Last week during the Raya holidays, I decided to go on an impromptu trip to Ipoh whilst halfway munching down McDonald's big breakfast set. The idea was that I would follow Alex, Grace, Ivan and Mi Ghent up to Ipoh by car and take a train back to KL as I needed to pick my wife up from Pavilion in the evening. This was on the 2nd day of Raya and after a quick check online, there was an electric train service which will leave Ipoh at 3pm later that day.



The first issue came up, after calling KTM's ETS's hotline number, there was no answer at all. Of course I was worried that the train services were not running but by faith I decided to follow them up to Ipoh anyway. So I parked my car at Centerpoint in front of Starbucks where I know there will be plenty of people sitting down drinking coffee, hence I guess a thief would be less likely to steal the car in front of so many people.

By the time I arrived in Ipoh, we went about checking out several places, and then decided to buy my train ticket back. Prices were reasonable, at RM35 per one way ticket, the ride would take 2 hours to reach KL Sentral. Note that the time taken was longer because it wasn't the express train and there were several stops in between Ipoh and KL.

At the train station, I was greeted with 3 ticket counters and a small machine outside dispensing numbers. I took a number and then saw which number was being served at the moment. My heart sank, there were like a 100 more numbers to go before mine came up and at the current rate that they are going, I would probably have to wait 2 hours for my turn and probably miss the train completely!

A quick look around and check and with Ivan's help and a very extremely nice gentleman who gave me his number which was only 20 more numbers after the current one, I learned that one of the reasons for this slow service was the system which the staff used to book and dispense tickets. Seriously, I can 100% say that it wasn't the staff who were lazy but the system was really holding them back. Each time they keyed in the customer's request, it would take the system a good 3-5 minutes to process the request. Multiply that with 10 customers then you manage to either serve 10 customers in more or less an hour.

Apparently queues were the theme of the day. As we left the train station and I had gotten my ticket (yay! although I waited 40 minutes in line), Ivan brought us to one of the local restaurants where there was a huge crowd waiting to be served. It was already close to 2pm and I realised that everyone there were tourists (meaning those KL fellas), and everyone was just standing about waiting to grab the next available tables.

Anyway back to the topic on public transportation. I was rather determined to try it out fully today utilizing all sorts of methods except for the bus service because I am totally out of sync with the bus service that I will probably get REALLY REALLY lost in KL.

On the train, it was rather comfortable, the seats were adequate and there was enough leg room but the beauty of trains is that I get to walk around. They even had a 17" screen showing a movie which had no sound so all I could do was read the subtitles. When I got bored, I would take a walk to the cafeteria carriage and order a couple of snacks.

2 hours went by and my phone battery was dying thanks to Bejeweled and Facebook. I was quite restless by this point and decided to do a very "smart" thing (note the air quotes). Instead of going off at KL Sentral, and then taking a monorail to Bukit Bintang, I decided to drop off at the old KL Station (where Heritage Hotel used to be) and take a cab to Pavilion instead.

Boy was that a big mistake, you see, the old KL station now was rather dead. Maybe because it could be the 2nd day of Raya and there were absolutely NO taxi's available. I walked to the main road, flagged down a taxi where the driver told me that it would cost me RM20 without the use of the meter to get to Pavilion. Talk about highway robbery (it was literally on the highway though!).

So I took out my phone, turned on Google Maps and started trying to path a way to Pavilion or to the nearest monorail station. This was what I found.



And you know what? That was the exact route I had to walk because there were very little pedestrian pathways and walkways. There wasn't even a pedestrian crossing at all so I had to walk through various weird routes to reach the monorail station. By the time I reached the station, I was completely drenched in sweat and the cool aircon in the monorail trains were a great sigh of relieve.

So the cost for the trip to Pavilion was RM1.60 and of course a bit of extra time it took me to get to the stations and to walk to Pavilion as well. Oh well, I did save a bit more cash on that.

As of right now, my cost to travel from Ipoh to Pavilion in Kuala Lumpur is RM35 + Rm1.60 which brings it to a grand total of RM36.60

On the way back home to PJ, I was running a little late so we decided to take a cab from Pavilion and this is where our image gets hurt very badly. Every taxi demanded their own fare WITHOUT the use of the meter. At the end, after negotiating with 6 taxi drivers, the fare was RM50.

Now that is really called highway robbery. I don't blame the taxi drivers, seriously. It's because they can't get individual taxi licenses that they have to go through taxi companies and then on top of that they have to pay for the LNG cost (liquefied natural gas) as well as the cost to rent the cars that on some days, they make a loss because they can't cover their daily costs.

So who are the people who give out these licenses?

Why can't taxi drivers get their own licenses?

Damn we are no where close to Singapore's public transportation.

Have you registered yourself to vote yet?

I have to personally thank Nick for asking me to tag along with him during his portrait shoot with Bobby and Rennie. Nick was one of the participants of the recently held got Mojo? Camp organized by the crazy folks over at RedNinja (me included!) and I thought I could help him out and also offer to carry the reflector for him. He was also in the group that I was leading during the individual and group challenges.

The shoot was held at Pavillion, right at the heart of KL itself but it was early in the morning. Traffic heading there was pretty smooth and I was pleasantly surprised that the guards didn't chase us away.

