Tag: crossing

A Tip For The Wandering Stranger

To lessen my anxiety, I took some pics to calm down. I don’t remember where I was but I traced my route to the Kramat Railway Station In Central Jakarta. How do I do it?

Here’s an important photography tip: Many times we may not recall or know where we were in a strange and unfamiliar city. Whether you are walking or in a car, try to shoot more, especially with a digital camera. Ideally. we should shoot with a camera with GPS enabled so the coordinates are recorded together in the exif data.

Unfortunately, I didn’t. I did shoot all the nearby shops and streets. In Jakarta, many shops, even small ones, have a signboard with the street name shown. By looking at nearby landscape pics I was able to see I was at Jalan Pramuka Raya. With that, I went to Google Map and found the railway track crossing and railway station. Google Street View allowed me to match up the images to confirm.

In the collage:
Top pic: When the car stopped on the track.
Lower left: Google street view showed it to be a busy crossing and is gated.
Lower right: The shop sign that gave away the street name

Book a hotel out of 715 hotels in Jakarta here.

Wandering Stranger was one of the saddest songs by Lionel Ritchie.

#jakarta #railway #train #crosing #indonesia #kramat

Caution: School Kids With Heavy Bags Crossing

Across the road from 168 Restaurant is a Chinese primary (elementary) school founded 108 years ago in 1909. Like many Chinese schools nowadays, SJK (C) Chong Fah Phit Chee has many students who are Malays, Indians and other non-Chinese.

Outside a Chinese school, students can almost always be seen carrying oversized and heavy backpacks.

The standard school crossing traffic warning sign (inset) seems outdated as no school-going kid can cross a busy street so leisurely and without the burden of a heavy backpack these days.

Without a warden and sign, surprised that only one car slowed down and stopped to allow this girl to dash safely.

For those not rich or lucky enough to have a chauffeur parent waiting in a car or a domestic helper (maid) to help carry the heavy bags, getting to and back from school can be a daily struggle that may toughen them for the realities of life later.

I know. If you are conscious or aware of your surroundings, there is so much to do and to think about even while having a leisurely street side lunch. This is what street photography entails. I composed the captions in my mind too, right after I clicked.

Panasonic Lumix GM-1. ISO 200, f8, 1/250 sec.

#chineseschool #crossing #school #traffic #streetphotography #pudu #roadside #traficsign #documentaryphotography

The Rusty Bridge

I was told there is a nice waterfall and hot springs in the jungles of Kerling. There is a sign by the main road but it turned out to be quite a long road in. The drive started parallel to a railway track, twisted through rustic villages and ended up alongside rolling hills.

With such picturesque scenery, is easy to miss a follow-through sign, if there was one in the first place. At certain crossroad, road split or T-junction you are on your own.

You can either make a wild guess or an educated guess. At one sign-less junction, I stopped by the roadside and waited a bit. Sure enough, two helmet-less village girls on a motorcycle came flying out. They were speed-drying their wet hair in the wind. By following the road they rocketed out from, it should take me to a swimming area.

The deeper I went, the narrower and lonelier the road became. I think most people driving alone would have turned back. Somewhere along the way, I saw a rusty bridge over a river. Was quite wobbly to walk on but its appearance against the sunny landscape today made the stopover worthwhile.

Panasonic GM-1, ISO 200, f10, 1/400 sec.