Get your coffee/tea, a nice couch or sofa and relax in it while reading this next interview! The next NPX member we are going to interview is of a humourous personality from across the Singapore borders. May I present to you, Roger Moo aka Cactus400D.

Image taken by Adrian Lim

NPX: What got you interested in photography?

Roger: It started way back when I was ’sacked’ as a Secretary General of the ZNA Malaysia Koi Club. And to prove a point that I was a capable Secretary General, I organized another 2 Koi Shows namely, The Malaysia Prime Minister Cup Koi Show and The Malaysia Wakagoi Championship Koi Show after I was ’sacked’, and I remembered that that year was 2006.

After that, I was still very interested into Japanese koi as a hobby. In order to know more about Japanese koi, I traveled to Niigata, Japan just to visit the koi farms and admire and learn more about Japanese koi from the breeders. I also back subscribed koi books from Japan, UK and the USA, likewise mail-ordered from Amazon.com and in fact laid my hands on any koi books that I could get my hand on. Ah! Coming to koi… though I only got a small koi pond at home, my Japanese koi purchased overflowed into friend’s and dealers’ ponds. And I used to buy koi almost all over the weekends with members. Usually a number of koi are selected from one of the dealer’s ponds… and all my friends will do their final selections first and the remaining koi are usually picked up by me.

GILA! Really… especially when 1 Japanese koi cost the least RM350 for the smallest 15cm one; I will end up with at least 5 Japanese koi over the weekend… till my pond was full of Japanese koi, more than that it could managed. So in order to maintain and keep the koi alive, more and more self-innovated improvements and extra gadgets were added on into my koi pond, which also cost me heaps of money. I finally lost my interest the day when one dealer cheated out on me for a substantial amount of ringgit and even accused me of bad-mouthing his koi farm; similarly when the president of the local koi club voted me out by a show of raising his hand when he was sitting right beside me, without appreciating all the secretarial works I have done for him and the club over the past years… those were the final ’straw’. I told myself on that day that I would not involved myself in another hobby that could arose so much jealousy, envious, one-upmanship, personal and club politicking, hypocrites and Japanese koi keeping as a hobby is one of them.

Out of a hundred over koi, most was given away to friends, some were sold for a dime; only to realise now that only ’suckers’ kept koi. Simply because it cost you RM1,500 or more for a moderate quality, less than a year old Nissai or a Japan discarded tateshita, and much more for a better quality Sansai; and when come to offloading, you couldn’t even sell it back to the dealers for, say, a quarter of the price. Today I still keep some koi just to liven up my garden but I am no longer interested in Japanese koi any more, though I knew much about them.

Sometime around mid last year, if I correctly remembered… (while I wandered in the ‘lost land’ thinking of what best to take up as a new hobby)… I came across a Canon Workshop promo in Digital Photo Malaysia, a local photography magazine. Immediately I enrolled myself the next day, swapping my credit card for a RM100. The Canon Workshop was held at KL Lake Garden and the theme was ‘How to take perfect Models photography’ and was to be held at the end of that month.

Immediately I went to my regular camera shop and ordered a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 USM L IS lens, which being the most expensive lens I have bought at that moment of time. Come the day, I attended the workshop armed with a Canon 450D and a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 USM L IS lens. Though I have regularly used the Canon 450D with the standard 50mm lens for some studio shots, I did not venture further than that….

After the talk by 2 Canon spokesmen, photography session was arranged with 5 beautiful models across at the Orchid Garden located within the KL Lake Garden. They were a saying in models photography… “Young man shoots the most, whereas old man watches the most…” True to that saying, I did notice young, over-enthusiasts crowding around all the beautiful models… as near as they could get onto, whereas old people like us stick to their 70-200mm lens and stayed far away… I found model shooting photography not to my liking.

