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bali

My first mountain

And it’s Mount Batur in Bali. I didn’t go all the way to the peak, but this view was pretty much good enough for me, for now. I have to say, I really enjoyed the climb and am hoping to do more of these hikes.

Sunrise at Mount Batur, Bali.






The great leap forward!

I see them in videos all the time. But seeing so many of them in real life in the wild… woohoo!!:D

Dolphin pod at Lovina beach, Bali






The familiar arch over the water

I took a short trip to Bali last month to check out some of the less traveled places. Here’s something that I’ve longed to see. My next dream is to be able to swim with them in the wild. On my last day there, we saw about a hundred of them around our boat. Such a wonderful feeling.






Two firsts!

… as in first time!:D

The first is a Honorable Mention for an underwater photo for the 2012 International Photography Awards. Many thanks to William Chua who have been telling me that I should submit my underwater images for the competition. It took more than afew reminders and encouragement from him for me to eventually do it. Thanks dude!! I know I’m a slackball like that. Will try to do better the next time round!

The shot was taken in Tulamben, Bali during one of my dive trips. I spent 4 days in Tulamben and mostly dived with my macro lens at the wreck. On the last day, I decided I would go with a wide angle lens to capture the jacks. I planned a dawn dive with the divemaster and told her to leave me with the jacks at 5 meters while she brought my friend down further to check out Pygmy seahorse. I spent a good 1 hour with the jacks and they put up a beautiful performance with the rising sun  that left me mesmerized. When I surfaced, I told myself, that was the most amazing dive I’ve ever had and the photos were a bonus. I have a 5 foot print of this on canvas hanging in my living room now. It’s a reminder of the beautiful things that exists in the ocean.

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2012 International Photography Awards Announces Winners of the Competition

Buan Sen Tan was awarded in the International Photography Awards Competition. International Photography Awards (IPA) has announced the winners of 2012’s competition.

Buan Sen Tan was Awarded: Honorable Mention in Nature – Underwater category for the winning entry “Schooling Jacks.”

ABOUT Winner:

ABOUT IPA:
The 2012 International Photography Awards received nearly 18,000 submissions from 104 countries across the globe. IPA is a sister-effort of the Lucie Foundation, where the top three winners are announced at the annual Lucie Awards gala ceremony. The Foundation’s mission is to honor master photographers, to discover new and emerging talent and to promote the appreciation of photography. Since 2003, IPA has had the privilege and opportunity to acknowledge and recognize contemporary photographer’s accomplishments in this specialized and highly visible competition. Visit www.photoawards.com

Contact:
Buan Sen Tan:
wansheng@feldberyl.com
http://www.feldberyl.com

IPA Contact

Jade Tran
Competition Director
International Photography Awards
jtran@iawardsinc.com

 

Honorable Mention in Nature – Underwater category for the winning entry “Schooling Jacks.”

And for the sake of it… the “winner’s seal” as they call it.

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This is my first submission for ISPWP contest. It’s a portal for wedding photographers and I’m glad to have a placing for the first time. Lucky 13th.

Oh… and if you wonder why the difference in name. Well, I belong the confused generation where they switched hanyu pinyin name to dialect names. I still face that identity crisis now.






Bali-Komodo Dive and Surf and Recharge

This trip wasn’t even under my radar until I met Jim (whom we knew through my last lembeh trip) for lunch a week ago. I told him I wanted to go on a dive trip this week but have not booked anything yet because layang layang was full, gorontalo was off season. So it was down to Cebu and raja ampat (which cost quite a bomb). Then he mentioned Komodo and I vaguely remembered rave reviews from divers I’ve met on trips previously. The only dates I was available was on the black manta, which took us out on a 5 day liveaboard around the island of Komodo. I was offered a deal to share the bunk with another diver, which greatly reduced the cost of the trip. That’s actually one of the main reasons for picking this over a land based trip to Cebu. Within 3 days, I was on my flight to bali which I stayed for a night before taking another flight to labuan Bajo.

Labuan Bajo is a sleepy fishing village that is not touristy at all. Instead of taking a day tour to the waterfalls and caves, i opted for a self exploratory trip down the town and the village. By dusk, i was lying beside the pool enjoying the first of many awesome Komodo sunset. The next day, a taxi took me to black manta’s rendezvous point from golo hilltop resort. After a short boat transfer, i was onboard the pretty impressive mv black manta. It was way bigger and better than my expectations. From the dive deck all the way to the cabin, everything was very well thought out. My first impression was, this boat was ‘designed by divers, for divers’. Thanks to its steel hull, its incredibly stable too.

Cedric, the trip director, gave us a very detailed briefing before we set off to our very first dive site. Check out dive #1, we jumped in and landed on a turtle (it was a few meters below) and the first critter we saw, two lembeh sea dragons! A very good way begin the trip even though I didn’t fire a single shot because I brought an empty housing for the check dive. Overall the dives were pretty good with a mix of macro and pelagics. The marine life is very healthy with alot of reef fishes and corals on every dive. The more memorable dives were in crystal rock, castle rock, manta alley, pink beach (night dive) and shotgun.

