It has been a while since I last blogged. A long, long while indeed but it has been busy. Not only in terms of getting my other portfolio (the wedding stuff) up and running properly, work has been quite crazy and not to mention, my upgrade. That is right, I am now a father.

And what an experience it is.

Lost of sleep, constant worry about whether you are doing things right, making sure he is alright, one wonders why did I sign up to be a father? But the joy of seeing his smile, hearing his voice, holding his little fingers, and carrying him (although it can get tiring after a while :P) in my arms, that feeling is beyond words.

It is an awesome experience and one that I feel every guy in this world should go through.

I am not the perfect father, or the perfect husband or the smartest person in the world. But there are at least two things that I did right in my life.

Marrying my wife, and raising our son together. Oh say hello to Nathaniel Leong :)

This is going to be a real quick and short post to mark the final day I spent in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was an amazing seven days in the country that I not only experienced a wedding in Bangladesh but I got to experience the sights and sounds of the city as well.

Not to forget the awesome mutton briyani which I still can remember fondly. I spent the final day resting in the hotel before our check-out and then some time in the airport, chatting with Steph Tan and finally moving in to the departure lounge and got the picture above.

I got a window seat and I whipped out my camera when I saw the beautiful scene unfolding right outside the window, couple of thousands feet in the air. That is why I love sitting by the window in the plane. Not only do you get a place to lean your head on when you sleep, you also get amazing views.

So, that is my great big adventure in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Will I return? I believe I will. I still have other parts of Bangladesh to explore, and who knows, maybe more weddings to shoot. :)

I must apologise once again for neglecting this blog. Not that I don’t have any content, I haven’t even finished blogging about Bangladesh which happened all the way back in January! One thing for sure, I was jolted by the fact that I have not blogged in a long time when a friend shared my blog link on his Facebook.

So, let’s try to finish Bangladesh before I go on to other stuff which includes my trip to Australia! Oh my, is that gonna be a super epic multi-parter right there… Back to Dhaka, Day 6 was pretty much a city tour of Dhaka and we ended up in another temple or was it a mosque?

Right outside, there were many “merchants” trying to sell their wares and unfortunately, I wasn’t interested in most of them. They did make good pictures though as evident from the man sitting in his street shop above.

As we started our walk into the mosque (ah yes, I remember it was a mosque now), we walked past some children playing nearby. I gave them a smile and before I could aim my camera at them playing, they ran straight to me and started saying “money, money, money!”. I didn’t give them any but right there I knew how hard their lives might be.

I didn’t raise my camera but just sniped a photo of them looking real sad at me when they realised I wasn’t going to give them any. Trust me, kids, it is for your own good! I don’t want you to think that begging will get you stuff in life.

After we were done looking at the mosque, we headed out and was preparing to leave when I saw this guy smoking. I thought he made for quite an interesting portrait. As I’ve said in my previous post, I was going to try “permission-based shooting” so I asked for permission. He didn’t ask for money, he just smiled and said yes. And I shot him puffing away.

And the final shot of Day 6 came when I was walking to the van and this kid zoomed past me. He looked like he was chasing his own shadow. That was quite cute :)

And Day 6 ends! Tomorrow is Day 7 and it will finally conclude my Big Dhaka Adventure! :)

One of the things that impressed me in Dhaka is that people are generally friendly. They will smile at you, strike you a random pose or just talk to you. And when they find out I was from Malaysia, they had even more things to say! Some will tell me about their experience working in Malaysia while others express their hopes to visit Malaysia one day.

The old man above is one my favourite shots from the entire trip. All I did was just point my camera at him, and he gave me a lil smile to with the shot.

While in some countries and even in Malaysia, where you get chased away for taking a shot if you don’t give them business, the people in Dhaka didn’t really seem to have that requirement. While visiting one of the temples in Dhaka, I saw these trishaw riders waiting for customers and I raised my camera.

They just looked at me, and the other guy moved into position so I can get a better shot. Such awesome people :)

Then we visited Lalbargh Fort, a local hangout dating spot and a tourist attraction. And while we were waiting for our guide to purchase the tickets, we were snapping away when a group of young guys cycled past us. When we raised our cameras at them, they gave us all a great big pose :)

While the others were looking at the architecture of the area, I was attracted to something else. Cricket is a huge deal in Dhaka and possibly the entire Bangladesh. They were also due to host the World Cup then, and the cricket fever was high! I was busy sniping away at these kids playing cricket.