Lessons over and I found that (as usual) most of my shots are blurred, simply because the lens (to me) was heavy, settings were all wrong and I simply could not manage… I would say, out of 100, 90 shots are not up to the mark…

Co-incidentally, the workshop talks were held at the Bird Park at KL Lake Garden. During lunch and tea-breaks, I noticed friendly various types of Hornbills, Jungle Mynas and Dove flying in and near; squatting around waiting for food and fruits handouts. And these birds interested me…

Another month down, Canon again organized another workshop and the title of this workshop was ‘Birds Photography by Canon’. Immediately I booked myself a seat for that workshop.

What impressed me during the workshop were the photos of birds highlighted on big screen by their 2 Canon spokesmen, how and where they went about planning and shooting the birds, what sort of Canon lens and body plus extra gears did they use, etc, etc… and one of the speaker was Weefar. His English was not so very good thus his talk was very comical. I enjoyed the talk likewise the subject matter because he was honest and was willing to share his hobby, his skills and takes with all unknown friends present at the workshop talk, including me. Today he became one of my new found birding friends and is one of my sifus. The other speaker is one Mr. Lim from Banting; he is a good bird photographer but he refuses to post his photos anywhere either in forums or magazine, simply because his understanding is that, once the photos are posted in any forums or magazines… copyright of those beautiful photos does not belongs to him anymore! Told us to read all the fine points in all… thus none of his beautifully taken photos were shared in neither forums nor magazines.

We were all asked to shoot birds at the KL Bird Park the next at the end of the talk… and as usual none of my shots came up to mark. I thought my cheap normal Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 USM lens and the 70-200mm f/2.8L lens could do wonders till I found out that I don’t have the reach and neither was most the birds flying around in the big cage friendly to me…

The next day I told my wife I have found a new hobby! She wasn’t too excited or pleased cos to her means I am going to ‘burn’ more money some more on some new found things.

Not knowing anybody into birds’ photography, I did my research in the web… goggle here and there and everywhere… asked stupid questions in the Digital Photo Malaysia’s forum… and get stupid answers… Ended up some good Americans website, e.g. like fredmiranda.com, photozone and more, which gave some very good reviews on the Canon EF400mm f/2.8L USM IS lens, which I ended up buying… simply because I told myself that, if half-way I lost interest in birds photography, I could use the lens for sports photography where rugby is one of my favourite sports – not football!

So I went ahead and placed the order with Canon through my regular vendor (only to find out later that all the prices quoted to me and sold are much, much higher than most street prices!) and waited 1 month for its arrival from Japan! (Made to order) That lens cost almost as much as what others paid for their EF600mm! Today I don’t shop there anymore…

After receiving my lens, I went (some sort or rather) on a wild goose chase looking for the best tripod (Gitzo – where I paid more than what was advertised on their local website), flash bracket and Wimberly head (mail order from their factory direct; wrongly ordered some parts, re-ordered again), waited another month for the flash cable extender, bought the photo beamer from Trifid through Nelson’s referrals (I thought he was as old as me till I met him a couple of months later and that’s another story), and the list kept going on till today… (still got more to buy…not finished yet).

Next… learn to photograph birds. On the 1st weekend, when I got my tripod, I took my lens and camera, very excitedly (alone) to (where else) but the KL Bird Park at their restaurant platform to do birds photography…

Out of the almost one thousand shots I took, less than 10% was good in true sense. Why? Simply because I don’t know how to use the long lens and thought that it was that simple to use. Like I thought that since the lens got a f/2.8 aperture, all my shots must be shot in that manner… And because of all the beautiful ‘bokeh’ shots I observed during the bird photography workshop… my understanding is that to get a nice ‘bokeh’, must be the aperture must be set to f/2.8! Well… now that I have got the camera body, the lens, the tripod, the flash and what’s not… the next BIG question I asked myself is where to look and shoot birds?

