Maldives – Travel Photos

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Mark

A couple months back I was in Maldives and it was absolutely amazing. I will leave the activities and the location where I stayed for another post here. Anyway one of the key things which I realize, one, I should have planned my stay to be longer and two, I really do need a tripod especially when shooting landscape photos.

Here are some of the landscape photos I took at the various times of the day.

One thing which still mesmerizes me is that the water is so clear here. No teh tarik colours which we get from Port Dickson. You could just see the seabed through the water.

Another amazing point is how blue the sky was. Shooting during the day was an absolute joy with the exception of the heat and humidity.

Throughout my stay there, I was really fortunate to have great weather. It didn’t rain a single day but the week before I arrived, it was raining almost everyday. I checked the weather forecast and was really praying for good weather when I arrived there.

Below are some of the chalets where they are built on stilts above the water. One of the best things about staying there is that you can just jump out from your room and into the water. If you could see closely at the image, you might be able to see two specks in the water, who happen to be two guests who were staying at the chalet and enjoying the water.

The next couple of shots were taken during sunset which provides a warmer feel to the images.

As mentioned earlier, because I didn’t have a tripod, it was tough finding a flat rock where I could balance my camera and capture the images below at long exposure values.

Throughout my stay there, it was extremely windy and because it the winds were blowing at such a high speed, the clouds are blurred out due to it’s movement.

The last photo shows the air taxi landing. Because the Maldives are made out of thousands of small islands, the only way to travel about is to travel via speedboat or air taxis.

Watch out for more posts about Maldives!

Travels and Supercars

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Mark

After a nice relaxing weekend two weeks ago, I was hammered with a long and busy week. Firstly I attended a two day seminar at the Renaissance Hotel where I checked in there on Wednesday night till Friday then followed with a quick flight up north to Langkawi with the Stories team for a wedding shoot on Saturday.

It was the first time I stayed at the Renaissance Hotel here in KL. I’ve shot there a couple of times and have seen the rooms there but my stay there throughout the two nights was a pleasant one. I had two beds to myself in the room (until now I have no idea why the firm books those rooms) and the room was fairly large. Still they can’t compare to the rooms where I stayed in the Marriot in Putrajaya.

After the 1st day at the seminar, a group of us decided to walk over to the Asian Heritage Row (located next to Sheraton along Sultan Ismail) only to be greeted on a Thursday night, a completely empty street. A lot of the bars were being renovated and those that were open, were completely empty, lest for a few tourists and our group. Apparently everyone has decided to party at Changkat Bukit Bintang according to one of my mates.

On Friday evening, I flew off to Langkawi only to be greeted by a delayed flight but at least the delay was only an hours delay. The shoot started on Saturday morning at The Westin in Langkawi. The resort looked stunning, one of the best looking resorts in Langkawi. I shall leave the details of the wedding for another blog post

On Sunday, the sky was very clear as we were flying back to KL and I managed to take a couple of shots of the scenery with my iPhone.

Thats one of the islands around Langkawi in the photo above.

I managed to capture a shot of the Penang bridge when we flew over Penang Island and Butterworth.

After a couple of rounds of playing “Flight Control”, I noticed that we were flying over PJ and I could actually see my apartment from the plane! Wo0t!

Can you see where Sri Hartamas is in the image above?

Anyway when I arrived back, I noticed this array of supercars parked in front of Tropicana City Mall. There were a huge number of Ferrari’s, Porsches, Lotus Elites, a couple of Audi R8s and a few Lambos.

Everyone was crowding around the cars, taking photos with a couple of the models there as well as with the cars themselves.

Then something caught the eye of everyone’s attention. I was also struck with shock, everyone just turned around and started looking at a car which drove by. It was the first time for me seeing this car on the road, the license plate showed that it was totally newly registered, probably a day or two ago. The driver inside had a wide smile because his car caught the attention of all the passers by amongst all of the super cars. Heck, it even made me turn and capture it on camera.

It was the brand new Proton Inspira!!! First time seeing it on the road leh….

A Simple Portrait Collection

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Mark

I finally gotten around to compile some of the portrait photos I have taken recently, and by recently I mean quite a while back. Anyway it was one of the requirements which Grace gave me and asked me to do which was due in January last month. Well, all I can say that it is always better to be late than never!

The slideshow contains some of the portraiture sessions which I shot whether it may be a couple portraiture, to a personal profile image as well as behind the scenes shoot.

p.s. Make sure that the video has fully loaded before playing it to enjoy the full experience

View on ExposureRoom

Do let me know what you think of the slideshow in the comments section, thanks!

Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Mark

I am sure many of you would have heard about this fantastic landmark situated in New York, off Manhattan Island. What a lot of people might not know about is Ellis Island. When I was traveling around in that region, there were many options to choose from and I always planned that I will head back to New York again in the future.

