Matsumoto Castle 松本城

Matsumoto Castle

I have always wanted to visit this castle since the day I saw a picture of it in Flickr.com sometime ago in year 2010. I wanted to take pictures of this castle myself. It is so beautiful. The opportunity came when I visited World Heritage Shirakawago and the nearby city Takayama early this year. Matsumoto city is located in between Tokyo and Shirakawago and therefore, I stopped by Matsumoto city on my way back to Tokyo, stayed overnight there just to visit the famous Matsumoto Castle. Matsumoto is about 3 hours and 10 minutes bus ride from Tokyo Shinjuku Bus Terminal. It cost 3,400yen one way. You can also access Matsumoto from Takayama Bus Terminal, which is 3,100yen one way. Click here for the Nohi bus time table from Takayama to Matsumoto.  For more travel information about Matsumoto, click here.

Matsumoto Castle at night

Matsumoto Castle is one of the most beautiful and photogenic castle in Japan. It is also known as the "Crow Castle" for it's black exterior.

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World Heritage Part 3: Suganuma & Ainokura

This is the Part 3 of my World Heritage series and in this episode, I will introduce you to two more World Heritage sites next to Shirakawago. They are located in another prefecture, the Toyama Prefecture while Shirakawago is located in the Gifu Prefecture. Although located in different prefecture, they are just 30 minutes drive away from each other. The two world heritage sites are Suganuma and Ainokura, both located in a place called Gokayama and therefore, some called them the Gokayama World Heritage sites.

You can access Part 1 and Part 2 of my World Heritage series by click on the link below:

Part 1: Shirakawago - Ogimachi

Part 2: Shirakawago - Open Air Museum

World Heritage: Suganuma of Gokayama

World Heritage: Ainokura of Gokayama

Gokayama world heritage sites are more difficult to access and therefore they are a lot more quiet than Ogimachi of Shirakawago, which is often swamped by tourist around the world. However, it is still possible to access these two sites with advanced planning and research. The two world heritage sites in Gokayama are smaller compared to Ogimachi. Read on for information about accessing these two sites.

World Heritage Part 2: Shirakawago

Shirakawago Open Air Museum

Welcome to the Part 2 of my World Heritage Shirakawago series. In this episode, I will introduce you the Shirakawago Open Air Museum, located just across the suspension bridge from the Ogimachi village. 

To read the Part 1 of this World Heritage series, click here.

I actually returned to Ogimachi on the second day of my trip because I only managed to spend less than 3 hours of my first day there and it wasn't enough to explore The Open Air Museum. I had to leave for the other two World Heritage sites - Suganuma and Ainokura as there were only 4 buses operating a day that connects these 3 world heritage sites. Therefore, I decided that I could come back the next day.

Gassho-zukuri style Restaurants in front of the Open Air Museum

World Heritage Part 1: Shirakawago

World Heritage - Gassho-zukuri Houses in Shirakawago, Japan.

Hello everyone, finally I'm back. It's been 6 months since I've last posted here. I apologize for my missing in action. I've been very busy during the previous 6 months, preparing for my wedding as well as working on my new house renovation, furnishing and moving in just last December. So, finally everything is done and now i can get back to working on my blog again. The good news is, I've been taking pictures this 6 months, from Seoul in South Korea to Adelaide in Australia. I just need time to process those pictures and share them with you in this blog later.

Before I forget, Happy New Year everyone!! It's 2012 now. This year's new year weekend had been an exciting one for me, as I have finally traveled to one of the World Heritage sites in Japan - Shirakawago. It was more than 8 hours of travelling time from where I am, Kimitsu  town, which is located at the south of Tokyo. I actually wanted to visit this place at the end of year 2009, but cancelled the plan due to long travelling hours and expensive travelling cost. This is the second World Heritage sites in Japan that I have visited, after Nikko which I have visited twice in year 2009 and 2010.

Shirakawago viewed from Shiroyama Viewpoint

The Shirakawago and neighboring Gokayama regions line the Shogawa River Valley in the remote mountains that span from Gifu to Toyama Prefectures of Japan. They were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the year 1995, famous for their traditional gassho-zukuri farmhouses, some of which are more than 250 years old.

Another Evening in Singapore

Marina Bay Sands, Singapore [HDR]

If you have been following my tweets or is a fan of my facebook page, you probably knew that I went to Singapore again last Tuesday for an assignment in one of the petrochemical plant in Jurong Island, Singapore. And this time, I flew straight from my hometown, from Ipoh to Singapore. Do you know that Firefly of Malaysia Airlines fly between Ipoh and Singapore twice a day? Although it was a bumpy flight (turbo-propeller plane), it saved me plenty of time without having to travel to KLIA by taxi for a flight from the nation's international airport (minimum 3 hours ground travel from Ipoh to KLIA).

So I reached Singapore a lot earlier than I previously did, about 3.5 hours from home to the hotel room and guess what, I went on a photography outing that very evening, before I started working on the next day. This is odd as most of my previous photography outings were after the completion of my assignment.

Shibuya Night

At the busiest cross junction in Shibuya, Tokyo [HDR Picture]

After the previous posting of Sakura In Tokyo - Yasukuni Shrine, Shinjuku Gyoen & Inokashira Park article, I was busy reading, researching and learning about ways to improve and optimize this blog. If you have not noticed, the layout and sidebar arrangements of this blog have changed quite a bit. The loading time of the blog have improved, and of course, my favorite changes are the introduction of the header picture and Most Viewed This Week section. I hope you like them.