One more part to Day 6 and then we will conclude the series with Day 7! Have a great weekend everyone!

If you are wondering what happened to Day 5, it was a full editing day for us as we needed to get shots ready for the big dinner on Day 6. You can check out pictures from that wedding here.

Day 6 finally came and since we were done with the editing, we went on a half day tour before the big dinner. We were quite lucky because we saw an awesome exhibition right in front of the Parliament building. It featured Yann Arthus-Bertrand, a French aerial photographer, filmmaker and environmentalist. The photos were really, really cool.

We also passed by the Prime Minister’s Office and my only thought as we went past the office was the nice garden located inside. If only we can get permission to get a portrait session done inside, that would be quite awesome :)

The Parliament in Dhaka is a tourist attraction by itself because of its quite funky design. It is not a huge building but it is quite an interesting building. Too bad we can only shoot it from afar as I would love to go inside and see what is it like within the building.

After staring at the Parliament for a while, we were off to one of the oldest temples in Dhaka. The tour guide must have thought we were funny because we spent probably all of five minutes looking at the temple and we were then spending a long time staring at some unknown building near the river.

What can I say? Reflection rules! :P That was Day 6 Part 1, so we will see some of the friendly Dhaka people in the next post :)

I cannot believe that I have left this blog alone for so long, but it is time for me to resume posting again :) I hope someone out there is still reading the blog. The last I blog, I was talking about my Dhaka trip and it was Part 1 of my adventure in Day 4. Let’s go with Part 2!

Steph wanted to ride in the trishaw and we finally got to do it on Day 4. Since I was on the larger side, I got to sit on my own trishaw while Steph and Raffi sat the other one.

It was quite an interesting ride although it was probably once, and never again sort of ride. It was probably due to the traffic in Dhaka more than anything else, and I would still recommend it to anyone to try it at least once.

As your driver weave in and out of traffic, and you have your tenth near death experience, you will be able to treasure any traffic you find at home :P

The other reason I would recommend anyone to try it once is the sights you can see while on the trishaw. It is an interesting way to see the streets and people of Dhaka. It was also quite a sight to see men in suits riding on the trishaws. Too bad I couldn’t get a picture of it :)

Luckily the weather was cooling so that made it easier for us. And that’s that for Day 4. Next up, and it won’t take months this time, Day 5!

Back to my Dhaka adventure, we are now into Day 4! And I took a huge amount of pictures because we had a bit more time to go around. One of my greatest lasting impression of Dhaka is the awesome mutton briyani. I have never tasted one better than the one I had in Dhaka!

I think about it now and I am drooling…

After that heavy breakfast (yes, that was breakfast), it was time to head over to scout one of the shortlisted post-wedding portrait session venue. It was located at the highest floor of the Westin Hotel and you can see the top view of Dhaka city from there. Of course, they told us that we were not allowed to take photos when we were there to visit, but ermm… you are not stopping us from secretly snapping a few! :P

Back to the streets and we met one of the friendliest hotel staff I know. He was also really tall, and was a great sport in letting us grab a shot of him. I now dub him the icon of Westin Dhaka!

But Dhaka is still a developing city. And just like every developing city, the wealth or fortune would not have filtered down entirely to its population. It is always a dilemma when you encounter someone begging for their livelihood. Do you give, and help them for a day, or do you not give, hoping that they will find a more sustainable income source?

I have always chosen the latter, but I am not sure if it is the right decision.

And in poverty, one sees resilience. Here you see kids outgrowing their childhood faster than before because the situation demands it. The kid above has no choice but to take care of an adult. That is just the way of life. Will he have time to go running around with his friends, laughing without a care in the world?

Probably deep down he wishes he can do so, but for now, he will shoulder on the responsibilities expected of him.

More of Day 4 to come soon.

A wedding in Dhaka is a multi-day affair with a lot of guests and relatives attending the different events. It also means that breakfast, lunch and dinner is readily available. The couple, our hosts, were very gracious in providing us all three meals and our hotel is only a short walk to the bride’s house.