There are a couple of ways to actually see the Statue of Liberty, you can take a helicopter tour where the Statue would be extremely small. Of course that would cost you quite a fair bit but you get to enjoy the view of New York. If money is of a concern of you, then you can also take the Staten Island Ferry which is free! Only thing is that you need a 300mm lens to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty.

The last option, which was the option I took, was that I bought a City Pass (USD$79) that allows me to go to various tourist attractions around New York at a cheaper rate. The pass provided a tour which visits the Statue of Liberty as well as Ellis Island.

Statue of Liberty

Above were some of the shots that were taken from the ferry before docking on the island. I was amongst everyone else trying to get a view of the Statue and trust me, there were plenty of people pulling out their cameras and video cameras capturing the spectacular sight of a huge statue before us.

The first thing we did after we landed on the island was to get some lunch and walk around the park enjoying the cool New York breeze. It was a tad bit cold that day (I was wearing shorts at the time!) but it was still bearable thanks to my natural insulation

There is also a museum located at the back of the Statue of Liberty but note that the City Pass does not cover the cost of going into the museum nor does it allow you to enter the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately at that time we were there, they hadn’t open the entrance or the section which allowed visitors to climb all the way to the torch of the statue.

All we could do was to admire the statue from the base. Of course besides just the statue, there is a gift shop and a restaurant which serves fish and chips.

The park was also filled with mini statues of various guys, I think they were the architects who build the statue. I think.

After debarking from Liberty Island, the ferry wouldn’t head back to Manhattan Island but it brings everyone to Ellis Island. Now you might have heard about Ellis Island from one of the popular movies, Hitch, starring Will Smith. In the show, his first date with Sara Melas (played by Eva Mendes) was at Ellis Island. So it was pretty cool to actually walk around the huge museum.

There were many tours about including live shows where actors would act out the reenactment of the people who traveled from around the world to head to New York to find a better life.

Talking about the number of immigrants, it sort of also reminded me of the old show, Gangs of New York where there were plenty of Irish immigrants in New York at that time.

So if you are in the New York area, these are one of the must go to places.

Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Mark

I was rather lucky to be able to go on two trips to Langkawi in 2009 and both of them were complementary. This time round, I stayed at the Sheraton and I was quite surprised by how nice it looked. Instead of flying using AirAsia, this time we decided on flying by Firefly which was a bit more convenient for me because it flys off from Subang Airport.

Because they were propeller planes and do not have jet engines, the flight takes longer as compared to Air Asia or MAS flights and the one thing that was quite unbearable for me was that our flight was the very first flight of the day and the airplane was extremely hot and stuffy inside. I was literally sweating bullets throughout the flight and it was the most uncomfortable flight.

Thank God the moment I arrived at Sheraton in Langkawi, the atmosphere was totally different. I was literally blown away by the service we received and the size of the chalet rooms we had.

The chalet’s were a little different than usual, it was located a bit of a distant away from the lobby so everytime you needed to go back to the lobby, you can either walk or call a buggy to pick you up. But of course, being a little bit further away from the lobby meant that you get a little bit more privacy and you also get larger rooms.

The view outside the chalet was quite nice as well.

Definitely one of the nicer hotels to be at in Langkawi. If you get the chance, I would definitely recommend staying in Sheraton hotel.

Langkawi – Day 2

Posted on August 7, 2009 by Mark

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

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

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

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,

Chicago the Windy City – Day 1

Posted on July 30, 2009 by Mark

Before anyone asks where is Day 2 of the WeddingStory Langkawi trip, I decided that I definitely wanted to post up some other photos of my recent trip to the US. Back in May, I flew to the States to attend a training in Chicago for a week where I planned a short break after the training session. Since I was already at Chicago attending the training, I thought it would be great to stay a couple of nights in Chicago with a bunch of my colleagues over in the City whilst taking in the sights.

The bus ride from St. Charles all the way to the city was horrendous. We were stuck in traffic for about 3 over hours for what should have been a 45-min bus ride. By the time we arrived in Chicago, it was already 5pm in the evening and we had little time there to enjoy the sights.

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Chicago City itself, home of the mafias and also known as the Windy City.

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This is a view from my hotel room. The building next to the hotel had a very interesting concept, it was totally round and had built the parking lots below the rooms. Look at the parking spaces, there are no walls at all! I can’t imagine parking my car there overnight. I would probably be having nightmares about my car falling off from the building.

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Chicago has a river running through the city where they have plenty of water taxis and Architecture tours available for tourists to ride up the Chicago River. Look how nice and clean the water is much compared to our own wonderful Klang River which runs through KL City. The secret to this is not only civic minded folks who don’t throw every single bit of rubbish into the river but they actually have a processing plant to clean the river’s water.

