Luke Chua's Blog

How lucky we are?

Sometimes, we whine and complain about our lives. It seems so many of us just aren’t content and satisfied with what we have now. Have you ever thought of how lucky we are compared to those who are much more less fortunate than us? When is the last time you helped another person? Are people morally obligated to help the less fortunate who are born with physical deformities like these children? These kids made me realize that my life is blessed and they gave me a huge wake-up call. To be honest, I never thought that I would be taking their photos and I feel really really bad during the documentation process. My heart is aching and I felt guilty everytime I click the shutter and I kept repeatedly saying sorry to them. I tried not to shed tears when one of the kids grabbed my camera while I was taking his photo, I showed him the pictures on my camera lcd screen but he just looked at me and gave no response. A normal person would usually get excited and express emotions when they see their own pictures. Deep inside my heart, I just want to help them and hopefully people will see and feel their feelings and needs through my photos because the centre is in need of some public contributions such as adult/kids diapers as well as food items, medical equipment and aids for rehabilitation needs such as furniture, wheelchairs, and walking aids for these special kids. They need these things and our help just to survive another day. Please contact The Handicapped And Mentally Disabled Children Association Selangor or Kak Lizz at +6018-6674588 if you are interested in helping and would like to know more information about the centre. Please share if you care. Thank you for taking your time to view my post.

Tags: children, deformities, disabled, Handicapped And Mentally Disabled Children, iminuru, iminuru.com, innocent kids, kids, lovely, luke chua, moments, nikon, painful, sad, saliva, sleeping, sorrow, wheelchairs

I’m back….

Hi, hope it’s not too late to wish everyone Happy New Year and Happy Chinese New Year. Hope this year will be a better year for everyone. First of all, I would like to apologize for not updating my blog for such a long time. Thanks to those who visited my blog and left comments on my posts. For the past few months, I’ve been spending time reviewing my old collection of photos and doing photography homework. I found a lot of mistakes I made in my past works and there is still so much room for improvement. I’ve been thinking that I should find a few subjects I’m interested to shoot, capture photos with stories, and spend more time improving my work and expanding my knowledge in photography. I went to take photos at a few places with photography masters and friends to learn from them and to improve my angle of view. They have been kind and helped me to understand more about my camera, photography skills, and the art of seeing things. I’m really grateful for their teaching and sharing, and for their time to give me opinions and comments about my works. It’s great to meet these nice people. I would like to personally thank my mentor “Master Lim Tian Seng” for enlightening and educating me about art sense in photography and for sharing tips and ways to improve my works. These are some photos I took from the past month and have been posted on my fb account. Please bear with me, I will surely post the rest of the series soon. Thank you everyone for the supports 🙂

Charcoal Factory

A visit to charcoal factory at Kuala Sepetang, Taiping, Malaysia with my wife and friends. Kuala Sepetang Charcoal Factory has always been one of my favourite photography locations and place to take photographs. We had an amazing time, lot of fun and it has been a fruitful experience to take photographs and witness how charcoal is being made. I hope you enjoy these photographs and thank you for taking your time to visit my blog. I would also like to express my gratitude and appreciation to my wife and friends who helped and assisted me during my stay in Taiping. =)

Breakfast before start working

A woman worker dispense broken charcoal pieces while the morning sun rays shine into the factory.

Workers unloading logs collected from Mangrove forest

Logs were carried into the factory. Each log weights around 25-50 kilogram.

A warm morning smile

A worker opened the kiln after a month

Arranging the logs in the kiln.

Worker measure and cut the logs. Logs measuring 2.4 metres or less.

Cart is used in the factory to carry the logs to the kiln

Women harvesting/collecting charcoal from the kiln.

Charcoal sorting and packing to be exported worldwide.

Headman monitors the fire, baking and temperature to attain good quality charcoal.

