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Remembering Brunei Darussalam

Posted by Sanjah - -

I just realized that today(see post date) marked the whole month since I came back from Brunei. It was a worthwhile experience being there meeting lots of people, learning their culture and getting to know the whereabouts of the place. Brunei was the first country I visited outside the Philippines which makes it very significant.

Brunei being an oil-rich country has it's people enjoy a very high living standard. Although part of Southeast Asia, some thought that Brunei is part of the Middle East which of course not true. More than 70% of Brunei’s land area is covered by primary rainforest, which government strides to protect. Birds, monkeys and other animals roams free around it's forests, really cool experience if you like to be one with nature.

Being in a foreign country gives us some challenges like dealing with their culture and practices which is different from us, but that's what makes it fun. If given a chance I would really like to go back to Brunei.
Here are some of my worth remembering shots from that beautiful country:
 One of their Mosque(sorry forgot the name), these structures really look good at night.
A view from Brunei
Details: Curves + Levels adjusted. Taken with Canon 400D + 17-40mm f4.0L at Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam.

People played the Anklung, a native musical instrument during their Hara Raya celebration.
Musical Raya
Details: Curves + Levels adjusted. Taken with Canon 400D + 50mm f1.8 at Empire Hotel, Brunei Darussalam. 

70% undisturbed forest.
Backyard
Details: Color Balance, Curves + Levels adjusted then Dodge and Burn to strengthen the shadows and highlights. Taken with Canon 400D + 50mm f1.8 at Rimba, BSD, Brunei Darussalam. 

A place in Tutong where you can have picnic. This side is the lake, the other side is the Tutong beach.
Lake at Tutong
Details: Curves + Levels adjusted and added a Gradient Map for the more deep before sunset feel. Taken with Canon 400D + 17-40mm f4.0L at Tutong Beach, Brunei Darussalam. 

I was lucky enough to witness a very beautiful sunset in Tutong, Brunei.
Blood Red Sunset
Details: Curves + Levels adjusted to bring out more of the rich color. Taken with Canon 400D + 17-40mm f4.0L at Tutong Beach, Brunei Darussalam. 

I'll be posting more about Brunei in the coming days, this post is just to remember this beautiful country after a month when I left.
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Blog make-over

Posted by Sanjah - -

Given that this blog is really new, I'm in the process of working on its cosmetics. Currently, new to blogging and to Blogger's template/layout engine or whatever they called it, I did a few searches on the net on how to work with themes and layouts.

I stumbled on a site called BTemplates.com which gives out free Blogger templates and after minutes of browsing found a really cool template called "Astro". It has a nice terrestrial feel to it and the dark blue motif suits my taste. Thanks to my previous experience with CSS, HTML and a very thin knowledge on CMS called Drupal, I was able to comprehend how to work with templates and so decided to tweak it a bit to match with the blog's content theme.

All I need currently are just simple CSS modifications to change the labels and images just to separate it from the original template. I have the tendency to play with templates though, so the theme's look might change from time to time.

The banner image that I used is a cropped copy of a photo I took at Carbon Market, Cebu during a photowalk with friends. I did a Hue/Saturation adjustment to blend the image color with the current blog template thus, the bluish tone.

Here's the original Photo:
Title: Hardwork
Hardwork
Details: Darkened and bordered for the cinematic feel. Taken with Canon 400D + 50mm f1.8 at Carbon Market, Cebu, Philippines.
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First Blood

Posted by Sanjah - -

At last I decided to create my own blog. It took me years and years to decide to create one, for the reason that I don't even have the slight idea what to put in it. Then, an inkling on my mind came in, why not post everything related to the things that I like most... that is the appreciation of visual arts, specifically Photography and Image editing.
 
Yeah, you might want to ask why in the world did I started this so called "liking of visual arts"? Since then, I really liked to re-create the things that I saw and had imagined through drawings, but unfortunately I'm a sucker of visual arts which involves the use of a hand(painting, sketching, drawing), even my hand writing.... is a crap. So the only way for me to re-create the things that I see and those things that are created from my mind is to learn how to use an Image Editing Software and bought a camera.
 
Year 2007 was when I first started to re-create the world that I see through photograph. From then on it was a long journey of researching, studying, learning, experiencing and appreciating this art.
 I'll post here my works and interpretations of everything that I see in hopes to share it with others and get some comments on it as well, for my continuous learning.
 
For my first post, I'll start with a boat in which symbolizes as a carrier for which will take me to anywhere I want to be... that is the same for this blog.

Vessel of Trade
Details: 3 images merged in HDR using Photomatix and cleaned in Adobe Photoshop. Taken with Canon 400D + kitlens at San Remegio Beach Resort, Cebu, Philippines

Note: English is not my primary language, so excuse me if you might find some grammatical errors on my posts.
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