While doing studies about website optimization, I have also been exposed to some articles about internet marketing strategy, which includes the new FREE Newsletter Subscription Services that you see as an addition to my existing Menu Bar above. I have signed-up to an Email Marketing Company - MailChimp, and have learned about ways to manage my subscribers via emails. Those signup forms, confirmation emails and RSS Feed Emails were customized by myself. If you like my photography work here, why not sign up for my Free email subscription services? All you need to do is to enter your email address and verify the confirmation email sent to you. After that, all new articles (including new pictures) from this blog will be sent to your mailbox directly, without needing to even visit this website itself. To subscribe for free, click here.

Furthermore, the Google Adsense Advertisements on this blog have just been optimized to display more relevant ads on my blog and hopefully should get better in the next couple of weeks.

Alright, let's talk a little bit about the picture above. The picture featured in this articles was taken recently in January 2011 at one of the busiest cross junction in Shibuya, Tokyo. As stated on the caption of the picture, it was a High Dynamic Range Picture and was created from three (3) bracketed shots with different exposures. I have taken a lot of shots that day from this cross junction, and probably have spent more than an hour in that area. For this shot, I established my tripod by the side of the road and stood there for more than 30 minutes, waiting for the best moment to photograph (I remember there was a car stopping in front of my camera for almost 20 minutes, just to drop his wife to do some quick shopping and the car was there all time. However, I waited patiently for the car to leave and of course was cursing the driver for blocking my view inside me, hahaha). I hope you enjoyed this picture and since it is the only picture in this article, I hope your eyes will land longer on it, checking out every detail of the picture.

Do leave me any comments about the picture or even about the blog. It will even be better if you have suggestions that I can look into to optimize and improve this blog. I hope you enjoyed your time here.

Have a nice day!!

3rd Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta 2011

Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon Fiesta 2011

A few hours before I left Japan for Kuala Lumpur, I came across a friend's posting on Facebook about the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in Putrajaya, Malaysia which were held from the day I returned home on 17 March 2011 to the weekend. The timing was just right for me and since I have always wanted to photograph such a beautiful event, I had decided to stay back in Kuala Lumpur area for the weekend.

It was a Saturday morning, that I woke up as early as 6am to get ready for the event, which started with Hot Air Balloon Flight from 7am to 9am.

Hot air balloons getting ready to take off at sunrise

Kuala Lumpur International Airport - KLIA

How unpredictable, here I am, in KLIA. Got an urgent call from the manager yesterday at around 2.30pm, requesting me to attend to a customer site in Bintulu Malaysia ASAP, which the site was unable to startup the unit.

So, I got to the earliest flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bintulu (East Malaysia) on Malaysia Airlines (seems like it is the only flight to Bintulu today). Believe it or not, this will be my first time to East Malaysia.

Saw this rather unique view in the airport just now after finishing my McD breakfast. So, I quickly took out my camera with the 10-22mm ultra wide angle lens, took some bracketed shots and converted them to a HDR picture.

KLIA Departure Hall

Wish me luck for this assignment. Hope that I can help the customer to startup the unit as early as possible and return home.

How I HDR-ed my friends and family

Two years ago, I was in Dubai and I remember asking an Indian customer at site to wish me Happy Chinese New Year. Last year, I was lucky enough to have my re-union dinner with the family and have left for Japan in the morning of the first day of Chinese New Year. This year is the luckiest year of my field engineer career so far, being able to have a complete Chinese New Year celebration with the family, and of course not forgetting to attend several old friends reunion sessions.

I took the opportunity to take several snaps of my long lost friends in a reunion session 3 days ago. I couldn't resist HDR-ing my friends.

Old school friends HDR-ed

Traditional Osaka 大阪

Osaka Castle in HDR

A Japanese colleague visited this blog and was looking for more Osaka pictures when he clicked "Osaka" on the Label section of the blog. Well, here you go. More Osaka pictures.

Taiko Bashi Bridge in Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine, Osaka

Sometime in March 2010, I had a short assignment in Osaka, Japan. Upon completing the works at site, I returned to the hotel, did a quick search for must see places in Osaka on the internet, grabbed my camera and headed out. It was a very rare occasion to be on the western side of Japan as I am always assigned to sites around Tokyo only.

With a population of 2.5 million people, Osaka is Japan's third largest city. It was formerly known as Naniwa and was once the first known capital city of Japan. Despite visiting the city of Osaka, I had opted for the traditional side of Osaka in this short half day trip.

Narita Airport

I am not the kind of person who likes to take out my camera and shoot when I am in the airport. I just don't get the mood to photograph in such a place.

Yesterday morning, I was in Narita Airport Japan and while I was waiting to board the flight back to Kuala Lumpur for Lunar New Year celebration with the family, I saw this travellator in the airport that was rather empty and got the feeling that a shot with my ultra wide angle lens 10-22mm would make an interesting picture.

And here's what I got, after converting the 3 bracketed shots into a single HDR picture.

Narita Airport Terminal 2: Gate 91

What do you think? Post your comment below.

My HDR Technique Evolution

Due to the limitation of our camera, a regular picture can only present a limited dynamic range of luminance. In other words if you want a certain part of the picture to be correctly exposed, you will lose the exposure of some other section of the picture, either underexposing or overexposing it.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It is a photography post processing technique where one takes several pictures of the same object but with different exposures and combine them into one single picture with greater dynamic range of luminance between the darkest and lightest area in the picture. This way, you get most section of your picture correctly exposed. However, it will also make the picture look fake, not real to people, because this is not how a regular picture is supposed to look like. That is why not everyone appreciate HDR photography.

Putrajaya, HDR Post-Processing in January 2011

Putrajaya, HDR Processing in September 2009

The Original Shot back in September 2009