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Before I went to Chicago, a friend of mine, CWCW, told me that I have to try a deep dish pizza. After checking out with some of my colleagues during my training session, I was told that I should check out Giordano’s for some of that awesome deep dish pizza. I guess Giordano‘s is sort of like those franchise type stores, much like Domino’s or Pizza Hut.

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As it’s name suggests, this pizza is definitely a thick crust! The pizza is so thick that after 3 slices I was totally filled up to the brim, of course the extra added cheese did not help at all. The crust itself isn’t like the usual pizza crust you might get but it had a combination of pie crust in it. If you ever are in Chicago, I would highly recommend that you try out a deep dish pizza.

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After stuffing ourselves crazy (with plenty of leftovers), we decided that a nice long walk would be suitable and since Grant Park was nearby we headed there for a walk. As light began to disappear, shooting in low light was going to be a tough challenge. The weather itself was just awesome, nice and cooling without any hint of humidity.

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As we were walking, we chanced upon this interesting monument. I love the fact that it was rather stylish and interesting, mainly because it was totally reflective!

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Which means I could take a photo of myself!

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I loved how the syline of the buildings behind were also reflected on it the monument.

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This was the skyline of buildings behind it.

After snapping a couple more photos, we headed towards the Sears Tower where the attraction there would be to head up to the upper decks or the “Sky Deck” to catch a 360 view of the Chicago City.

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The one thing that caught my eye is how straight the roads were! Everything is so nicely planned out.

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The SkyDeck definitely showed us all how large Chicago is. By the time we got down (we stayed till it was closing time), we were totally wiped out and proceeded back to our hotel.

Day 2 of the Chicago trip to follow up!

Langkawi – Day 1

Posted on July 27, 2009 by Mark

* Apologies for the confusion, I am trying out a new desktop publishing tool and it seemed to have screwed up the entire post and I have lost everything! *

The one thing I really hate to do is to retype an entire blog post which I have spent quite a fair bit of time writing. It saddens me that a simple mistake or being totally oblivious to the new tool which I am trying out can cause about 30 minutes of work down the drain. Nevertheless, the post must go up! Let me try to recapture what I have written in my earlier post.

I wonder how many people out there get up on a Monday morning, feeling worn out and said to themselves,”Wow, its going to be a great week ahead!”. Most of the time I hear from my desk is that people are either feeling the Monday blues or they are updating their Facebook status about what a wonderful weekend they had recently. Personally, my weekend was the bomb!

Together with the WeddingStory team, we headed to a part of Malaysia I have not been in over 10 years, and that was the island, Langkawi. Feeling excited about Stuart & Amy’s wedding, I took the 8am flight to Langkawi on Friday and I can safely say is that, don’t fly so early in the morning. Why? Think about it, if your flight is at 8am, then you would probably need to be at the airport by 6.30am to check-in. Which means you have to leave your house at 5.30am by taxi. Hence you need to be up at 4 something in order to get ready.

And that was what happened and I have to thank Alex and Grace for hosting me and Mun Tzin the night before so that I didn’t have to take account the time needed to travel from my house to their place. Also I have to thank Mun Tzin for waking me up in the morning by rubbing her wet fingers against my face. That really didn’t give me a shock at all.

By the time we arrived in Langkawi, rented two cars, checked into the hotel, the first thing I did was sleep! Yes, sleep was the first thing in my mind and after a quick nap, whilst Alex and Mun Tzin went to pick Kee Sitt and Sharon up from the ferry dock, I felt hungry. A quick walk along the main road where our hotel was located, we found ourselves in a cosy restaurant ordering some dishes and eagerly waiting for our food to arrive

Langkawi Day 1

Kee Sitt then decided to try out Nigel’s camera while we were waiting for our food to arrive.

Langkawi Day 1

By the time the first dish arrived (fried rice in case you were wondering if this was some special Langkawi grown rice), we were all too hungry to take more photos of the rest of the food. Ok, I admitted that once I started eating, I didn’t stop until the food was gone!

Langkawi Day 1

The one thing I remembered about Langkawi was that it was a duty free island, meaning that all alcohol, chocolates and cigarettes were very cheap. It was so dirt cheap that they even served my chinese tea in a beer mug.

Langkawi Day 1

After lunch we decided to walk about and check out some of the stalls across the street from the restaurant. Apparently Alex and Nigel found a new toy, Langkawi Poken!

Langkawi Day 1

Kee Sitt loved playing with his new toy so much so that he took loads of pictures and videos with it. Can’t wait to see all of them when he is done with it.

After lunch, the team got ready and drove about 45 minutes up north of the Island to the famed Andaman resort. There we were to shoot Stuart & Amy’s beach wedding. I will leave more details about the shoot in a separate post.

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This was the view from the bride’s room. Look how lovely the scenery is.

