The following is a photo confession of one of the Roda Impian hijackers yesterday. Code-named UcingItam, he was on a secret mission during the 4-hour rampage of the shutterbugs at Kg Ayer

"January 20th 2007, again I went down to town in search for black cats. This time I searching the waters of our own Venice of The East. I was not alone, in fact I was accompanied by 7 other photo-thirsty shutterbugs; AnakBrunei, Bruneian, Reza, Ber, Shai, Kantalensa, Zadm plus one cadet shutterbug and 2 ladies including AnakBrunei's missus.

We searched every house, regardless of their sizes and colours..

every house on stilts, or the houses on the hills...

asked every people we met... indeed they are wonderful and cooperative people..

including the friendly children playing on the wooden stairs..

we even asked the fishermen, but all they've got was fish, no black cats...

they were busy 'Merambat', a Bruneian traditional way of netting fish..

..still no signs of black cats, we roamed the mangrove swamps, infested with monitor lizards...

even roamed an island in the sun called Lumut Lunting, according to a local legend, a cock was cursed when it won a cock-fight and transformed to stone, hence became the island..

still no black cats, instead we found birds..

we even inspected the colourful boats, with their colourful callsign..

until the boat we chartered (yes chartered, not hijacked!) had to make a stop for fuel and supplies. Roda Impian is a good ship!

we sailed from east to west, only to find an HDR image of Istana Nurul Iman, thats the world's biggest residential palace.

I did saw a cat, but it wasn't black...staring at us with an evil eye..

Finally we ran out of vitals, ran out of CF card space and batteries. So we called off the search. The hunt continues..."

Bandar Seri Begawan - A group of trigger-happy shutterbugs hijacked a Roda Impian Charter boat and caused a one hour delay to the next charter. During the 4 hour ordeal, the shutterbugs went amok in several villages from Yayasan SHHB up to Kampong Pudak, Kampong Bolkiah up to Kampong Sungai Kebun, Kampung Sumbiling Lama up to Kiulap and then back to Yayasan SHHB. Many fell victim to the brutality of the shutterbugs including fishermen and children. It was also reported that one of the shutterbugs was on an undisclosed mission which will be revealed tomorrow.

The situation was finally put under control around 1pm when they ran out of ammunition for their cameras. More coverage on this tomorrow.

A dead tree trunk was also terrorised

Ahh.. I thought I'd do a little still life & abstract photography...

Now how to keep our beaches clean? No one taking care of our beautiful beaches? No garbage bins available? Or simply we have the habit of littering? Or simply no concern of our environment?

Ok dig this. Fruits are good for our body..

Forgiven! The skin is bio-degradable, but that doesn't mean you can just throw it anywhere you want. That's still unforgiven!

Ever heard of any species as a Sea-Durian? Hmm I should've cropped the image so you can see and judge for yourself. That's a Durian skin for sure.

Some more still life on the beach. In a picture, orange and yellow makes lovely colours, but in this case, the colour's an eyesore! I guess it's just hard to break an old habit. Happy New Year 1428 Hijrah

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..