In early 2017 I went to visit family in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a couple of weeks. During this time we mainly relaxed, went out to eat and drink and generally enjoyed each others company.
With my camera perched on an external ledge of a 33rd floor bar window, I snuck in this stunning sunset/twilight image of the Petronas Twin Towers at the start of an evening out. To the right of the towers under construction is the now-completed Four Seasons place - one of the tallest hotel buildings in the world.
A hazy morning made for a very saturated sunrise, I had to turn the saturation down a lot on this to make it look believable! Looking towards Kuala Lumpur city centre, you can see the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower with the rolling hills in the distance.
I feel like the photo above captures the feeling of being in Malaysia quite well. With very high temperatures and high humidity it’s quite an intense change of climate for myself as a British visitor. On top of that I took this image on my first morning there - perhaps the mist can be a metaphor for my jet lag the first couple of days!
I did however get out to spend a little time exploring some beauty spots, the first of which was Kanching Waterfall Forest Park. Set in the rainforest, this park has a trail that runs up and over several tiered waterfalls. These waterfalls were nice and it was a pleasant walk through the forest.
There was however another thing that caught my eye; endless numbers of little macaques roaming around, looking to cause trouble! I caught a few nice candid images of them as we wandered.
This little fellow paused to sit in the dappled sunlight coming through the trees.
Cute animals, menacing teeth!
Pondering…
Next stop was Langkawi. A small island off the coast of Malaysia. For scale it only takes around half an hour to drive from one side to the other! Here there are some nice beach resorts and a bit more of a relaxed vibe than the bustling city of Kuala Lumpur.
The sea was very calm but I managed to find a couple of nice rocky outcrops to shoot sunset from on the first evening.
The following day I headed towards the rainforest and headed out on a small riverboat. This took me further through the rainforest through thick mangroves. There were more maqaces!
And further down the river it was lunch time for a number of eagles that began circling above the boat.
As we had to stay on the boat at all times there wasn’t much opportunity for landscape photography so I stuck with my long lens to capture the wildlife.
After stopping at a floating restaurant for some refreshments I was taken back and headed to our accommodation.
For my last outing, the following morning, I headed out at sunrise and having had no time at all to explore and scout, I had no idea where to go or what I’d find. Luckily I was greeted by dramatic clouds and a beautiful pink sky. So it was just a case of following the light. Here’s what I ended up with.
This is one of my favourites from the trip. Whilst it’s a photo of really just a field, I love how the stream lined up as a great leading line to the hazy hills and dramatic, colourful sky in the background. The tones make for quite a painterly looking photograph.
Following that trip, I managed to find a few days spare to take advantage of the closeness of Malaysia to Indonesia and head out to Bali for a few days! My accommodation was right in the middle of a number of working rice paddies. So much so accessing the accommodation involved walking along the small elevated strips of uncultivated land between the crops! The weather whilst I was there was relatively dull and uninspiring so I didn’t get a lot of images, but the last couple of days we had some breaks in the cloud for some more interesting lighting scenarios, here are some of my images.
Entering and exiting my accommodation involved walking along these strips of grass.
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