With my SWC round the Petronas Towers

For my recent Kuala Lumpur trip I took with me my Hasselblad SWC from 1978 additional to the Canon DSLR. I brought a tripod (Gitzo Traveler) too and only one film back for the SWC with an Ilford HP5+ already loaded with some shots already done long time ago and two new Ilford FP4+ films.

I used the SWC on two days around the Petronas Towers, which are clearly a hot spot for extreme wide angle lenses. On the first day I shot the remaining frames of the HP5+, which is a 400 ASA film and in the bright KL sun this resulted in high apertures even hand held. Two of the results you will find here, not as grainy as I thought, but still.

 

 

Second day with the much slower (125 ASA) Iford FP4+, this time I used the tripod, therefore high apertures too and longer shutter speeds were possible.

All negatives are scanned here in Jungmuro professional, I get files with 8700 x 8700 pixels and about 200 MB. I edit them in Photoshop Elements and for internet use I compress to 3600 x 3600 pixels. Sharpness is still amazing IMHO.

 

Since some time I like to play with digital Sepia toning, herewith a few results. 

Petronas Twin Towers

One of the most significant skyscrapers in the world, currently position is No. 9 in the list of the tallest buildings worldwide. When I saw it first in 2001, it was No. 1 and kept this position till the Taipei 101 in 2004.

Of course one of the most photographed buildings in the world too.

as seen from my hotel room

as seen by smartphone

as seen by 15mm fisheye lens

backside of Suria KLCC, the shopping mall

Further readings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas_Towers

http://pcparch.com/project/petronas-towers/detail

http://www.emporis.com/statistics/worlds-tallest-buildings

Tropical beauty

Kuala Lumpur is a colourful blend of old British colonial influences, multi-Asian traditions, Malay Islamic and natural religion inspirations, modern and postmodern lifestyle mix. A busy town with trendy high-level architecture and outmoded two-storeyed residential areas. Countless elegant skyscrapers where ever you look. Architects from the entire world worked there and created buildings with impressing glass and steel shells, the most prominent example being the outstanding Petronas Towers. Life is busy floating through, business rolls on and times are changing fast.

But still it is a purely tropical town. Moving around a corner even in the very middle of the city centre, you unforeseen can find a vivid and wild variety of growing trees and bushes. An old wall can transmute into an own opulent world of wonderful vivid structures of unknown meaning for a western eye. Plenty of little creatures as ragtag birds and candy-striped squirrels live there and unknown kinds of insects and spiders. They know much better the hidden denotations of all these arms and branches, these mixtures and amalgamations of boughs, roots and creeping plants. They know all the exact routs between them and up and down to go. All I am reverential able is to be astonished and impressed about this utterly treasure of tropical beauty.

you have to look a little bit closer ...

and a little bit more closer ...

Central Market KL

As mentioned before I met Victor C. P. Tan first in Penang. His shop in Chulia Road was called 'Pen Antique' and I first thought, it would be a pen shop. I collected fountain pens in that time and was happy to find quickly an appropriate shop. The P. in Victor's name means Pen, therefore 'Pen Antique'. 

Very soon I found out the real kind of the shop and very fast Victor and I became friends. I spent a lot of my leisure time in his shop and I learned a lot from him.

Victor's shop in Chulia Road, Penang. The photo is from March 2002 and the bicycle is mine, a Malaysian 'Rolex'.

Victor is a keen musician too.

Victor's new shop in the Central Market.

The Central Market, built in 1888 by the British, has got many expansions since that time and should have been demolished in the 1970s. The intervention of the Malaysian Heritage Society proved timely as they successfully petitioned against its deconstruction and the site was declared as a 'Heritage Site'. Now the two-storey Central Market is surrounded by many small shops and has since 2006 an Annexe, which houses art galleries, theatre and music performance spaces.  

Outside shops along the Central Market.

One of the many restaurants in the Central Market, great Baba Nonja food.

Further reading and sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Market,_Kuala_Lumpur

http://www.centralmarket.com.my/