Photo credits: Vincent Thian; Edward Chan, CJH Photography; China Foto Press

 

If you have been in Southeast Asian Countries such as Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand as well as the Riau Islands, it is pretty common that you will come across the festival known as the "Nine Emperor God" festival, annually celebrated on the 9th moon of the lunar calendar by Taoists.

 

As a gesture of honour and respect to the Nine Emperor Gods, Taoists will go on strict vegetarian diet; the food that they consume must to be free from meat or any form of live stock, the beverages that they drink must be free from alcohol... the kitchen cooking utensils that they use must not been used for cooking meaty meals; new toothbrushes must be used during this period.

 

Fire-walk-with-me : A Taoist medium who is in trance walks through hot burning coal during the Nine Emperor God ritual.

 

For others who have made vows to the Nine Emperor Gods and had their vows granted by the Gods, they will then have to 'return' their vows. Their vows could come in different forms; from going on strict vegetarian diet to fire-walking to carrying out body-piercing rituals or even placing their hands in hot boiling oil as a sign of purity.

 

    A test of faith : It is believe that only a purified person can take on the fire-walking procession. 

 

A festival that is also known as the "Kow Wong Yeh Festival" in Cantonese dialect or "Kew Ong Yah Festival" in Hokkien dialect, this festival is normally celebrated in the first nine days of the 9th moon of the lunar calendar.

 

At the Nine Emperor Gods temple located at Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, thousands of Taoists devotees will thronged the temple to pay homage to the Gods.

 

For the last three days of the festival, you can expect the celebration to be hyped-up with various spiritual practices such as the "Feeding of the Soldiers Ceremony", "Amoy Chinese Opera", "Taoists Bridge Crossing Ceremony" and ultimately, the fire-walking ceremony on the final day of the celebration!

 

Dance with the lion : Prancing Lion dance are commonly seen at religious Chinese events like the Nine Emperor God Festival. Before the prancing lions take stage for performance, as a gesture of respect to the deity, the lion dancer will pay homage to the deities first.

 

Prancing lion dance and dragon dance will take the streets around the vicinity of the Nine Emperor Gods temple in Jalan Ampang.

 

Heavenly symbols : In any auspicious Chinese religious events, Dragon dance and Lion dance could be often seen 'gracing' the event.

 

And on the 10th day of the celebration, the Nine Emperor Gods will be send off to the sea, where They were first being invited from.

 

Source :

http://cheryljhoffmann.com/procession-route-for-friday-oct-4-2013-kow-ong-yah-ampang/



 

Jalan Ampang, Nine Emperor Gods Temple

Programme

 

Oct 10: DAY 6

   

1400hours :

- Prayers/Feeding the Soldiers Ceremony 

- Amoy Opera

2000hours : 

- Amoy Opera

Oct 11: DAY 7

1400hours :

- Amoy Opera

2000hours :

- Amoy Opera

- MCG Tour to Festival with Hallway Events

Oct 12: DAY 8
1400hours :

- Amoy Opera

2000hours :

- Amoy Opera

- Bridge Crossing Ceremony

Oct 13: DAY 9

1400hours :

- Prayers/Feeding the Soldiers Ceremony
2000hours :

- Fire-walking Ceremony
2200hours :

- Amoy Opera
- Prayers at the Main Altar

Oct 14: Final Hours

0200hours :

- Procession to Return the Emperor
0900hours :

- Taking Down the Lantern

 

A Wow! Fireworks Display at Putrajaya!

    Photo by The Star

It's time of the year again! The Putrajaya International Fireworks Competition 2013 is back and it promises a greater & more colourful fireworks display.

In the upcoming fireworks competition, the public can expect to enjoy  spectacular fireworks shows and at the same time, they can dance to the tunes of some top-chart music; it is said that the burst of the pyrotechnics will be synchronised to the music.

 

Taking place at Putrajaya Maritime Centre in Precinct 5 respectively on Aug 30 & 31, Sept 13 - 15 and grand finale on Oct 2, six countries like China, United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United States, South Korea, France and Malaysia will showcase their countries' best pyrotechnics all within the given six-days  nail-biting competition period.

 

Each showcase will last approximately 25-minutes.

 

Apart from the fireworks, a mini concert by Korea Beat and China Concert as well as a DJ Competition 2013 will be held along with a bazaar and a carnival selling street food.

 

For shutter bugs, don't miss this annual event; bring along your photographic equipments especially a sturdy tripod, shutter release cable and most importantly, good lenses and camera body.

 

Visit The Star for more info.

Photo credit : http://www.singaporegp.sg

A cuppa coffee for you? ... or perhaps an exclusive ticket for two to Singapore's F1 Grand Prix coupled with Canon EOS1D X fitted with Canon EF600mm lens and Canon EOS1D MkIV fitted with Canon EF70-200mm lens as back up equipment?

 

 

Whichever you may choose, the Singapore's F1 Grand Prix is back this Sept! From Sept 13 - 23, 2013, your favourite F1 star Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and others will be back for a nail-biting F1 night race in Singapore!

 

For a few days, these F1 'speed drivers' will be pitting against each other to be called the champion of the race before leaving for Korea for their next race...

 

 

On the grand finale, take a deep breath... yes, take a deep breath... Rihanna, Big Bang, The Killers, the brad a.k.a. Justin Bieber and others will be performing at the F1 Concert.

 

Rihanna fans, we are sure that it will be great to hear live from Rihanna when she whips out her chart topping music 'Jump' and ‘The Only Girl In The World’; whilst Korean Pop enthusiasts can look forward for Big Bang's performance like 'Lies', 'Hot Issue', 'Stand Up', 'Last Farewell' and 'Haru Haru'. 

For Believer fans, he will sing for you his famous track like 'As Long As You Love Me', 'Somebody to Love', 'Beauty and a Beat' and 'Right Here'.

 

 

If you happen to know who Brandon Flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vannucci Jr are, get ready to dance to their hot songs like 'Runaways', 'Mr Brightside, 'Human', 'Somebody Told Me' and 'When You Were Young'.

But most importantly, out of these great happenings, if you have the opportunity to take some photos, why don't you snap some photos for memories?

 

Check out other websites / blogs on 'How to capture concert photos' or 'How to capture F1 sports photos' for tips on taking photos. If you wish to get some inspirations to snap concert photos, check out Kah Peng's personal blog site. 

 

Watch Singapore's F1 Grand Prix video here!

  

'Fish" in a Net

inmages studio was the official photography studio for the recent Japanese Language Festival 2013 in Malaysia. 

Amongst thousands of shots taken, one of the most catchy shot / subject that was snapped was the "Koi lanterns". 

To add a creative angle to it, in picture 1, we have cropped the unnecessary elements from the frame and left only the 'Koi fish' in the net. In our view, it creates the imagination of how the "Koi fishes" were caught by the huge net. The net was actually a goal post net, and not fishing net.

These photos were shot by @EOS1DMkIV, Shutter speed : 1/320s Aperture : f9 ISO 400.

If you wish to know more about photography, do add us at facebook.com/inmagesstudio or follow our Tweet at twitter.com/inmagesstudio.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Cross cultural wedding ceremony

Confucius once said, "A journey of a thousand miles, begins with a step."

For the past few months, at inmages studio, we have had completed several photo assignments successfully.

Amongst the project that we have wrapped up was a cross cultural wedding shoot that took place in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.

To cut long story short, below are some sneak previews of Khairul & Ada's Akad Nikah & Bersanding ceremony.