Vagabond’s Caravan

^ Love this photo with ChiHo, =) That’s SOAS Mosque by the way, =)

On the day before His Majesty’s Birthday, I decided to go shooting @ Bandar, and tagged ChiHo along. We planned, but never really decided on it until about 4pm. We reached BSB (capital town of Brunei Darussalam) by about 5pm.

When we reach there, the weather is fine, the sun is about to go down, everything looks pretty amazing and fresh. =) I know BSB has cool looking sunset because I saw it before (when I shoot CHMS’ new building), and I am right! =) We’re very lucky that it didn’t rain till about 10pm! =D

ChiHo’s mom dropped us off at Padang SOAS, and then we start shooting around the padang, then we venture to SOAS Mosque to shoot. By the time we reach the mosque, the sky is already quite warm (orange, in photography term). The mosque looks so cool and we asked one of the malay if we can go inside, I think he’s one of the worker there or something, he said we can go in but not into the mosque itself, just around the compound. Good enough, and he asked where we came from - “ah, orang tempatan.”, that’s my reply. =p

We feel like backpackers, seriously, =) And there’s quite a handful of tourists in BSB too, because it’s the night before one of the biggest celebration in Brunei. =) It’s a really amazing feel and BSB was quite empty (because it’s the time by which people leave Bandar, I mean those commercial sector people) and it’s really comfortable to walk around - quiet, peaceful and great sunset. =)

By the time we finish shooting the mosque, the sky is even warmer (slightly crimson/purple) and really nice, so we started out mission - chasing sunset. =p We started off by shooting off the river beside SOAS mosque, then we went out of the mosque and shoot around the pavement (nice~), and then we walk along the wooden bridge (sigh, too shaky to get sharp photos, even with tripod, gah, gonna go again to get better shots!) and walk into part of Kampong Ayer (I assume, since it’s also building on stilts, just that we didn’t take water taxi to reach it). We can’t stop shooting, until the sun totally set and it’s really dark.

So we decided to go Yayasan to have dinner (it’s just me actually, had some dimsum @ Food Zone Yayasan) and shopping - Yayasan has a good range of photography stuffs, and we had a look at computers too. =) It was fun because we both shared some common interests - Chinese culture, photography & computing.

At about 8pm, when it’s totally dark outside, we went to shoot the HM Birthday lighting, which are truly amazing. Not easy to shoot but very enjoyable process. =) There’s quite a lot of last minute preparation going around too, and a number of people like us, shooting around (not dSLR users, some only use their mobiles, interesting tho’).

Overall, this is the first time for me to go to a place, specifically for shooting photos only, and it’s really fun and I’ll be doing more after A level exams. =) And bandar is a nice place to photograph, will definitely re-visit it in the near future. =)

^ My favourite shot with ChiHo in it, hehe, never know they have that arc thing in Bandar, first time I see it, KNK people! =D See, the sky is good! =)

^ This is the river by the side of the mosque, still within the compound of the mosque. =)

^ inside the compound of the mosque as well. =)

I decided not to process the photos first because I finally decided to get a calibrator. I’ll not edit any photos (with exceptional for group photos and etc, and B&W) until I get my LCD calibrated, I’m getting worry. =\