Langkawi Day 1

And last but not least a view of the beach side where the ceremony is to take place. The decoration and the lovely sea breeze was just amazing, makes everything feel so romantic. The wedding lasted from 4pm all the way till past midnight and it was just so much fun!

I was totally wiped out by the time we got back to the hotel which means only one thing for me. I need more exercise!

Stay tuned for day 2 of the Langkawi trip.

Climbing up Bukit Tabur

Posted on July 21, 2009 by Mark

The one thing a lot of people love to do is to go hiking and what better thing to do in the early hours of the day, breathing in fresh air and getting a spot of exercise. That was the initial plan when BK decided that a group of us would head over to Taman Melawati and climb up Bukit Tabur. We decided to do this on Labour Day itself and boy, was I wrong about it being a holiday. There is no way in hell that I would consider it a holiday.

Let me begin to explain to you why I don’t call it a holiday. First of all, it is not a walk nor is it a hike nor is it an early morning stroll. Going up Bukit Tabur consists of not only hiking up but also climbing up rock walls which are almost at a 90 degree angle which in my opinion, is only meant for mountain goats to scale up.

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The view however, was something else indeed. The early morning sun coupled with the cool breeze was something out of the norm to me.

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Before reaching the first peak or basically the first wall where we had to scale, you could actually get a peek of KL City with the Petronas Twin Towers and the KL Tower basically in perfect view (praise God that the weather was good that day).

BukitTabur blog 006 Climbing up Bukit Tabur
(Left to right: Me, Yu How, Chris, Boon)

Of course I needed proof that was up there as well but to be entirely honest, this was just the first peak and I could still carry my camera bag. After an hour, I was literally crawling on the ground because I was just so exhausted! Every stop I could make, I rested. I won’t even begin to tell you about my pants! (I shall leave that for another story or do join me in one of my mamak sessions with the four blokes up there and you will hear all about my pants).

BukitTabur blog 008 Climbing up Bukit Tabur

I took the photo above to show how high up we were and you can practically see the clouds at this level.

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Most of the photos were actually taken before the first “wall” where you actually have a view of the water dam. In the early morning, the place looks absolutely gorgeous and stunning. Definitely worth making another trip there again with more gears (namely some filters and some tripods).

BukitTabur blog 009 Climbing up Bukit Tabur

The last image above shows Bukit Tabur from Taman Melawati (which is near the National Zoo). Basically you can see about 5 peaks and to climb throughout the entire hill you would need to scale through at least 4. The fifth however is just another hill but in order to get to the pass downhill, you would need to climb down again.

In total, it took me almost 6 hours to climb through that. Definitely something I want to experience again in the near future but I do plan to head up the first peak just to take photographers. But first, I need a tripod for that.

An event I shot a couple of weeks back

Posted on October 8, 2008 by Mark

In one of my earlier blog post, I mentioned that I was caught on camera while shooting an event. Over the weekend, Louis asked me a question, “So Mark, have you been shooting a lot lately?”. Well frankly, I was rather shy to say that my last wedding shoot was in July and my last event shoot was in September. Over the span of the last couple of months, I only shot those events.

Because of that, I have come to realise that I haven’t been really posting up photos anywhere, whether it may be in the forums or even on my blog! So I took the extra effort and reduced the amount of my sleeping time to post up some of the photos I took at an event.

From the first photo itself, you would know that this event isn’t really for guys. Unless those of you who are willing to sponsor me a nice gift pack frtom La Mer.

Of course, La Mer wasn’t the only ones there as the images above suggests. It was an event, specifically for females on grooming themselves in a professional world. Bobbi Brown was there together with their host of make-up artists, explaining to all participants on how to select the right colour to use for their make-ups.

Each participant has their own set of equipment/make-up tools to use and try out. This was used together with the help of not just one make-up artists but by an entire team!

Bobbi Brown really went all out in helping all participants and dolling them up and teaching them all sort of valuable techniques. I won’t say what sort of techniques of course but it has something to do with hiding stuff.

Besides the two companies mentioned above, we also had representatives from Raoul/FJ Benjamin to present tips on workplace dressing and proper dressing for the right occasion.

Tried to practice some shots of when a bride is getting ready during the event of course

Some candid shots taken during the event as well.

And finally,Â shot of the professional photographer that was supposed to shoot the “before” and “after” shots of the participants, look, he uses a Nikon too! The other photographer on the left shot the photo of me in my other post.

Overall the event proved to be a huge success IMHO and I guess that they might just make this a yearly event.

Mark Leo Dot Net

Loving all things photography, tech, gadgets, Apple and cars

Tag Archives: Photos

Maldives – Travel Photos

Travels and Supercars

A Simple Portrait Collection

Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Langkawi – Day 2

Chicago the Windy City – Day 1

Langkawi – Day 1

Climbing up Bukit Tabur

An event I shot a couple of weeks back