Kilns

Tags: 16-35, 24-70, 50 1.8, 70-200, bakau, baking, cart, Charcoal Factory, iminuru, kiln, kilns, Kuala Sepetang, kuala sepetang charcoal factory, logs, luke chua, malaysia, mangrove logs, nikon, photography, taiping, wheelchair

Monkey Life & Expressions

I was amazed by the life and expressions of the silvered leaf monkey (Trachypithecus cristatus) at Bukit Melawati in Kuala Selangor and decided to take some photos of them. Thank you for taking your time to visit my blog and photos. =)

Bersih 3.0 Rally

“Bersih” (meaning clean in Malay) also called the Walk for Democracy was a demonstration in Kuala Lumpur is a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which seeks to reform the current electoral system in Malaysia to ensure free, clean and fair elections. The first Bersih rally was held on Nov 10, 2007 followed with the second gathering (known as Bersih 2.0) on July 9, 2011 gathered people from all walks of life, states, and races wearing yellow shirts as a symbol of believe and support the protests with the objective of campaigning for clean and fair elections, against corruptions and dirty politics in Malaysia. This year, I’ve participated in the third Bersih rally known as Bersih 3.0 on April 28, 2012 with my wife, Eno, Ruby, and Robin (good friend of mine who has the same interests in photography, do check out Robin’s photography blog). It was a good experience for us to photograph the rally and to be able to be there to witness history in the making in our country. I’ll admit it’s not easy to capture these photos when I’m having limited angle to shoot, blocked by the crowds, being pushed hard, and escaping from tear gas making it harder to take photos but it’s all worth it in the end. I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to my beloved Wife, Robin, Eno, and Ruby for taking care of me during the rally. Thank you for taking your time to read and view my photos. Cheers.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people – V for Vendetta

Police in riot gear blocked raid historic Merdeka Square, surrounded by barbed wire and barricades.

They come in peace

Police Helicopter Surveillance

Karpal Singh, despite his wheelchair-bound condition, visited Dataran Merdeka to show support for Bersih

Fight For Your Right

Yellow

Some protestors climbed an abandoned building to get a better view of the rally.

The road has become so empty and quiet during Bersih rally, with Robin Wong in this picture.

Ambiga Sreenevasan, co-chair of the Malaysian democracy movement Bersih

Some of the protestors have been beaten by some of these policeman.

Protestors from all the states in Malaysia.

Melissa Goh – Channel News Asia Reporter at work

Young and old bonded together showing their support for Bersih.

One of the protestors offering prayer.

Old citizen got mad after being fired with tear gas.

Federal Reserve Unit – a riot control forces

Sit and protest

Protesters began stepping over the barbed wire

3 Races, 1 Malaysia spirit

Protestor disperse after being fired tear gas.

Good Samaritan

A help from above. The people who stayed at the nearby hotels helped those who have suffered from tear gas by spraying water through the windows with fire hose.

FRU personnel, armed with batons and shields were then seen patrolling those roads to keep supporters away from Dataran Merdeka.

AP reporter, Seng Sin Lai sending live updates and photos

Tear gas suffocation

Tags: 428, 716, Ambiga Sreenevasan, Bersih, Bersih 2.0, Bersih 3.0, Bersih Rally, bersih yellow, hidup bersih, iminuru, Karpal Singh, luke chua, nikon, police brutality, protestants, tear gas, Walk for Democracy

Dubai 2012

I went to Dubai, United Arab Emirates for 4th Fazza International Wheelchair Basketball Championship from 5th to 12th April 2012. I managed to take some photos of the city attractions and some portraits in my free time. Please enjoy the photos and thank you for taking your time to visit my blog. Cheers =)

Dubai International Airport

Al Bustan Centre & Residence

Burj Khalifa – The World Tallest Building

View from 124floors, Burj Khalifa Observation Deck

Dubai Mall Fountain Show

Souk Al Bahar

Dubai Metro Train

Dubai Aquarium And Discovery Centre

Making Arabic Crepe

Tags: al bustan residence, Burj Khalifa, burj khalifa mission impossible 4, d90, Dubai, dubai aquarium, Dubai Attractions, Dubai International Airport, Dubai Mall fountain show, dubai metro train, iminuru, luke chua, nikon, nikon 24-70, nikon 50 1.8g, nikon 70-200 vr2, portraits, Souk al bahar, u.a.e, uae, United Arab Emirates, wheechair