And another BIG question…

Is this also a lonely man hobby? Simply because one of the Canon spokesmen, Mr. Lim mentioned that it is a lonely man hobby where you could do what you like, when you like, where you like, how you like without offending any one all alone by yourself on your own!!! (Come to think of it now…for us NO, but for Mountain Man & Ingo, I think YES lei…)

So… am I to go alone or can I network into the birding groups of photogs…. What I found in this hobby is that we all go out an shoot, share a common interest and till date we don’t ask, talk or gossip about each other personal life. Our interests stop at bird photogs only. We go out to enjoy our outings and learned to laugh at one another the most. Photos of birds shot are shared in regular forums for all, that’s it.

I reasoned to myself…’Well, if it is a lonely man hobby, at least I could get away from a hobby that was full of hypocrites, jealously, envious, internal and personal politics and one-upmanship, and I think this hobby suited me.’

Frankly, I was initially worried. Will I be like a ‘dungoo’ alone carrying a heavy lens, somewhere at KL Lake Garden or some nearby forest reserves or parks, waiting for birds and just shooting away. Luckily I discovered the local PhotoMalaysia and the Singapore AWA forum and now NaturePixels.org. Some of the photos posted by some locals are very good… so what I did was to write to them and introduced myself.

The first person I wrote to was infact Nelson Khor. From his previous postings, I noted his English was not so perfect as compared to his bird photos, so I presumed that this guy got to be an old man like me. I wrote to praise him on all his beautiful shots and how a dedicated bird photographer he was, and I said I would like to learn from someone with so much interest in one single subject hobby.

He was obliging to reply my mails; told me where to get what, what books to buy to ID birds, etc. etc. He also extends invitations to me to go out birding with him, but since he resides in Kedah… he said he could only meet up with me while he comes down to KL to shoot…

In one of his mail he wrote, “Roger birds silver come season I Pahang go you follow. I go and come 500km to shoot this silver bird. Very nice also can come out only one year.”

WoW! Took me a lot of time to digest what he was trying to tell me! Silver birds? Pahang? Wow, you mean he is going to take me to Kuantan? And what is this, he can only come out once a year? LOL!!! And that was the Nelson Khor I knew before I met him and he turned out to be a young guy. Very friendly and jovial and willing to share and teach. I learned a lot from him.

Another guy. We met in Cyber World. Initially I was posting in the AWA and I wrote something out of tune. One gentleman was nice enough to contact me and courteously told me to correct that sentence. I wrote and thank him for pointing out my mistake and started chit-chatting with him. He came from Ipoh, 24 miles further north from where I was born. We both studied in the same ‘name’ school though in separated towns. We became friends in cyber world. He knew I was a beginner and was kind enough to introduce one of his Malaysian friends to me and he was Adrian.

I wrote to Adrian; introduce myself saying that I wanted to join him to do birding. Adrian was a busy man and he could not accommodate me in till much later stage. He introduces me to one Mr. Alagan to take charge of me first. But both this 2 guys are forever busy… either they are shooting very, very far away or not available for the weekends when I asked.

(Note: all the while we have not met, but talking through the forum message) And towards the end, I was send to an old couple (80+ years old) for ‘training’!

Alagan said, “Uncle… he is very good, he will take care of you for the time being, till we are free to meet up with you.”

And I ended up taking care of this old couple instead, who are very keen birders for many weekends. He will take me to places where either the birds are too far out in the sea or the weather was hot. He would seat there with his binoculars telling me this and that waders but were unreachable with my lens! Half a day I gave up and we landed ourselves with beers and seafood. LOL!!!

He took me to Kuala Selangor MNS coastal reserves where all the herons are hiding in trees and bushes and I ended up shooting monkeys with long lens. He bought breads to feed them for me…LOL!!!

He took me to the upper reach of the old Jalan Gombak road, where he said once there were many birds here, both we saw none other than a small blue bird far, far away in the dark. He said he heard Pitta calling, sat down on his stool and started blowing whistle and said he could bring out the Pitta. I like a ‘bodoh’ stood there with my lens not knowing what a Pitta was! LOL!!!