Before we began our trip, I asked Cedric what was there to see at Castle Rock and Crystal Rock (both being the first two real dives of the trip). He said, crystal rock is like heaven with beautiful corals and colorful reef fishes. Castle Rock on the other hand, is like hell, where all the feeding action was. However, Crystal rock was memorable for the wrong reasons as we got caught in massive current after missing a narrow sweet spot upon entry. There were times you know you can swim really hard against the current and there were times where you know you don’t event stand a chance fighting. This was one of them and our first taste of the notorious currents in Komodo. We were battered so badly and eventually seeked refuge at a small plateau looking at reef fishes instead of the supposedly pelagic actions. That said, one of the groups managed to get to the end of the rock and had a visual feast on some shark action.

From our lesson learned at crystal rock, we handled castle Rock alot better. With a quick negative entry, we were able to get to where the action was. White tip sharks patrol the reef outcrop with plenty of marine life. It was definitely an eye feast. The reef hook was deployed and it worked really well under those conditions, freeing up my hands for the camera. After the dive, I told Cedric, I very much prefer hell:D Shotgun was supposed to sort of a drift dive through a rocky formation, unfortunately or fortunately, the currents were not really strong on that dive. But the rocky formations were really pretty. It felt like we were swimming through some underwater castle and expecting to hit the “shotgun” spot anytime. I’m sure Cedric’s awesome pre-dive briefing has got something to do with it.

Our first step into Komodo island was on pink beach. On that small sandy stretch of sand, one could see a pinkish hue under the late afternoon sun. Thanks to the small pink particles that were washed from the sea. The night dive at pink beach was spectacular. It’s a white sand muck dive site with extremely rich marine life. Among usual shrimps and crabs, we also found juvenile hairy frog fishes as well as some variation of the hairy shrimp.

I’m not sure if they deliberately put manta alley on the last day. If they did, the mantas must’ve heard their prayers. Sea was calm with manageable currents (by Komodo’s standards). The manta’s were out to party with no lesser than 12-15 of them. Some were really huge with wing spans easily exceeding 6m. I propped myself against a bare rocky outcrop and watched them circle right in front of me, sometimes coming within touching distances. As we explored the Site, mantas tend to appear from nowhere, sometimes slowing down to check us out. Manta alley impressed us enough to warrant another dive on the same site. It was as amazing as the first. Can’t ask for more for the final dive of the trip. There were manta sightings at almost every depth that we were on.

Finally, we wrapped up the trip with a visit to the Komodo national park where we did some trekking and ‘dragon hunting ‘. They were shy on this day as we only saw 2 of them. we saw more wooden ones than real ones at the souvenir shop. Did our final night at the Harbour of labuan Bajo and we reluctantly accepted the fact that this trip had came to an end. For me, this trip opened up new opportunities for further adventures around this region.

While I did not take as many images as I thought I would, I think it’s not a bad thing. Slowing down allows me to think and if the subject does not present a good opportunity for me to get a good picture, I pass. Maybe it has something to do with age.

Some lessons learned over the trip.

– pack as light as you can. It’s not everyday that you can convince airport staff that 16kg carry ons are OK for small domestic planes.

– buy equipments earlier so you can zhng them nicely before getting into the water. It’s not funny when you can’t find a place to hook up your accessories on your new bcd.

– maybe lighter fins and strobes will be helpful if I intend to do such trips more often.

As for surfing in Bali.  I’m too old for nothing, I just need more practice than the younger folks, which means, more trips:) I took up surfing lessons at the Billabong Surf School over my 3 day stop in Bali. It’s great detox time away from home and office. I spent most my time in the hotel room, trying to catch up with news and whatever ‘air time ‘ lost in Komodo. The rest of the time were either spent walking by the beach during sunset or sleeping.

Here are some of the land images from this trip. You can find the underwater images here.

3’s a family and someone’s fuming:D

The pyramids of Kuta

Click to see more (image intensive) Read more…






A relatively long break from work

Holidays have never been more enjoyable with my new toy. After owning it for more than a month, I’m loving it more and more. It’s definitely a big change from the way a DSLR operates, but I love it. From the weight, the size right down to the image quality. With Lightroom’s latest support for it’s raw files, it makes the whole process of photography from shooting to post processing even sweeter. There are some minor quirks with the camera, but the pros outweigh the cons. I hope Fuji will fix them with some firmware updates in the future. For now, it’s my favorite travel and walkabout camera. In fact, some of the previous posts were shot with the X-Pro 1, including some of those shot during the By Elections. Falling in love with photography all over again.

Sunset at Kuta beach, Bali – Taken with Fujifilm X-Pro 1






Bali shorts

Was around in Bali couple of months back for a short getaway. Good food, good rest, and took whatever came along. Here are some images from the trip.

A rainbow during a morning walk. The locals told me it’s a common sight. I thought it was a magical sight. Now I know they live in a magical land.

A temple at Ubud.

Monkey clan.

Monkey clan 2. Taken at the Monkey Forest in Ubud.

Feeding frenzy by the tourists.

Love this moment between the two.

Eat, Drink, Monkey.

They are everywhere. The moment  you put your hands into the bag, they’ll rush towards you, believing that you have something edible in your bags. Sometimes, you don’t even know where they came from. In this forest, your every move is watched.

The comic clouds.

Cactus on the rocks.

A couple enjoying the sea breeze while the rest of the people waits for the waves to recede before crossing the small channel between the rocks.

Apart.

Cliff hanger.

 A couple who walked into my frame. I shot, I showed them and emailed it to them. Sometimes, things just happen.

 






re…

…a drop of golden sun.