and Grace because of Grace’s expression.

 Langkawi   Day 2

Now who says you can’t do some serious shots in padi fields?

After taking even more photos of the rest there, the sun was setting and we quickly headed back to our hotel (which was conveniently next to the beach). Since we were on the west coast of the island, we wanted to capture some sunset shots by the beach. This was when I could change back to my shirt and shorts which was much cooler!

 Langkawi   Day 2

 Langkawi   Day 2

Ok, we arrived there a little too early and it was still extremely bright. Good time to shoot a couple more portraits on the beach while waiting for light to diminish.

 Langkawi   Day 2

The sunset was totally awesome. One of the nicest I have seen around Malaysia. The other occasion was when I was in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, atending Louis Pang’s workshop.

 Langkawi   Day 2

I even managed to get the sunset as well as the crescent moon as well. Was a tough shot to take because I had my 50mm attached with me at the moment.

After spending two days in Langkawi and eating overpriced food which was still good, I guess the main attraction over here was the statues on the beach. Some say that orcs erected them up to celebrate the crescent moon, or maybe elves wanted to erect landmarks to guide their ships correctly.

 Langkawi   Day 2

All I know is that, these statues have a story to tell.

Now try and guess what they are saying,

Phuket was awesome!

I had the priviledge of travelling to Phuket, Thailand, over the weekend for an assignment and it was equally taxing and enjoyable as well. The last time I was in Phuket was over 15 years ago and much has changed since then. The most noticeable change was that you can hardly see the aftermath of the tsunami which struck the area back in 2004. Much of the things have been rebuilt and resorts are springing back up everywhere.

The number of tourists were incredible as well and I always wondered to myself, “Why can’t any place in Malaysia can be this popular?”. Langkawi? Redang? Penang? Pangkor? Who knows, are we not that attractive enough to offer the tourists the same things?

Anyway at the same time, I managed to snap a couple of pics while I was on assignment there.

2340077319 59d89f31aa Phuket was awesome!
Sunset at Surin Beach

2340076901 3142145a1d Phuket was awesome!
Ice melting by the beach – Think seafood being chilled on ice before barbequeing it and then these are the leftover ice

2340076453 d5de49bacc Phuket was awesome!
Bright sunlight from Surin Beach again

2340909574 f9b61a8503 Phuket was awesome!
Senget shot of a senget horizon – Note, riding this without insurance is scary!

I have a couple more photos sitting in my hard disk but in total there are about 14Gb of data to go through. I definitely need to delete some of them as I am really running out of available space now in my PC!

pixel Phuket was awesome!