He took me to the old Awana pump house on an early Sunday weekend. The mist was heavy and the slopes were steep and he expected me to climb up to the top. Less than 50 steps I gave up and we ended up at his favourite Indian shop Rayda for tea-tarik and roti chanai. LOL!!!

He even took me on a misty, windy morning to the top of Ulu Kali, Genting saying that there are plenty of birds there only to see camper’s canopy being blown away by the strong wind. Oh Yes! He said there are rare mountain goats that can climb a vertical 90 degree slope and show me some faded marks which to me are some soil erosion… and that was our know-all Uncle & Aunty Foo. LOL!!!

But finally after many ‘so-called lessons’, did he take me to meet up with the sifus in bird photography, namely Adrian Lim and Alagan and from that day onwards, bird outings are never the same again. From then on, we went to places where the birds really are… birds that even attracted like minded members from across the Straits. LOL!!!

From then on in other outings, I met up Sharkspin aka Steven who was the one who spoke to me in cyber world and networked me to Adrian and the rest, namely Wilis, Jz, Ender, Damselfly, David Tan, Hilary, Sandy, Starrynight Wilson, Remo, Seree, Soh, Lazyman, Chien, Nelson, Makus, Ng and many many more. And we all had great time birding together. Now who said bird photography is for lonely people… “Mr. Lim… Yahooooo…! Where are you?” (I think he is alone somewhere, out there lor!) LOL!!!

NPX: How long have you been doing photography?

Roger: In fact quite long long time ago. I remembered way back I got a semi-auto (I think) is EOS-10(?) (an entry level SLR with a Tamron lens) and took it out to shoot one of my girl-friends and lost it that very day, (I lost that girlfriend too) together with all the film shots within. My car was broke into and the whole bag of gears was stolen while we stop for Kentucky in Imbi Road (that was all I could afford for treats those days).

The next camera I bought much later (now married with another woman) was a Nikon FM entry level SLR and that too was stolen (by who and where I don’t know).

Then I bought another Nikon entry level SLR for my studio work and that Nikon FM SLR matt body layer could peel off till I got a glossed SLR body! The camera was always left in the office and soon legs grow on that body and he walked away.

Digital camera was on the way in soon… and friends told me how good they were, how easy to use and could upload in Mac to do editing and touch up. Initially I have much doubt, but because I needed another… I asked my friend to get me one from USA. It was a Kodak, very expensive and very user unfriendly… used it once and that camera was left lying around in the studio till today. Incidentally this camera did not grow a pair of legs, and I think simply because he was unfriendly to the users.

I still shoot with film camera those days till I again reluctantly bought myself a pro-consumer Olympus 5.0 mega pixels for simple studio work and my travel shots. Cost me more than RM2K plus, but this camera was user-friendly and useful but would considered it obsolete today though I still could use it today. Then came the Canon 350D of which I bought followed with the Canon 400D and another Nikon D80, but all with standard lens and me only able to use them set to Auto only. Similarly with the Canon D5 I bought a year or two later… I got serious into photography only when I took up birds photography where I went ahead and bought the Canon EF400mm f/2.8 USM IS L lens, and from that day onwards I started learning more and more how to master the camera.

So if you asked me how long have I been doing photography, it was way back when I was unmarried and using camera to tackle girls, but if you asked me how long have I been doing real photography, I would say only a year back when I took up bird photography as a serious hobby. LOL!

NPX: Other than bird photography which you obviously enjoyed, what other genre you find particularly challenging?

Roger: When I travel overseas for holiday I would bring along my Canon 5D for scenery and ‘usual you shoot me, I shoot you’ style of photography. And because the cameras we used are all digital, we could afford to shoot more with no worries of making mistakes.

I got a simple thinking, that is, ‘if I shoot a lot of photos, there bound to be a few good ones!’ So for overseas traveling, very simple… I just set to Auto, frame the shots and shoot and shoot and shoot… so I usually come back with many GB of shots.

