Went for some night photography experiments with Audi, Bruce and Fadzly all around Singapore this earlier this month. Audi actually wanted to shoot some army clips for his trailer but couldn’t secure the permit in time. So since we booked lenses and cameras already, might as well do some night photography since we never done it before at this scale.
First place we went was the Old Seletar Camp. To what I see, it’s a old british camp filled with colonial houses that’s been occupied with expats and some of them abandoned. Now I know where it is. Our objective there is to do some light painting like this one below.
Yes, we *koop* picnic lanterns and field chairs from store. HAHAHA~ It was seriously dark and only a few lamposts located here and there. We walked a by a car, still had it’s engines running, windscreen misted with glowing red lights inside. Ooo, naughty naughty..
We in the end took loads of pictures of ourselves. You can see for yourselves later as we move on.
Sadly, Audi chickened out coz he said the house is very scary. “Got 2 stories! What if we climb up the stairs, then look up got see something how?!”
And so we walked around the compound trying to look for nice place to shoot.
I actually rented a few lens and the Canon 7D apart from my 40D. The 7D is awesome man! I like how the shutter makes the sound which is so solid compared to my 40D. Also I rented the 50mm F/1.2L prime lens which is awesome. The depth of field is so shallow, everything directly behind the focused object is a blur like this one below!
We then went to Matilda’s House at Punggol. This house, located right in the middle of a field is rumoured to be haunted. They say people died while trying to demolish it eventhough the buildings around it is gone. But I think it’s rubbish lah. Most probably it belongs to our neighbouring country’s and they don’t want to do anything about it. A good example would be the almost defunct Tanjong Pagar railway station. So oldd! Okay here’s a picture of Matilda’s House from Google Earth.
Halfway through, we stopped by the road to look for directions coz apparently we got lost. No, Audi failed his NAVEX exercise. HAHA~ THEN! Suddenly 2 traffic policeman in their motorcycles stopped beside us. They demanded for my diving license. I guess I look too young to drive eh lol! Then one of them asked me to step out! My heart was beating so fast lah!
“What are you doing here Mr Ahmad?” (WTF?! I hate people calling me AHMAD~)
“Uhh oh, we’re lost and looking for directions” (Pointing at Audi who was looking at Maps in his iPhone.)
“Where are you going?” (Why? Does it matter to you? Want to tag along with us is it?)
“We are going to Marina Country Club.” (Actually this is fake coz I didn’t want them to know where we going and luckily I saw it in the Maps earlier. loL!)
“Look for directions somewhere else this is not a good place to be.”
Luckily, he handed back my driving license. Went back to the car and drove off. Fadzly and I was shaking lah coz we know it was the Tiger Squad. They are the more stricter TPs. You can distinguish them from normal TPs coz they’re wearing dark blue uniform compared to the normal white ones. Bruce felt nothing coz he thought it was the AETOS people and Audi couldn’t care less at all.
We finally reached! And so we walked in. The field is filled with overgrown and thick trees. Now it’s Fadzly’s and my turn to chicken out. It was damn scary and there were no lights or anyhting at all. Somemore, we could hear mad dogs fighting very near us. And did I mentioned it was scary? REALLYY SCARY.
So we stopped halfway at a clearing to take pictures of the house with the surrounding.
Took a pic of the moon with the 70-200mm I rented. Niceee.
Audi took this. He did it with long shutter, went infront of the trees and bushes and started flashing around the place. I was like OMGGG… What if he’s flashing at the trees and then suddenly SOMETHING appear how?! Fortunately nothing came out to say HELLo and the picture looks great!
Our final location was even crazier. Remember the japanese hut I went with Fadzly during the loong trekk at Macritchie? Yeah we went there. Before that, we had to drive through Rifle Range road which was not lighted up at all. It was soo dark, I had to turn on the high beam. As we look behind, it was total darkness with occasional red glow from the car when I press on the brakes. Now the objective was to take time lapse of sunrise. Sunrise coupled with the nice scenery of the surrounding would give a nice time lapse… In theory.
We stopped at the end of the way. There was a camp/complex owned by ST which was heavily guarded by the police. Not by AETOS or Cisco but by the Police itself. Fishy. We then trekked like 45mins through the darkness of the jungle to get to the place. I tell you, if without the experience from the army, It would have been impossible and we wouldn’t dare at all to go for it. It was total darkness. The only assuring light was from the picnic lantern Audi was holding which lighted up the surrounding for a few metres only, my blue lightstick which was totally useless and Bruce’s handphone which had LED torchlight. Occasionally, I swear I can hear footsteps of.. maybe animals around us. Bruce later said it was only falling leaves but it was too consistent to be falling leaves and broken twigs.
Finally we reached the place alive and well and set up base at the wooden hut that looked across the japanese hut.
Setting up the intervalometer for the time lapse shoot. We had one chance for this time lapse and so we checked and checked to make sure everything was alright.
Did some long exposure shoot and some flash painting.
Yeah this is what I mean by him going everywhere flashing around.
Yerp and some rudimentary light painting.
Sunrise. Time lapse shoot started.
When dawn came, we were shocked. The Japanese Hut got a new coat of painting! This wasn’t the case when I went there last time!?
Last time.
As the sun rises, we went across the river. Yeah luckily we went with our boots.
Something’s strange about the Hut itself. Not only it’s been given a new coat, but the door is been locked by a new heavy duty padlock. Strange.
Tip-toed to look inside. It went weirder. There’s just this box/cabinet/locker only in the hut! Strange. Is there a key? a switch? What happens if we open it? Switch to sink singapore? So many questions. Maybe we have a Singapore type of NATIONAL TREASURE ya’kno. lol! Strange lah this place with a complex in the middle of nowhere then now inside this hut.
Once we’re done, we packed up and trek back to the car.
Oh yeah we side tracked a little and did a quick mock up of what our film should look like. lol!
Sun rays penetrating through the vegetation. Still very lucky to see this in Singapore.
Well, there were quite a few failures for this expedition but also we learned quite a lot from it. More in-depth planning is needed as opposed to last minute one. Nevertheless, we had much fun, experience and thrill. loL!
Woots! Don’t we look like a boyband? lol!
Consumed by hate, driven by rage…
