Haze has been invading my fresh oxygen supply since early last month and it gets worse every single day now. Never a miss for each year during the dry season that we Malaysians have to experience the smoky haze coming from our neighbouring country.
I got most of my asthmatic and flu symptoms during the haze season. I take honey to help soothe my phlegm and sore throat. Malaysia is cynically a 3 season country now. We used to have the dry and monsoon seasons but in the past few years, we kept having the haze season too.
I have been putting this off for almost a year. If I want to improve my photography skill then I need to be serious about my paid job too. So, I started buying my studio equipment slowly since last year, bought my studio lights last few months (coz I couldn’t decide which one suits my pocket and my style).
I want to master studio light and take awesome B&W portraits. And, I kept on justifying all the ringgit out from my pocket for this purpose … to master light and shadow under a controlled environment and I need to have all this equipment. Dang!!
Got my favorite dark grey ash backdrop fixed and I start taking photos of my most best-loved subject … baby!. Yes. I am all geared up for my next learning experience. Learning by doing. My portfolio website is up and running at matsudamashimaru.myportfolio.com, my facebook page is done (jom follow), my spirit is highly motivated for this (am having bad flu right now) and let’s do this Matsuda.
Mastering a new skill.
If you are interested to have me capture your intimate beautiful moments with your baby, children or the whole family, please feel free to get in touch me via email at salliza.salleh@gmail.com or Facebook or Instagram.
I was with my three (3) other travel companions last weekend playing with lights at Taiping, Perak. A short weekend outing to start off our new travel team (we called us the #gengbajetravel). We planned to travel together since God knows … very long time ago … but it always canceled at the very last minute. Excuses after excuses …
Then, we decided to make it happened, by hook or by crook. The weather forecast said that it’ll be raining the whole weekend … oh boy! there goes our plan for sunset, sunrise and Milkyway. We had our backup plan though … if everything failed then we’ll experimenting steel wool photography instead.
We were at Lake Garden Taiping, Perak, Malaysia as early as 4 a.m, praying for a clear sky to shoot Milkyway …but the sky was too cloudy. It was not possible so we headed straight to Plan B, light painting with burning steel wool. I was excited to try something new …
The making of Dorayaki
It was fun, experimenting new technique with good companions while listening to the frogs’ orchestra performing live background music. Always … always … always surrounded with good people, am I blessed or am I blessed, alhamdullilah.
The four of us are super crazy. Well, crazy in a good way lol… crazy seeking for something new to uplift our skill. We are very competitive towards each other but our sense of humanity are still strongly intact. I adore friend like that.
People said that your friends are the reflection of you and if that is the case, well … I want to be my friend :-p <— perasan kan?
The Cinderella carriage
Rain on fire
Steel wool photography is not as hard as I thought it would be. It’s easy to learn. I love the dramatic and artistic effect too and I am officially curious to explore more on this.
Circle of fire
My sunrise landscape
I set my camera on manual mode, the speed at 10-15″ and ISO at 250 to 400 accordingly (for those who are curious about the camera setting). Trying to incorporate “ring of fire” onto my landscape in future … just to feed my curiosity on how my landscape image would look like with this additional art.
Gotta go! Cheerios …
MM
ps – …
It’s better to know how to learn than to know ~ Dr. Seuss
Class 6 of Sri Pintar Subang Jaya for the year of 2016
I always reserved a day of my time in October and a day in November each year for a group of children from Sri Pintar Subang Jaya school’s class photo and their convocation day.
It was a nice feeling of seeing the same group of children growing a year older each year.
The ‘same old same old’ moment with a reality that life moves on regardless of how sweet or bitter the ‘same old same old moment’ was at that particular time.
Children of SRIP Subang Jaya
Children of SRIP Subang Jaya
A little angel sitting beside me during the event
Another little angel trying to steal my attention
The idea of death being interlinked with photography caught my attention too. Most of us viewed photography as a method of freezing or capturing a moment in life but few of us regarded photography as the death of a moment.
The death of a moment captured and instilled into a photograph.
I am now … recuperating from hmmm whatever that bothering my life, here at my mom’s home. Sleeping … eating and enjoying the rain before going back to my nest again soon.
PokNik, a farmer that rears hundreds of cattle, sheep and goats
August is always an exciting month of the year as we celebrate Malaysia’s 59th Birthday (Independent Day). Malaysian flags could be seen on the streets and business premises everyday in August. The best time to go out and capture the ‘flag’ moment around the street corners.
Again this year, I have the opportunity to contribute some photograph for the Merdeka day photo exhibition. This time around Yaman Ibrahim’s exhibition photo theme is on Faces of Malaysia. As I dug out my HD storage for any Malaysian portrait that can qualify me to join the exhibition. I realized that I have none … hu hu hu
I have been traveling and taking photos of faces around the world and … I have nothing in my HD storage that could portray the faces of Malaysian. Shame on me …
So I decided to open up my eyes and my mind towards my surrounding and attempted to capture faces of Malaysia around me in a short period of time. Talking about working under pressure … and wallah! … I managed to capture some beautiful portraits of Malaysian and as always I have my own private story for each photo that I took … lesson learned story that drove me to capture their moment <— dreamers statement 😛
Pak Musa, a carpenter for 34 years that I met at the farm
I was at a Chinese Opera show in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur hunting for a backstage moment with the actors and the actresses. Then, I spent a few days at a private farm (cattle, sheep and goats) in Kuantan, Pahang to capture some moments with the animals and the shepherd.
Chinese opera in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur
Chinese opera in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur
Chinese Opera in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur
And, a few days after that I tagged along with my JanjiFly buddy for his Paramotor MBOR training at Tekah Airfield, Taiping, Perak. Yes … I believe I can fly hu hu hu and I captured some moments with the Commando Vat 69 team on parachute training that day. Talking about luck … this is what I called durian runtuh hu hu hu
Commando Vat 69 during his parachute training
Commando Vat 69 during his parachute training
Commando Vat 69 during his parachute training
Well … it was tiring but worthy. My moment of learning to find beauty … at every imperfect moment presented to me by the All Mighty.
The good news is … my two(2) images below are currently exhibited at Yaman Ibrahim #OrangMalaysia (people of Malaysia) photo exhibition together with another 59 photographs. 33 photographers and 61 photographs …
Caught a moment with PokNik with his goats at the farm
Caught a moment with En Basri, a member of the Commando Vat 69 while the team was having a parachute training
Do come and visit the 61 selected photographs of ‘People of Malaysia’ on display now. Details are as follows:
Theme: Yaman Ibrahim #OrangMalaysia Photo Exhibition
Venue: MaTic Gallery, Malaysian Tourist Center, Kuala Lumpur
Date: 15th August to 17th September, 2016
I am moving on to the next project … 🙂 … next please ….
Bye,
Cheers
MM
ps – “Between what is said and not meant. And what is meant and not said. Most love is lost”~ Khalil Gibran
