Sekinchan Revisit

May 25, 2013, I woke up at dawn, a Saturday morning in a quiet moment, still feeling sleepy and in half dreaming stage, I dragged my feet from my loving bed, washed up, leaving house, joined my photo-buddies to re-visit the Sekinchan.

Sekinchan, a small town in Selangor, it was popularized because there have many paddy fields and nearby has a fishing village. Every weekend, many photo enthusiasts came all the way from Kuala Lumpur for photo shooting. Some came and enjoy the fresh air, viewing the magnificent greenery paddy plantation and experiencing life in a small town.

This is an awesome place for a weekend relaxation and photo shooting. Oh yah, not forgetting to mention, many came for the craving of food because here you can find some delicious Sekinchan Seafood.

This time, I felt lack of energy and excitement, maybe, I have visited place already, or could be the hot sun, feeling lack of inspiration, nevertheless, I managed to capture a few nice photos.

Hahaha, 

Yah ! Yah! blame the hot sun !!! Is too hot to stay under the sun to do shooting ....

Yah ! Yah! blame not having a filter lens that cut down the lighting to my photo ....

Kakakakaka!! I called this "Blaming Mentality"

The Paddy Fields

The above photos were using Nikon FM + Film Lomo Xpro 100, this roll of film gave a lomography feel with high grainy background. Initially I don't like the grainy, is just too much!! I am so use to the clear images of digital camera. Many people emphasizes on clarity, sharpness and low noise photography. Some commented photo with grainy is no nice due to the noise.

However, after seeing it for while. Ah yah, not so bad mah!! (爱面!!) ... I kind of living the feel of grainy in the photo, very unusual. I tuned the colour toward a bit of dynamic, increasing the contrast and walah!! I think the results were just great.

The Fishing Village

The fishing village at Sekinchan is a must to visit place. After having a heavy seafood lunch, some where near seafood eateries, you can walk into the fishing village at the side alley. Many boatmen parked their boats there. If your timing is right, you can find them busy sorting out their daily catches, some just lay there to relax, some busy in repairing their broken nets. People are friendly, they don't mind you taking their photos. But, we must show some courtesy to them, give them a smile and they will smile back to you ... simple, right?

Although I don't feel "high" about the trip, but I do appreciate the company of my photo-buddies. After days of stressful works, is good to have some friends to chi-chat and enjoy each other company.

Group Photo is my favorite part. We enjoy the moment and we like to show off different poses to self-entertain ourselves. We enjoy looking back those photos. Hahahahah !!

I called Syok Sendiri!!

 

Photo taken by Yeow's camera ... photographer, Boarderless's girl friend.

The Beach

There is a beach near the fishing village at Sekinchan, this beach is not suitable for swimming, the sea water goes very far end during low tide. The sea water is uncleared due to the contamination by large population living at the surrounding area. The beach was dirty because uncivil-minded people simply throw rubbish here and there. It is hard sickening to see garbage everywhere. When can Malaysian acquired the cleanliness attitude.

This place is becoming tourist spot and you can find many hawkers selling food stuffs such as juices, ice cream, food and many more.

You can find two wooden tree houses at the beach. Netting was bundle up surrounding the tree branches, you may lay down on the netting for relaxation. the breeze will make you feel super relax and sleepy.

Zzzzzz ... Don't feel like moving ....

Photo taken by Jamie

It was fun to see some teenagers doing a jump shot. The guy was using an iphone to capture the shot, they have tried many attempts but failed to get the right shot. ... It is very hard to get a good shot using hand phone because phone camera shutter speed is too slow to freeze the jumping moment ... hahaha, with a proper camera that I have ...

Click!

I got their jump shot with just one attempt!! 

After a "Hard Day Work" at Sekinchan!!

We returned home before the sunset with great satisfaction ....

A Visit to Sekinchan - Part 2

Fishing Village at Sekinchan is equally famous as compare to the paddy fields, many residents at Sekinchan started as fishermen, over the years, from a small fishing village slowly turned into a larger township. This place is famous with quality seafood due to the freshness. I believe many people willing to travel miles to enjoy the food here especially weekend.

I think the above restaurant is famous because at least I see this guy poster here, Ah Sien, a famous TV host who always recommend good food in Malaysia. Will he be the quality assurance? I am not so sure but at least he is the "San Chew Pai" now for the restaurant .... hahaha

Well, we were not sure what food to eat, so we asked the owner to recommend a few famous dishes. For me, I thought the food was good, however, not as good as I expected. 

Until I tried the stir fried shrimp with sambal which was super tasty. Emm ... yummy, but the only complaint was the small portion.

I think sometime, food is not the critical factor for happiness, but rather a good company having lunch together is the best. We were like a bunch of hungry ghosts, within a short period of time, we wallop all food on the table .... 

Second part of our journey began after a heavy lunch, It was just a short walk from the restaurant. When we walked along the river bank, we spotted many fishing boats were parked at the wooden jetty. Some fishermen gathering there to relax but some were busy fixing their fishing nets. The weather was hot and feeling sleepy but it was awesome site for photo shooting ... shutter sounds were clicking away to capture the authentic scenery of a quiet and harmonious fishing village.