The last overseas trip was to Zhanjiajie, where I came back and got to burn 10 pieces of DVDs of edited Jpegs photos for each and everyone of my friends!

I am basically a very lazy photographer. Other than traveling, I kept all my cameras in the dry cabinet. I don’t venture out to do other sorts of photography. Being old man, modeling and girl’s photography doesn’t interest me, neither do I find it challenging to ‘create’ and prop-up a shot, nor do I like to walk around in the city with a camera hanging on my neck doing street photography (like Damselfly & hubby).

I was excited with the macro I saw posted in the NaturePixels.org forum; bought myself a Nikon 1:1 (I think 100mm) macro lens… took it out of my house to opposite neighbour’s house to shoot roses, flowers, ants, flies and insects. Squat down… stand-up… squat down again… stand-up… and my head started getting giddy and my knee-joints gave way…

Sharkspin aka Steven suggested a stool to seat for macro-photography. Bought one… found it tooooo low, stand down and I couldn’t get up; bought another stool… found it toooo high, stand down… object too far away! Now the lens is lying in the dry-cabinet.

So I would say I got no other genre that I find particular challenging or interesting, but I do have a dream… that is I would like to travel (say 20-30 days) to shoot the interesting ‘laid-back’ culture & lifestyle of rural China & cities before modernisation tear them away. Somehow or rather, China still give me that inspiring thoughts… probably this is what I called ‘my other genre I will find challenging’… and hopefully I could do that when I retired in a few years time. (i.e. if I could live that long to see the whole of China…. LOL!)

NPX: Are there any photographers that influence your photographic style?

Roger: None! Simply because there are noting out-of-the-ordinary or special about my style of photography.

And if you are talking about birds photography, it is more of the more you shoot with seniors or sifus, the more you learn from them. They are forever willing to part with their style, skills and knowledge if you are willing to ask. In bird photography, the basic are always there and the others are actually to master your own skills (or knowledge passed on) and improved on them.

Likewise I believe, today the cameras are so advanced that they are able to do almost 90% of the things you wanted them to do and that is why sometimes you find people who use ‘point and shoot’ cameras are able to capture better digital images than others i.e. if they concentrate on what they are doing.

Today, with the advancement of computers and broadband, we are able to google and search websites (like pBase or photoNet) where they featured galleries of photos from all over of great photographers.

Most of them are very beautiful, innovative, astonishing, and inspirational and more BUT I doubt I would be influenced by these photographers, simply because you got to understand that most of them are semi or professionals, like this guy… Rarindra Prakarsa http://photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=2231437 , he said his photography is just ordinary but to me is so astonishing! And he claimed that he only used a Canon 350D with 3rd party lens! His photoShop skills are fantastic and the country he lived in gave him the mood and the characteristic for him to work on! Likewise he got an eye to see what we could not see (in that sense)

To me, you could only being influence if you take the dedication to seek him out, spend a year or more to learn from him, his style, his way of going about planning and taking the shots, his skill in photoShop rendering and more and learn his techniques of shooting and post-editing. That to me is influence BUT in the end, all your shots will be almost as similar as his AND you ended up being a copy-cat of his style and influence in photography.

I have came across some, e.g. like a local who was influence (in that literally sense) by a professional model photographer from Philippines, learn and mastered the skill from him and today, all the photos he shoot and post-edit are similar like the master. So people in similar field or long enough into photography, when once look at it can simply say, “Ah! He is following his style… Yah la! He learned from him wert!. Nothing spectacular!.”

Thus if you are to study carefully the style of photography… like in Indonesia, there are a lot of influencing amongst themselves, thus all the shots look almost the same. It’s like, ‘See one… see all…’

NPX: We know that being in the advertising industry, one has to be creative. Does this influence your style in bird photography?

Roger: Advertising works in our industries are very different. I was lucky to have started very early in my career while my school mates pursue their university educations.

