It was a harsh day on Saturday afternoon, and it’s 2:10pm now, we’re running late for the photoshooting session scheduled at 1:30pm.

We’ve finally met up at the Phnom Penh-Koh Dach ferry, what we had in mind about the shooting locations were ‘an abandon colonial building, farm and beach’, then we have picked the abandon colonial building as the first place we could go for shooting. I was driving my car with Sandy, while my dude and his relatives were with his friend on another car, I led the trip, it was a hot day but there were some sudden rain along the way. I’ve finally reached the location where it was totally muddy and dirt road, i started to drive in, as other car stopped and watching at my back…too bad I was sucked in the middle of the road, cannot move anywhere easily, so i decided to make a slow but forcefully move my car back, lucky enough that I had some skill for this type of road. And I’ve got out, we were then decided not to go further, but returned back the same way we’ve just passed, up to Koh Okhna Tey instead.

We’ve reached the location, I and my friend Chea Phal were scouting the area for the best shot, and we did found a bunch. So everybody went back to the cars and bringing all the equipment over to the photoshooting spot. I took so many photos, like I said from the previous post, it’s ‘Strobist’  photography that I wanted to achieve. And here we are, ‘trials and errors’, as we’re ready to move forward to some points or reasons.

I was so exhausted, but everything I did and the surrounding kept me going, and I did it, we’ve finally got back on the cars and took the ferry at almost 7pm this evening.

Some of these shots were not related to what we’re doing, but it’s what encouraged me all the way, during the relaxing time, I went over to the nearby place where children were playing in the river, and left alone their horses washing by themselves :))

Enjoy the gallery below:

I’ve finally got my new lens, the Canon 70-300mm f/4L USM. It had been sitting in my camera bag for 2 days without a proper test, and today I’ve finally took it out and got proper hands on this amazing lens, to the pros or some of the rich dudes, this lens might looked vintage, but for me it was a master pieces ever invented. Pretty neat, sturdy, well built mechanism, and affordable price.

After couple of snapshots, I’ve found the image quality is pretty amazing, less noise, sharp and awesome contrast, not to mention its neutral bokeh.

I’m currently planning for going further with portrait photoshoot, plus a little bit more to become a strobist. :))

See more photos below:

It was Visaka Bochea day for Buddhists all over the world, today we went to Toul Os Lok pagoda in Russey Keo district, Phnom Penh. we brought 3 big packs of Noodle and Water, also offer some money to more than 63 monks. It was a hot day, and everyone were gathering as queue so the monks could easily go in one row to receive the offering from the people.

While waiting for the monk to arrive, I’ve spotted some workers up on the top of the roof of the building, so i decided to get my camera and take a couple of photos, eventually there’s an airplane flew above that, i was lucky enough to frame the shot and capture the rooftop workers with that airplane at the same time.

See more photos below:

Talking about Urban Exploration, this thing always made me thrilled and fascinated in so many ways, but there’s also one problem and kept bothered me every single time. ‘hesitation’ ruled it all, whenever I’ve entered an abandon or seeing one, what’s came up to my head was ‘go in or not?’. Luckily I had my dude ‘Phal’ always on the front line. This guy will infiltrate anywhere and do what he supposed to do without any hesitation at all, I admitted that most of the info about those old building was from him, a great Urbex partner indeed.

Well, this time is about one of the abandon building part of the Department of Cinema (MoCFA), not sure about what was the purpose of this building served as. The architectural design was awesome, we didn’t have a chance to go up on the 2nd floor, as you may seen from the photos, the staircase was broken and again we didn’t have much time for that. So we have scheduled to come back to this building once again but next time will be at blue hour (evening), then we can do light painting during the dark, hopefully we can get back some stunning shots, i meant ‘hopefully’ :)

Last couple weeks ago, I was on my way home along the street 63, coincidentally I came across this ‘to-be-demolish’ building, so I decided to stop the car and went in for some snapshots. At first I just knew it was one of the department that related to art and stuff. As I went in and took many photographs, I accidentally crushed my head with the barbwire fence while I was fascinating in photograph this building.

I did asked many other people for the name, but they’re not sure what should be written in English, until today I took out another brief research through the web, and found one of the French organization website talked about that building, so here it is “Department of Plastic Art & Handicraft”.

You may enjoy the gallery below for more photos from the trip.

Location: Kandal, Cambodia
Date: 28-Apr-2012

Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Date: 16-Apr-2012

Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Date: 16-Apr-2012

Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Date: 16-Apr-2012

Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Date: 16-Apr-2012

PS: We (Urbex-Cambodia) were shooting in this former church, that is now functions as orphanage center. one of the kid (not sure if he’s one of the staff’s children or orphans himself) running around and requesting for some snapshot with his hand presenting a ‘V’ sign, i did a couple of shots of the building and then allow him to pose for me…and he seemed happy and off to upstairs where he came from.