CK Photography

It was the night of the opening ceremony of Singapore’s $600 million Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay on 12 Oct 2002. The media had mentioned that there will be spectacular fireworks for this event. A whole lot of photographers including myself have gathered at the Merlion Bridge early, pointing their cameras towards the Esplanade building. Being the opening ceremony of the Esplanade, we all thought that the fireworks would thus be centered around that area.

When the time came, to our horror, the fireworks were fired from the marina bay side, somewhere where the Marina Bay Sands now stand. Everybody including myself scrambled to find a new composition. There are now a lot of obstruction from the audience in front of me now, so I had to make the best of it. End the end, I included the silhouettes of the audience into the picture, and used the merlion as the middle ground and fired off a few shots. This is one of the better ones.

Fireworks light up the sky during the opening ceremony of the Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore.

Lesson learnt: Always be alert to what’s happening around you during a shoot so that you can react fast enough. Find alternative compositions (quickly!) if your intended one did not work out. If you can, try to find out more about the event and what’s going to be happening and where before going down.

I also met an old classmate who is also a photography enthusiast during this shoot. This event had one of the best fireworks I’ve ever seen in Singapore, even till today. The photographs probably won’t do it justice.

With bigger bookstores and new magazines all around the country, we seldom get to see the traditional magazine stalls anymore. But here in Little India, there are still some around. The books and magazines are neatly spread out on the table, and more are hung from clotheslines at the top. This makes for a colourful picture.

Traditional Indian Magazine Stall

The owner gamely posed for a shot, even pulling his friend into the shot as well. Pretty friendly people. I decided to try a B&W conversion for this, which I think turned out pretty well.

The owner of the magazine stall and his friend poses for a photograph.

Another kind of stall which is quickly disappearing thanks to the growing number of convenience stalls all around the island are these “hole in the wall” shops. Instead of a full “shop”, the owner basically runs the entire stall out of a section of a wall, taking up very minimal space. They sell a wide variety of things from cigarettes to toiletries to tidbits. All from that little space.

"Hole in the wall" shop in Little India.

With the rapid urbanisation of Singapore, all these scenes will soon be history. Go see them and take some photos while you are there, before they become permanently gone.

Located at the edge of Fisherman’s Wharf is Pier 39, a shopping district and a tourist attraction.

Pier 39 flags

Pier 39 is known for the Californian sea lions hauled out on the docks of the marina. Not having a very long lens on my Panasonic Lumix LX3, I can only get this far, and that’s with some cropping.

Californian Sealions at Pier 39

There’s a shopping area within Pier 39, which offers shopping and restaurants as well as views of the city.

The shopping district at Pier 39, with the Coit Tower and Transamerica Pyramid in the background.

Coit Tower and Transamerica Pyramid as seen from Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf.

There’s also a merry-go-round for the kids.

Merry-go-round

Many boats are docked at the marina at Pier 39.

Boats at Pier 39's marina

Boats at Pier 39's marina

At the end of the pier, you can see the island of Alcatraz, once used as a prison but is now a national recreation area of San Francisco. Again, due to the limits of my zoom range, this is all I have.

Alcatraz Island

Some shots from the Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, a very popular tourist destination. The Boudin Bakery, famous for its sourdough bread, is situated here. The nice San Francisco weather makes for a good alfresco dining experience, unlike in hot and humid Singapore.

Alfresco lunch @ Boudin Bakery, well known for its sourdough bread.

Sourdough bread in various shapes and sizes made by the Boudin Bakery.

There are many buskers located throughout Fisherman’s Wharf, giving their performance in return for some tips. Here we have a group of steel drum performers.

Steel Drum Performers @ Fisherman's Wharf

Nearer to Pier 39, these pair of skeletons entertain the tourists by dancing and letting them take pictures with them for a fee.

Skeletons

Many seagulls can be seen at Fisherman’s Wharf. This one is perched on the top of an electrical box.

Seagull

And this group of seagulls attempt to cross the road.

Seagulls Crossing

One of the most interesting modes of transport in San Francisco is the cable car system. Although they look like trams, they are actually pulled along by cables beneath the road and controlled by the gripman onboard. The gripman controls a grip lever to grip or release the cable and thus controls whether the cable car moves or stops.

Cable Car Gripman

Cable Car approaching the Lombard Street stop

At the 2 end points of a particular cable car route, there are “turnarounds”, which is basically a large wooden turntable which lets the cable car turn around 180° and return to the other end. At this point, the conductor and gripman gets out of the cable car and pushes it almost a full turn.

At the Powell-Hyde turnaround, a tap dancer keeps everyone entertained. This makes the long queue a bit more bearable. I couldn’t film more of it as the queue had to move on and I can no longer get a good angle.

Best known for a landscaped section of 8 sharp turns, Lombard Street is also known as the “crookedest street in the world”. According to wikipedia, this “born out of necessity in order to reduce the hill’s natural 27% grade, which was too steep for most vehicles to climb.”

The crooked section of Lombard Street, consisting of 8 sharp turns.

The view from the top of the crooked section of Lombard Street. The Coit Tower and the Bay Bridge are visible in the background.

Lombard Street as seen from the top of the crooked section.

No visit to San Francisco is complete without a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge, so here are some shots.

Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Vista Point South.

Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Vista Point South.

Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Vista Point North.

Horseshoe Bay

One of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge

The weather in San Francisco is a nice 15-20°C with plenty of sunshine, which unlike Singapore, makes it possible to just relax on the grass. This would have been unbearable in the hot and humid Singapore weather. Here’s the people relaxing on the grounds of Washington Square in front of the St. Peter and Paul Church.

People relaxing at the Washington Square in front of the St. Peter and Paul's Church in San Francisco.

The route to the Coit Tower, situated on top of Telegraph Hill, was a rather tiring one, due to San Francisco’s many slopes. The following pic does not really show it, though. After getting to the end of this street, there’s still the small hill to climb. The nice cool weather made all this much better. I didn’t really break a sweat though I was huffing and puffing by the time I was at the base of the tower.

Coit Tower as seen from the intersection of Grant and Greenwich Streets.

The top of the tower offers great views of the city.

View from the Coit Tower in San Francisco showing the TransAmerica Pyramid and other buildings in the financial district.

View from Coit Tower showing the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in the background.

The top of the Coit Tower is actually open, and makes for an interesting shot against the cloudless blue sky.

Coit Tower Wall

On the way down, I thought this view of the car park would make a nice shot.

Coit Tower Car Park

Well, the people at sfhaps certainly thought so, and featured this pic on their site.

Sometimes, when you arrive at a location to shoot something, you find that the light isn’t right, or some other things can go wrong. For example, when I joined a city tour of Sydney when I was there years ago, I arrived at the lookout point near the Mrs Macquarie’s Chair with the light in the wrong direction. This is supposed to be one of the best locations to shoot the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge but in my case, it’s severely backlit. The sun also appears in the frame, making things worse.

I suddenly had the idea of hiding the sun behind the trees, and underexposing the scene to silhouette the 2 icons of Australia. The result turned out pretty good. The starburst caused by the lens’s aperture blades is an added bonus. This has become one of my favourite shots.

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

What a pleasant surprise when I saw @jobyinc‘s status update on Twitter that one of my pics from a recent trip have been featured in their latest blog post.

I’ve always found the GorillaPod Original to be extremely useful when paired with my Panasonic Lumix LX3. It often lets me take pictures which are otherwise not possible without lugging a full tripod.

Thanks to Joby Inc for making this great product.

Suria KLCC at Dusk, shot with the Panasonic Lumix LX3 mounted on a GorillaPod Original