Night Lights

Driving home one night I picked up the camera and started shooting images through the front windscreen. (My wife was driving!) I set the shutter speed to two seconds and wiggled the camera around in circular shapes while shooting.

And here is "Shutter Wiggle #1":

Jalan Dato' Lim Hoe Lek, Kuantan. Car headlights and tail lights appear in circles while the blue and green in the background is The Zenith Hotel and Menara Zenith

What do you think to this style? Different and interesting? Silly and boring? It has a nice abstract quality to it. I'm making a very popular and ordinary place appear in a very abstract and unique fashion.

Let's hope I can replicate this technique in other photos!

Kuantan at night on a 30-second shutter speed

The streaks of light from car headlamps race along Jalan Dato' Lim Hoe Lek, Kuantan

This is the junction in Kuantan intersecting East Coast Mall and Stadium Darul Makmur, including Jalan Dato' Lim Hoe Lek and Jalan Bukit Sekilau. These roads are very busy, particularly on holidays, as people flock to East Coast Mall for shopping.

I shot this image from the 18th floor of The Zenith Hotel during our recent stay there for my birthday. Must admit, I felt kind of like a sniper as I set up my tripod and programmed my equipment to shoot at a 30-second shutter speed, allowing the lens to capture all the movement of the vehicle headlamps.

Even with a tripod, I had to be immaculately delicate pressing the shutter button so as to avoid any type of blur. It was a worthwhile and stimulating experiment!

Views of Kuantan taken from The Zenith Hotel

Kuantan is a small town on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It has been my home for 7 years. Following is a series of photos of my adopted hometown, most of them taken from the very top of The Zenith Hotel.

East Coast Mall describes itself as 'the most happening place' in Kuantan, which at least holds true from Fridays to Sundays when people from the northern state of Terengganu come down to Kuantan for the weekend. The heavily Muslim state of Terengganu hold their weekend on Friday and Saturday. East Coast Mall is here visible from the gym at The Zenith Hotel

As it looks over Kuantan, The Zenith Hotel illuminates in colours of purple, red, green and blue every night

A closer view of the Jalan Dato Lim Hoe Lek/Jalan Bukit Sekilau junction. To the left lies Putra Square and East Coast Mall; straight ahead sits the newly refurbished Darul Makmur Stadium

The stairs from the lobby to the First Floor at The Zenith Hotel light up in a brilliant blue when the sun goes down

Kuantan looks like a burning heap of night lights as the moon hangs high above

View from our 22nd floor room at The Zenith Hotel

Aerial view of part of Bukit Sekilau. The purple and yellow building to the left is the UiTM campus, while the gold dome and blue roof of the Bukit Sekilau mosque is visible in the background. Behind the mosque lies SK Bukit Sekilau. The open ground at the front left is being prepared for a Ramadan Bazaar. The Muslim fasting month begins on 10th July

Menara Zenith towers over Putra Square below. The white building in the distance is Vistana Hotel. Beyond that to the right, just out of the picture, is Teluk Chempedak beach

Jalan Haji Ahmad runs to the left behind The Zenith Hotel. Straight ahead is the residential area of Taman Galing

Aerial views of Kuantan at night

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of taking some aerial photos of Kuantan at night from our friend's hotel room on the 17th floor of The Zenith Hotel.

It was difficult as I was shooting through glass windows and trying to eliminate as many reflections as I could, but the results are not too bad!

Looking out towards Berjaya Megamall, Vistana Hotel and Teluk Chempedak, from the 17th floor corridor of The Zenith Hotel

View of East Coast Mall and Stadium Makmur from the 17th floor of The Zenith Hotel

Stadium Makmur in Kuantan. The floodlights are on, but no-one appears to be home!

Traffic on Jalan Dato' Lim Hoe Lek, Kuantan

A night view of East Coast Mall from the 17th floor of The Zenith Hotel

Roads in Kuantan. Jalan Dato Lim Hoe Lek crosses with Jalan Bukit Sekilau

Birds eye view from the 17th floor of The Zenith Hotel. The street lamps illuminate a row of parked cars

The same photograph, but with emphasis placed on the bright blue lighting of The Zenith Hotel

Street lamps light up the roads of Kuantan at night

I will have to take some more night photos around Kuantan at some point in the future. I'm quite happy with how these ones turned out :)

First night photos with Canon EOS 650D

I'm really enjoying getting to know my Canon EOS 650D.

The other night I went out to take my first night shots with my new camera. I also decided to capture images using an 8-second shutter speed.