The Festival Of Colours

I was invited by Gary Ng to shoot the Hindu religious festival of Holi at Shree Lakshmi Narayan Mandir Temple, Kuala Lumpur on 18th March 2012. Holi is celebrated by people throwing coloured powder ( Holi Gulal ) at each other along with people splasing water, and water mixed with colour. I knew that if I wanted to really capture something nice , I would have had to get drenched in colour and water but it’s OK as long as I can get some good shots. Although I myself, camera and lens got colored and wet a few times but it was worth it in the end. Please enjoy the photos. Thank you for taking your time to visit my blog.

This is how I look like while taking photos of Holi festival. People come up to me, says "Happy Holi" and smears my face with colored powder and I just have to say "Happy Holi" back and accept more powder stuff on my face. It was a fun experience. This photo was taken by Ks Fang and I really like it.=)

Tags: 24-70, 50mm 1.8G, 70-200 vr2, candid, coloured powder, festival of color, festival of colours, happy holi, Holi, Holi Festival, Holi Festival Malaysia, Holi Gulal, holi india, Holi Malaysia, iminuru, indian, kuala lumpur, Lakshmi Narayan, Lakshmi Narayan Temple, luke chua, malaysia, nikon d90, nikonian, Shree Lakshmi Narayan Mandir, water splash, wheelchair

Revisit Penang

I went to Penang Island again with my Wife during Chinese New Year 2012. It’s a short break away to visit friends and to savor some of the famous Penang local dishes. We had a really great time and I think this trip to Penang is way better than the previous one as we get more familiar with the back roads that locals use =). I only have a few food photos and so I’m not going to share it here, hope you enjoy the other photos that I took during my stay in the beautiful island =). Thank you for taking your time to visit my blog.

Tags: 24-70, 70-200 vr2, iminuru, luke chua, nikon d90, Penang Heritage, Penang Island

Reptiles Shooting

It’s been a while since my last update on here, hope everyone is doing well and have a good new year’s eve/new year. I’m currently working on a project to photograph reptiles especially ball pythons (known by the scientific name, python regius) with the ball python breeder’s in Malaysia. This is a collaboration job/project with the Bola Malaya Breeder’s Club to collect and gather as many images of the ball python morphs available in Malaysia from the Local Breeders. The collected images will be printed into a big poster. Here are some of reptiles pictures taken not so long ago at one of the breeders shop in Klang, Malaysia. These images are under full copyrights © of Hiro Pets and iminuru.wordpress.com, please do not use any of the images without my permission. Thank you for taking your time to visit my blog.

Tags: ball python, ball pythons, cold blooded, d90, exotic pets, fumi pets, fumi pets klang, iminuru, luke chua, nikon, nikon 105vr, nikon 24-70, pets, poster, python regius, reptiles, reptiles shooting, serpents, snakes

Life In Sekinchan

20-11-2011 is a very special date and also the day that I joined a photo outing organized by Persatuan Senifoto Petaling Jaya ( PSPJ ) to Sekinchan paddy field and fisherman’s village. Sekinchan is a small town located in the state of Selangor, Malaysia and it is one of the major rice producing areas of Malaysia. My first visit to Sekinchan was in 2010 with my wife and friends who lived there but I didn’t take many photos previously because I lacked knowledge in photography and composition. Now, I’m back to Sekinchan for the second time to put myself to the test to see if I have improved with my photography skills, composition, and I hope to capture the beauty of Sekinchan and the life there. Thank you for taking your time to read and viewing the photos, feel free to comment on any of the photos and let me know what you think about it. Cheers.