I came out from the premier newsprint media New Straits Times Bhd at the age of 23+ years, after working there for 6 years, to start my own business which is basically assisting local, small entrepreneurs and businesses to advertise their retail products in the print media.

I do have a studio with a few DTP artists but the works we produced are all very basic in creativity, simply because I targeted only retailers when I started my advertising business. I did not target big corporate organisations who seek only image and creative advertisements to enhance (in-directly ‘cheat or make-good’ or influence) their corporate standing in their respective industrials, thus influencing you guys to make use of their provided services, believe in their products and wanting to associate your life-style with them or their products.

Thus, what we did are basically retailing advertising, whereby the retailers wanted to see immediate results the moment their advertisements appeared in the news paper. So not much imaginative ideas are put into all these advertisements; it was just… ‘shoot the products, etch out photos, write a good header with 1-3 lines of texts, indicate the prices of the advertised products…’ presto!, the advertisements are done. Turn around for these advertisements are like ‘pasar malam’, fast in… fast out, and we made our money.

This is where the money was and if you were look into your Straits Times on a Friday or Saturday edition, it’s so thick and you could see pages after pages of retailers’ advertisements, whether they are from Isetan, Tangs, Sogo, Robinsons or what’s not, basically these are retailing advertising and that was where the money is!

And I am into that sort of advertising business and as such they have little or zero influence in my style in birds photography BUT my business do provide me with some extra cash to enjoy a hobby I loved best at this moment in time. LOL!!!

NPX: We also know you’re a good writer and into poetry as well. Care to share one of your work?

Roger: Embarrassed… I am actually a lousy writer; I hate reading thick fictional story books and if I got my hand on one, I could never finish reading it.

Frankly I could not recall any good work or poetry I have written. None! And I am embarrassed if you thought I am a good writer or was into poetry. Sorry!

But like what you saw posted in the forum, those are just something that ‘flew’ out of my mind if I am alone, quiet past mid night. They just come out automatically from my brain, that’s all. Probably is that I am able to recall and relate what I witness and put into words, but I never did attempt to write any good works or poetry; if I do that, words and thoughts just got lost in space…nothing come out.

Oh Yes! I did write… it’s my company marketing idea! It’s called ‘No BUTS about it! Advertising Smart Partnership. Get Smarter Now!’. I wrote it many years back after the world financial crisis. Okay, let me tell you this story…

The year was 1997 and the world financial crisis struck. Most businesses was crippled and most big corporate and many public listed companies failed and collapse. Banks interest rate ‘yo-yo’ daily and import and export could not function because our currency was under attack and not stable.

I told my account dept to show me our debtors’ book. We were doing very well at that time. I ran through the books and all were good and none of my debtors seem to be on the verge of collapse. I was happy. Well, that was simply because I was looking at my books and not what was ‘hidden’ in their businesses. Like dominos falling, soon two years down the line, my business was affected. Their business turned bad and my cash flow was affected. Many could managed and close shops, and I was left with a million dollar bills to pay the media owners. Friends became enemies.

That was the scenario at that time and I was left to pay off all their out standings, some I managed to collect but most not. And because business was so bad during the world financial crisis, what good clients left behind was ‘under-cut’ by competitors in the same line.

What I did was I sat down and take a look at my overall business again. I consolidated my business, good accounts I kept and bad ones I threw away.

Then I restructured my business and wrote my new marketing plan which I called it ‘No BUTS about it! Advertising Smart Partnership. Get Smarter Now!’. That year was year 2001, the same year that your Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong warned the Singaporean that the recession could last two years…

Here is the news filed by AFP dated 29th October 2001 /Star World News GOH: RECESSION COULD LAST TWO YEARS SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has warned Singaporean voters to brace themselves for a deep recession that could last up to two years, but said the ruling party will do all it can to ease the impacet of the slow-down.