Jalan Dato Lim Hoe Lek, Kuantan

With the 8-second shutter speed I was able to capture the lights of moving cars as red and white streaks across the image. I will definitely find a busier road next time!

Jalan Dato Lim Hoe Lek, Kuantan

The following image was taken without the manual adjustment of shutter speed . . .

The Zenith Hotel and Menara Zenith are illuminated at night, as seen from Jalan Dato Lim Hoe Lek, Kuantan

In-built photo editing on the Canon EOS 650D allows you to select an area to be focused on, while blurring out the rest

DISCUSS THE DISADVANTAGES OF THE ZENITH HOTEL

Amidst the excitement of the rapid construction of the Zenith Hotel, it remains necessary to equally weigh up the drawbacks with the advantages. You should really read my other essay detailing some of...

the positive forces of the Zenith Hotel

...so you can see the other side of the coin and come to your own conclusions.

Firstly, the most astonishing detail of the Zenith Hotel is its prices. At RM450 being the starting price for a standard deluxe room, I am wondering who exactly will be staying there for more than one night. A typical family room starts from RM850, which I don't believe is particularly inviting for families who are on a strict budget each month. With the price of the Zenith Suite escalating to RM20,000 per night, I would dare to comment that this is a hotel in the wrong place. For me, I would probably get myself down to the Hyatt Regency Resort Kuantan, over RM100 less and located right on Teluk Chempedak beach.

Check out my journey on my trusty bicycle around Kuantan in the blistering heat, as I surveyed a number of Kuantan hotels.

As for the Zenith Hotel, the price is just too dear to attract ordinary Malaysian folk.

At the end of October 2010, I had a run-in with a bogus policeman. In the dark of night at around 7:20pm, I was cycling home when I reached a row of shop-lots just a stone's throw from the Zenith Hotel. The bogus policeman came on a motorbike from a dark, back alley. He showed me some form of identification, but had no police badge or uniform. I was very fortunate that I was carrying an empty bag (I had strangely left my camera at home that evening) and my wallet was in my back pocket. He was adamant on seeing my passport, then he wanted me to buy him coffee in some feeble attempt at a bribe. I bluntly refused and at this point my suspicions that he wasn't a real cop were confirmed. He ended up following me back to my house where he asked me to bring down my passport. He wouldn't come up. Of course I didn't go back down, and within five minutes he'd decided to go and look for someone else to rob.

With the inception of a five-star hotel looking to attract rich visitors from Malaysia and abroad, bogus police like him will be a huge deterrent to tourists. If I had been here on holiday as opposed to living here, I most definitely would not come back or consider Malaysia in any future holiday plans. With a lack of "real" police presence or law enforcement, bogus police will sadly thrive on innocent foreigners. So too will other types of crime flourish, including snatch thefts and scams, on unassuming travellers.

My third point however, deals with the absence of tourists in Kuantan. For whatever reasons, Kuantan doesn't seem to be a tourist hot-spot. I bemoan this sad state of affairs because there is so much to see and many places of interest in and around Kuantan, from religious structures to natural garden scenes to stunning beaches. It seems that Tourism Malaysia will need to dramatically improve its promotion of Kuantan as a holiday destination, or the Zenith Hotel may find the majority of its 515 rooms empty.

The Zenith Hotel will be relying heavily on people from outstation and abroad. As a result, local Kuantanites will fail to establish a connection with the Zenith Hotel. It will not feel like it belongs to them and so may be further excluded from the life of locals. I would hope that the Zenith Hotel will not become a target for criticism from those who may feel negatively about its construction.

With East Coast Mall (ECM) yards away, and the ever-growing Putra Square in close vicinity, the Zenith Hotel area will be prone to sizeable traffic jams. The road between Zenith Hotel and ECM, and those roads around Putra Square, are extremely narrow and incapable of efficiently transporting traffic along. This is not helped by drivers who constantly park their vehicles on the yellow lines at the sides of the busy roads. Traffic jams and minor accidents will surely be on the rise when the Zenith Hotel opens its doors for business, particularly on weekends and public holidays. This will also affect the traffic flow in the surrounding area of Jalan Dato Lim Hoe Lek and the junction between the stadium and LA Hotel. Coming from the stadium, and also Jalan Dato Lim Hoe Lek, there is only a single lane entrance to the hotel and ECM.

We therefore hope that these factors have fully been taken into account during the process of planning and constructing the Zenith Hotel, and that necessary adjustments will be made. Although, with just over a month until the opening, all of the aforementioned concerns remain.