Here are some of the photos I took including some of the behind the scenes shots.





I managed to catch this moment when they were playing whilst Nick was packing up his stuff.







After staying under the hot sun and making everyone walk about from end to end, we all decided to head to Starbucks for a quick drink.











Bobby seems a little intrigued with Nick's flash. Nick told him that he was a flasher!



Here are some of the behind the scenes photos.



I find Bobby's expression priceless when Nick was trying to explain the pose.



Nick was really trying hard to blend in together with the taxi stand.







I was literally behind the scene for this shot. Funnily, the couple in front wasn't Bobby and Rennie, they were just coming out of the toilet! Imagine their surprise when they saw Nick and Hsien Ming right in front of them like that. LOL.





Actually, this was the start of my labour day last Saturday. It's Thursday everyone, have a great weekend ahead!

I spent my birthday which was on the 5th of February at Joe McNally's workshop here in KL a couple of weeks back. This is of course thanks to Louis from Wedshooter as well as the Wedshooter team who made it all happen. The workshop was a hands-on as well as a full day course which grouped 15 photographers on a Friday in Shangri-La in KL to learn about lighting and get to know Joe a little better.

In case you do not know who Joe McNally is, Joe is the most amazing photographer I have met and you might have probably seen most of his work on the cover of the National Geographic magazine. He is also the author of two amazing books, "The Moment it Clicks" and the more recent "The Hot Shoe Diaries".

When I got wind that Joe was coming to KL, I was quite excited but a little hesitant as well as I thought that the workshops were going to cost a bomb. Frankly, it was a big sum for me but it was an investment for me. The best part was that I managed to schedule the workshop on the same day as my birthday! (Joe had five 1-day workshops here spanning from the 1st of Feb till the 5th of Feb).

Here is Louis introducing himself as well as Wedshooter.TV before introducing the man of the day.

Joe started off the session with some quick introduction about himself as well as his assistance, Drew Gurian. He then went on to get to know each of us and asked us what are our expectations for this workshop. This was good start I felt as I managed to see who the other participants were. There were of course familiar faces in the group as well.



Friends in the photography industry such as Ian, Shen, Edwin, Hafiz and Gabriel were also attendees of the workshop. Funnily, Joe mentioned that our group was the only all guy group. I can see the testosterone levels shooting up, I guess the mix and the environment was a lot more different compared to this workshop. Look at all the female participants there!

Louis, listening intently to the participants as they introduced themselves

That's Drew over there!

After the rounds of introduction, Joe shared with us some of his videos as well as showed some of his latest work which was absolutely incredible and amazing. What made me smile was that he also had a couple of photos in his portfolio which was shot using available light which was what I normally do. Joe then mentioned that he himself also continued to learn by attending workshops such as the recent one where he attended Jay Maisel's workshop in NY.



At every workshop which Joe teaches, he carries with him lots of gears. And when I mean lots, I really mean lots! Frankly I didn't take the rest as there are way too many equipment about to capture it all. But what he had prepared for us included around 16 flashes for us to use, an array of Justin clamps and battery packs, Lastolite softboxes and many many more.

I spy the Twin Towers in the LCD screen of Joe's Nikon D3s

The workshop began with Joe showing us the various equipment that were about in the workshop and then teaching us on how to use them and what the effects of using these equipment would do to an image. After trying out several shots indoor using both a white and black background, we proceeded outdoors to learn more about light shaping tools there.

We also had a journalist in our midst, Jan Shim, hailing from Brunei who was covering the workshop

Then we moved indoors for another shoot again. This time it was in a service corridor where Joe showed us how to use our surroundings to create an amazing shot. Of course Ian had to pose for the shot as he would normally do.

Then we headed out again. Here we have Joe's camera setup to tether on his MacBook Pro which was very helpful for us participants.

We even had fantastic props to use as backdrops and for our models to pose with. I wish!

After an intense session of learning how to use various light shaping tools as well as understand various light placements, the group adjourned for lunch.

More photos from the workshop as well as our own personal shoots coming soon!

Here are some of the behind the scenes shots which Mun Tzin took when I photographed Poh Seong and Chiu Yen's portraiture session at Heritage hotel last year. Last year sounds like a long time but then again, its only January :)





She was playing with my other camera whilst I was shooting the couple. She was also quite intrigued with the bath tubs that were located on the roof of Heritage hotel that she was bugging me to take a picture of her in the tub. Of course I obliged but I took a very quick shot of her.

[caption id="attachment_1425" align="aligncenter" width="852" caption="Mun Tzin in a tub"][/caption]

Thanks again @munz for helping me out that day :)

When Chiu Yen contacted me via email about a portrait shoot, I've always been communication with her. The moment when I arrived at the shoot location, I was so surprised that Poh Seong was there as well. What a small world! Poh Seong is my neighbour and I used to go to the same high school as his younger brother.

After a couple of weeks of planning the shoot and finally the location, we met in KL at the Heritage Hotel for our portrait session.

I was really looking forward to this shoot and here are some of the images that I took during the shoot.

























It was one of the fun shoots that I had and it was great to have been able to shoot both Chiu Yen and Poh Seong. I also have to thank @munz for helping me out throughout the day. She took some behind the scenes shots as well but I haven't gotten around to posting them up yet.