A bird coming out of the clouds for a landing on the spire of a Hindu temple in Tanjung Malim.
Olympus OM-D, ISO 640, f8, 1/200 sec.
Tag: hulu bernam
The Junkyard Dog Sleeps Tonight
The faithful junkyard dog finds a comfy spot different from the usual rusted metal, cardboard and other junk.
Saw this dog during my exploration of Hulu Bernam area recently. The junkyard dog is a popular movie trope often used to set up a scene with impending sinister activity or hostility.
For all its movie reputation of aggressiveness and alertness, it possesses a less-recognised attribute in real-life. Unconditional loyalty to owners who provide scant creature comforts.
Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f5.6, 1/160 sec.
A Magical Garden
One of the many perks of kampung living is having an orchard, farm or garden on your own backyard. In this garden with a magical-like atmosphere, I saw a mysterious lady.
She turned out to be Wawa’s aunt and was plucking the fruit of Belimbing Buluh, a plant known also as the bilimbi or cucumber tree.
The fruit has various culinary and medicinal usage across Asia. Puan Timah told me she is using it to give her fish curry a tangy flavour. It can also replace mango in making achar (pickles dip), the kind lady enlightened me.
Originally from KL, the retiree is staying at her sister’s kampung to attend a ‘kursus umrah’ (Mecca pilgrimage course) in Hulu Bernam.
Photography Tip: Use a simple reverse vignette of white, instead of black, to give the edges a kind of soft-glow, thus enhancing the magical effect.
Sony Alpha a7R, ISO 100, f2, 1/200 sec.
The Way It Used To Be
Like a fading 3R print, this scene in Hulu Bernam is reminiscent of days gone by. Kampung houses on stilts and children kicking around outside.
While one can still find many such settings in rural areas, this one has an invisible modern element in the air. This village at the border of Perak is billed as a Kampung Tanpa Wayar (Wireless Village).
Photography Notes: Things to do when you are bored in a small town hotel and have a laptop with you. One of the most noticeable self-destructing effect of old colour prints is the magenta shift due to dye aging, light damage and latent chemical reaction.
To achieve the old picture look, I altered the magenta and green balance and added the finger print with Photoshop CC. Scratches, staining and dirt were added via Snapseed Desktop.
A subtle pixel shift in focus was also required as the modern-day a7R is very sharp. Looking at some of the prints from my Canon T90 film camera (dubbed The Tank by Japanese photojournalists), they appeared reasonably sharp too in spite of the subsequent colour fade.
Sony Alpha a7R, ISO 640, f4, 1/640 sec.
Only Chinese In Kampung Bota Singh
Saw a signboard that says Kampung Bota Singh in the Hulu Bernam area and decided to drive in. Heh. Didn’t I meet the only Singh in a Chinese village a few days ago? This time at a village named after a Singh, I met a lone Chinese guy holding a pair of garden shears.
Mr Ng who is 69-years-old and a Hakka, held on to the shears menacingly as I introduced myself. He soon let his guard and the shears down and started telling me the history of the village.
The former rubber plantation land was owned by a wealthy Sikh named Bota Singh. In fact, many of the land around here are owned by Sikhs, according to Mr Ng. He and his family bought the land from the now deceased Bota Singh.
I noticed an old-fashioned kitchen cupboard in a messy garage (behind him). You know the type grandma used with four water bowls on its legs to prevent ants from crawling to the cooked food stored inside?
Told him to hang on to it as someday a stranger will come and offer him at least RM 100 for it. The collector will take it back, restore it and some hipsters will gladly pay a thousand ringgit to own one.
He was bemused and flabbergasted. I didn’t know how to explain ‘hipster’ in Hakka or Cantonese. Unadulterated Hakka dialect is quite funny with the standard expletives thrown in. Is quite hard translating it to clean English. Nevertheless, I will try:
Me: Is true, some city people will pay a thousand bucks for it.
Mr Ng: Smelly worn-out birth canal opening, are there really such fools in the city?
Me: There are. We call them “hipsters” in English.
Mr Ng: Hip makai male reproductive organ people! Copulate! Ptui!
Me: Hahaha. You are a jolly man, sir.
Sony Alpha a7R, ISO 250, f4, 1/60 sec.