 

Wow, everyone there was so relax. The folks were friendly and approachable. They are not camera shy and won't mind us taking their photos. 

Before we went back to Kuala Lumpur, we went to nearby beach. To be honest, Sekinchan beach is not fantastic, in fact is rather dirty and muddy. I didn't see anyone swimming. The ocean wave went very far during low tide. It was kind of dirty when the seabed surface from the water. 

We found an unique double story tree house at the beach. The tree house is very unique, many netting were fixed in between tree branches, so it was great to lay down and enjoy the windy breeze from the sea .... 

Look how enjoy I am seated on the nets to have a short relaxation ..... wow ... like heaven woh ..

We saw a few kids playing at the beach ...... My friends went down to "kacau" (disturb) them and to take their photo, luckily they are friendly enough and did not treat us as "strange uncle （怪叔叔）" and freed away.

hahahaha ...

run run ... quickly run, behind got 怪叔叔 (strange uncle) ... run for your life  .....  wakakakaka (evil laughing )

hahaha ... but at the end, we are the one who are runaway from those kids because of their over whelming curiosity and hospitality, the kids kept surrounding us to check out our camera gears ... uncle ... uncle  ... what is this? ..... uncle uncle .... can you take a photo of me .... uncle, uncle ....  can I touch your camera .... uncle ........ oh .. run !!

Photo taken by Koon Yik

Before we leave the place, we saw a married couple taking outdoor photo shooting ... our Wedding Photographer Robin Wong, quickly took his camera to check on what his competitor was doing ....

 

  

No matter how fun is it, toward the end, time to say farewell  .... it was a fun trip for me. It was tough for me to follow my friends who used to travel to many places on Saturday for photo shooting due to my work commitment. Well, whenever timing is right, I will try my best of not letting go the opportunity to go out with them. 

They are simply awesome group, fun to hand around with and stress free group of people. .....

Good bye Sekinchan, time to go home ..... Home sweet home ...... I will come back to visit you again :)

A Visit to Sekinchan - Part 1

Wow, let me see .... I think my latest (and first) visit to Sekinchan was last year December 2011. I always wanted to write a blog about Sekinchan and to share some photos taken during the trip ... because of my bad habit - procrastination, waited until now I still haven't start ....

Well, "better late then never" .... I guess it is right. At least I am not like somebody else just talk only but no action. (hahaha, who is this somebody ? If you want to match the seat go ahead ( 对号入座。。。) hee hee hee !!

It was an early sunny Saturday, a group of friends car pooling to drive to Sekinchan, it was a pleasant journey, we chit chat and gossiping about everything and the most talked about was not girls but our favorite topic..... camera and photography.

Sekinchan is a photographer's heaven, if you type Sekinchan in Google search, you would probably get hundreds thousands of photo about this place. Sekinchan is well known with paddy fields. I believe the paddy fields have the best advance farming methods in Malaysia because of the high quality and high yield of rice per sq ft as compare to many places in Malaysia. It is easy for outsiders like us to drive around because of its complete inner tar road in the paddy field. We can easily access to the heart of field.

Photo taken using Yeow's Film Camera, he is trying to poison me to get film camera  ... hahahaha

When we arrived, I was stunned by its breathtaking scenery .. wow, it was simply awesome ... with wide and large view of greenery paddy field connected to the clear blue sky ... there were no high rise buildings around, you could see from far ....

The greenery is very relaxing and smoothing to our eyes .. this is a great place for relaxation and De-stress, it washed away all stress and headache in the city life.

In month of December, the paddy almost ripe and started to turn yellow ....  According to local folks said, it will take few more weeks, harvesting will begin.

Rice is the staple food for all Malaysian .. It's the daily grain that we eat most since we are young. Some even can't live without rice.... Look how healthy of these paddies .... it will soon turning into a month full of delicious hot rice...

Thank to my friends, i have many nice shots, some were very creative. Just one single pose, a few shots with difference angles being captured at the same time ... Thanks to my friends. We were having great time. Many surprise photos were shared after the trip.

Photo taken by Yeow

Photo taken by Mun Keat

Photo taken by Alvin Lau

Photo taken by Robin Wong

We were really enjoyed ourselves there ... we took our sweet time to snap snap snap ....

Everyone is looking around to find the best spot for photo shooting :)

Photo taken by Mun Keat

Photo taken by Mun Keat

...and the best shot of the day is ........ hahahahaha ......

  

Wow ... really fun when you went out with a group of good buddies .... We truly enjoy ourselves .. we let down our hairs and be totally relaxed, we acted like small kids despite the facts some of us are professional in various fields ....  big bosses, engineer, architect and many more ...

Using Olympus Pen - Art Filter Dynamic Range

Emmm ... I need to split the blog into two parts ....this blog post is getting very long for just to cover the paddy fields ... 

Sekinchan is not only has beautiful paddy fields, it is also famous with fishing village. After all the happening in the paddy fields, we were hungry and we drove to the nearby fishing village to look for seafood. .... Time for lunch.

... to be continue