That means we get served awesome food daily and on Day 3, I ate one of the best potato curry ever. I still dream about it… :P

With such a huge event, the supporting cast is very important. And I spent some time at the bride’s house in Day 3 just photographing a few of the workers preparing for the big day. The above is the guy who is helping out with the cooking duties. You can see him making some “roti canai” for the guests and I wonder if he cooked the delicious potato curry as well :D

Then this guy was eyeing me when I was photographing the other dude so I thought I’ll give him a shot as well. And he was quite happy to pose for me while I did so. I quickly took a few shots as I didn’t want him to stare at the camera and end up slicing his finger off.

After breakfast, I went downstairs and saw this guy fixing up the outdoor area for the mehndi session later that night. These guys are really amazing! They are efficient and when night came, the whole house was transformed! I am not sure if we have such efficient workers here. They will probably go tea every other hour and ask for 2 days to set something up.

And that was Day 3, and it is already the weekend. Day 4 will come next week so watch out for it :)

Day 2 and it was time to explore more of Dhaka. This time around, we were walking to meet up with the Stories team who was there to shoot another wedding. What are the odds right? Two Malaysia-based photographers (now one Singapore-based) in Dhaka at the same time to shoot two separate weddings.

This time around, I was just sniping at every opportunity that I got. One thing that I was quite impressed was the ability to carry heavy things and balance it on the head. Amazing stuff.

Another thing that I noticed was the reading culture. Either I was just bumping into a lot of people that were reading, or they really love to read. It was also the first time that I got approached on the street, while walking, to buy novels and autobiographies. They were really pushing the Obama book to me, which I found quite odd.

After a good meal with the Stories team, we then took walked around and we decided to go have Movenpick ice-cream. Don’t ask why but well, we just had a craving for ice-cream then. Took a shot of the man behind Integricity, Alex Lam, and one of Malaysia’s finest shooter, Andrew Chow.

After some dessert, it was time to part ways and we walked back to the hotel. We decided to stop at a supermarket and I spotted this man carrying lots of chicken. I wonder if it is a poultry delivery service. That would be a good idea for the local market here :P

Another thing they love to sell are cigarettes. They have this mobile carts that are everywhere, in every corner, eager to help someone cure their nicotine craving.

Finally, got back to the hotel for a bit of rest before work begins, and I saw this lil girl that I thought was rather cute. Asked the dad for permission to photograph her but alas, she didn’t want to smile for me. Oh well, still one of my favourite shots from Dhaka.

I was there on assignment, assisting Steph Tan to capture the moments for Moin’s and Tanzila’s wedding. I was going to be in Bangladesh for a week and these images are not the wedding images but what I saw when we were having some free time.

Let’s start off with Day 0, the touchdown day. We arrived in Dhaka, checked in, got some rest, and went to check out the venue of our first day shoot, Saffron. They were preparing for another wedding then, but the owner was very welcoming. He even let us take as many pictures as we wanted to. The venue was gorgeous!

After returning to the hotel for dinner, we were whisked away by the groom’s party to a party somewhere in the middle of the town. We were pretty much zonked out now, as there was a 2 hour difference in time. At 10pm in Dhaka, our body was already in midnight mode.

But it was interesting to see that a party at the dance club had kids and adults mingling together. One thing that absolutely amazes me is the close relationship the entire family has with each other. They were absolutely rocking the venue!

With the lights off and the laser lights on, all I could do was just randomly try to capture some of the atmosphere.

After a good rest and breakfast, we had half a day free to roam around the streets of Dhaka. We decided that we wanted to visit some fort and it was apparently quite far, although we were told otherwise.

Couldn’t get a normal cab, so we decided to try the CNG green cabs, which is basically like tuk-tuk, with a cage. If you have heart condition, avoid them. We had close to 20 near death experiences! It was like one major rollercoaster ride except our lives depended on it. As you can see from the image above, it is just another day for our driver above.

Traffic in Dhaka is really something else. I swear I appreciate KL traffic more now :P

Since this is the first time I was in Dhaka, I try to absorbed as much as I could. I used to not like photographing people but they are now pretty much one of my favourite subjects. And they make a big part of what I see.

And also, Dhaka is filled with rickshaws! Steph wanted to try them, and we did. That is another experience to talk about. I think Day 4 or Day 5 or somewhere around there. It was a great start to the Dhaka adventure!