Penang Hill

Penang Hill is one of the must see attraction in Penang Island. it was the first hill resort of its kind in Malaysia, and since its opening in 1923, the funicular railway has provided a convenient way to reach the top. After the major renovation and the new funicular, it draws almost 2000 visitors per day. What I love about this place is because it faces the most beautiful cityscape in Penang Island and more over it give you difference kind of scene at different time. Penang Hill is just 5 minutes away from where I live,  this is why I can make as many trip as I wanted. I can plan my trip in the very last minutes and my outing is all depends on the weather. You can see my Penang hill collection HERE.

In this Samsung imagelogger assignment, what i plan is to record the different moment but with the same scene on top of Penang Hill. From dawn to dusk, rain or shine. The shooting with this Samsung NX1 is straight forward, What i need is just a tripod and cable release. My favorite time to visit the hill is at 6:30am the very first train from the station. The weather up there is chilling and very quiet in the morning and I always enjoy being alone up there.

I hope you like some collection of my photos in Penang Hill, there is no lucky moment to get a good shot from Penang Hill. luck is where preparation and opportunity meet.  You just have to put in more effort by keep visiting in different kind of weather and time and the mother nature will surprise you.

All photos, above, have been shot with the Samsung NX1, which has been provided by Samsung Electronics. Co., Ltd.

Brave the Penang Storm

Most photographers like to photograph their landscape pictures on a beautiful day with clear sunny blue sky, without a doubt scenery as such makes us happy. I used to be doing that at the past, but things change slightly nowadays for me. I think artists are crafters of human thought and emotion, I want to try expressing the emotion and dramatic mood in my landscape photography. Since then, I started chasing storm clouds in Penang Island since the last two years. The mother nature never fails to surprise me with the spectacular phenomenon. Now, I would go out when I know there will be a storm, to try get some pictures. The downside of shooting at bad weather is that, if you are unprepared it's easy to get soaking wet or having your gears damaged by rain water. And not forgetting, the possible risk of being strike by lightning.

Often, I will carry a big umbrella with me when I plan to chase the storm. I always have my bag's built-in rain coat on to protect my gears from getting wet. A cleaning cloth is a must, to get ready for the needs to wipe off rainwater on my camera lens. Most importantly, I think there is not a single photo that is worth more than our own life, it's always good to think of our own safety when photographing on the field.

To get massive storm clouds in Penang Island can be quite rare due to our geographical location. Penang island is strategically sheltered between the peninsular of Malaysia and Sumatra of Indonesia. Fortunately, we still get monsoon season in Malaysia, so this will give us some variation of climates throughout the year.

From these photos, maybe you can relate that having the best photographic gears are not the things that make a good photographer. In my opinion, it is the commitment and effort to anticipate that perfect shot matters. I hope you enjoy what I am sharing, feel free to share them with your friends. Thank You

Lightning Season in Penang Island

For almost a week, Penang was hit by massive lightning. The funny thing is the lightning show start almost everyday at the same time, which is in the evening. I'm always fancy about lightning, I start shooting lightning with my film SLR back in 1992. For DSLR I only manage to get some start from this week. To make a lightning interesting, foreground is rather important, but safety always put in the first priority. Some of my tips on lightning shooting..........

1.You need a tripod for the long exposure shot. Lightning often happen in a split of a second but what you need to do is actually shot in longer exposure to "wait" for it to happen.  In this case, tripod is a must.

2.Sometime you have to purposely keep your setting under expose, so when lightning appear in your frame, it will make the exposure just nice but this sorely depends on luck also, sometime the lightning will come out of no where to over expose your shot.

3.Continuously shooting mean let your shutter continue clicking no matter what happen. that is the only way to be "lucky" to get some of it.

4. Prepare to get wet on your lens as most of the time you need to point your lens higher to capture the lightning on the sky, do prepare a lens cleaning cloth to clean your lens when ever is necessary.

5.Brave the Storm. The only way to get the lightning is to go out and shoot during the storm, before you go just prepare some covers to keep your gears dry but also remember safety first, find a safe place for your shooting, don't every use a tree as your cover,  you are not THOR.

I hope I can get more in the following week. Below are some compilation of my lightning photos. Hope you like it.

Penang Second Bridge

In conjunction with the opening of Penang Second Bridge or Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge, I'm here to display my all time favorite photos - The making of the second bridge. My partner and I have been photograph this Penang second bridge for almost a year, it was never an easy assignment on a bridge to be honest.  Hazards are found everywhere, we must make sure taking care our own safety during the shoot. The purpose of China Harbour Engineering Co Ltd (CHEC) assign us is because base on the photos we have share in George Town Facebook page They hope we can shoot something extraordinary with the bridge, and not those building progress. So this is what I have created and hope to share with all the nation of Malaysia.

These photos are for display only. Those on display here available for licensing or purchase as print. Please contact me for further enquiries or to discuss your photographic needs if you are interested, you may contact my email jordan.lye@gmail.com

Penang Interior Design

I stop blogging a while since I back from Iceland. After 2 weeks + 3 days of break there are a lot of works for me until pile up to the ceiling. The first one was a wedding shot and it was the first one since I have shoot a funeral back in Feb, although I’m the second photographer but I’m glad that finally I break the curse, looking forward for more booking :) Today I’m not going to blog anything about wedding, I gave back the credit to Milan teh and I’m glad that he is finally a professional photographer. We didn’t see each other and shoot wedding more than a year….time flies………

Interior design is my first project and it happen to be my favorite one too. The design house – Galactic wanted to make a portfolio or their design and take part in a ID competition, I hope my shots are not too bad for them. I photograph it with a sigma 10-20 lens, I started to fall in love with this lens because it is very wide and I used it a lot in Iceland, I believe my composition is better than the Greece trip back in 2 years ago.

Mykonos Life

I got a surprise call from Nikon today, they told me that Nikon Japan is interested in one of my photo which I took part in 2008/2009 Nikon photo contest, they will consider it to be in their 2011 calender. If my photo was chosen I get pay USD 300 for my compensation, if not USD 150 also will be paid if my photo was drop by them. I'm feeling top of the world at the moment, is not about the money, is about my achievement. Look forward for that agreement!