Wishing all Muslim readers a Happy New Hijriah Year 1428H, may God bless us with peace and prosperity. By the way, this evening Mohammed Bolkiah Mosque in Kampong Serusop celebrated the new year's dusk in darkness due to a power failure. The surrounding area was still well lit though.

Correction: The Hijriah New Year 1428 starts tomorrow, not today. -UI-

Let's take a break from my own pictures. Remember when David Cheok said "When the going gets tough, the pictures gets going"? Today I received a forwarded email which I will share to all, I'll just copy and paste the whole description.

This is a case of photographer photographing photographer.  The following photographs were taken by photographer Hans van de Vorst at the Grand Canyon, Arizona. The descriptions are his own. The identity of the photographer IN the photos is unknown.

 "I was simply stunned seeing this guy standing on this solitary rock IN the Grand Canyon. The canyon's depth is 900 meters here. The rock on the right is next to the canyon and safe. Watching this guy on his thong sandals, with a camera and a tripod I asked myself 3 questions:

                        1. How did he climb that rock?
                        2. Why not taking that sunset picture on that rock
                        to the right, which is perfectly safe?
                        3. How will he get back?"

"This is the point of no return."

"After the sun set behind the canyon's horizon he packed his things (having only one hand available) and prepared himself for the jump. This took about 2 minutes. At that point he had the full attention of the crowd. After that, he jumped on his thong sandals...The canyon's depth is 900 meters here. Now you can see that the adjacent rock is higher so he tried to land lower, which is quite steep and tried to use his one hand to grab the rock."

"We've come to the end of this little story. Look carefully at the photographer. He has a camera, a tripod and also a plastic bag, all on his shoulder or in his left hand. Only his right hand is available to grab the rock and the weight of his stuff is a problem. He lands low on his flip flops, both his right hand and right foot slips away... At that moment I take this shot. He pushes his body against the rock. He waits for a few seconds, throws his stuff on the rock, climbs and walks away."

I'm trying to take photos of black cats for my header image. We used to have lots of black cats loitering at home but now they're gone and gave way to new generation of 'unblack' breed. This new gen includes our own 'grey & white' who is currently dominating the header of this blog. I did came across one rogue blacky feline trespassing our compound recently. Besides being declared a bitter nemesis to our 'grey & white', I found it hard to get a snap of him.

Ber suggested me to look for black cats at the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque in the capital and also the Tamu Selera (an open air food-court) nearby. So before going to Tasek Lama yesterday, I dropped by SOAS Mosque but could not find a single whisker. Hmm that would be a great header image, black cats roaming the marble garden of Brunei's most prominent landmark!

So I just spent my time taking photos of SOAS Mosque which marks the centre of Bandar Seri Begawan, built in the 50s, tall, majestic and a symbol of the Islamic faith in Brunei.

a haven for salvation, also for the birds..

...the glorious golden dome

..ablution..getting into a state of cleanliness and purity..

Last but not least, an HDR image of SOAS Mosque

p/s. I haven't checked Tamu Selera for the black cats though..

At last, a chance to shoot a real waterfall. Tasek Lama Recreational Park is a popular national park in the midst of Bandar Seri Begawan, a perfect haven for jungle trekking enthusiasts, outdoor fitness or simply for a weekend stroll. On a weekend like this, parking seems to be a problem and it took me almost 30 minutes to get a decent spot.

Check out this white car, two cars could have parked there if you notice the lines. The YPI Management would love to get their hands on this piece of evidence. (Editor's note 15/01/2007: In fact they already did!)

..and now let's take a walk, shall we?

                          

..nice! A reflexology pad..

..a bamboo waterfall (dunno what its called actually). The water is cool and fresh, this is shower for people of olden days.

..now this is the must-stop after a few rounds of hard, sweaty jungle trekking. It relaxs your tense muscles and mind. Too bad you're not allowed to take a dip!

...ohh before you leave, please keep our country clean!

This blog has hit the 1000 mark and increasing since I put up the counter few months back. With the self-referring/bookmarkers ranks the top, I would like to share my Top 3 referrers as of 12th January 2007.

1) Emmagoodegg
2) Kantalensa
3) Wonderful Brunei

Top 5 visitor countries as of the same date:

1) Brunei Darussalam
2) United Kingdom
3) Oman
4) Australia
5) Malaysia
while I also have visitors from Canada, Finland, Hungary, Germany and France.

Thank you for your support gang!

The weather today was not really good for a photo shoot, let alone to shoot for an HDR image, so much for the HDR syndrome which is spreading like wild fire.

I've been longing to shoot waterfalls as I've been missing the Sharp Shooter's session at Tasek Lama. So during our recent sunset HDR outing at The Empire, this was as close as I can get to a waterwork.