Goh’s People’s Action Party (PAP) has already won an overwhelming majority in parliament ahead of Saturday’s general election after standing unopposed in 55 of the 84 seats, but is still fighting to win the 29 remaining positions.

In a campaign rally late Saturday, Goh said the city-state’s recession, the worst since Singapore became independent in 1965, would last up to nine months under a best-case scenario, but could drag on for 18 to 24 months if conditions deteriorated.

“The recession we have is very, very bleak,” Goh was quoted as saying by the Sunday Times when he spoke at a rally to boost the chances of PAP candidates facing challenges from the opposition. Goh, 60, said the answer lay in whether the US economy would pick up, and whether President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism would succeed.

He warned that if Iraq was identified as the cause of the anthrax biological attacks in the United States, and action was taken against President Saddam Hussein’s regime, there would be even greater uncertainty. Singapore, one of the world’s top exporters of electronic products, is heavily dependent on the US market which was already slowing down when confidence was shaken even further by the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. –AFP

All-in-all, I wrote a 6 pages brochure that became my company’s marketing tool till today. Many reprints were done. It help me to create a zero base new business within my business and it never failed me till now. Monthly this marketing tool of mine held me to turnout more than half a million business with zero bad debts and it operate on an ‘auto-cruise’.

So if you asked me again if I am a good writer, I think I am, because I am able to write something that people believe and acted upon it and help to provide me with some loose cash for my hobby…so this is one sharing you you guys! LOL!!!

NPX: Tell us what’s in your dry cabinet? Which is that one piece of equipment that you can’t leave home without?

Roger: I got 2 big dry cabinets for my camera gears and what’s not. One is with some trays taken out to accommodate my EF400mm f/2.8 USM IS L lens. I also got a EF16-35mm f/2.8 USM L lens, EF70-200mm f/2.8 USM IS L lens, EF70-300 f/4-5.6 USM IS lens, EF24-105mm f/4 USM IS lens, standard lens, Nikon 24-110(?) (standard lens that come along with the Nikon D80 body), 2 Nikon Macro lens.

In the other dry cabinet are my camera bodies, Canon 350D, 400D, 40D, 5D, Nikon D80, Olympus pro-consumer, Nasional Video camera, 4 pcs 1.4X & 2X extender, etc,etc.

I have got 3 big Lowepro bags. One long one is for carrying my EF400 f/2.8L mounted onto the 40D body together with the 2X extender.

The other Lowepro big, I chuck all the other necessities things into them… everything with extras, whether it was body, loud-speakers, batteries, extenders and what’s not.

For birding, I always must bring extra handkerchiefs, T’Shirts, bigger gallons of water and a long face towel simply because I sweat a lot! Those who are with me birding knew what a sweaty person I am! LOL!!!

NPX: Describe your worst followed by the best photography experience you encountered while out in the fields.

Roger: Frankly, my period of time spend out in the fields birding are quite limited and most of the time I went out with the few regular sifus. So if you asked me if I do have any worst experience during my outings, probably none… but I do get the sifus confused with my wrong ID on birds.

Like getting the regulars from across the causeway confused when I shouted cak koo instead of cuc koo and they thought I am shooting a rare specie. Naming the Blyth’s Hawk Eagle as Black Hawk Down got Uncle Foo scratching his head. Uncle Foo will sometime asked me to name the birds I saw and I will name a list of birds name and in between I will said ‘Fire Cracker’…, you could see his thoughts just stopping and pondering what bird was that…

Malkoha became Makota, Black-headed became Black-hooded, Green Magpie became Ninja Turtle, Breasted became Chested and many more!

And to me, the best (bird) photography experiences are when Prof. Wee send me a short message requesting with permission to highlight some of my shots and articles to be used in his website http://besgroup.talfrynature.com. and Ingo too, requesting with permission to use one or more of my shots for another website of his. (I can’t remember the name of his website.)

All these make bird photography a worthwhile hobby for we are helping on our part in nature and bird conservation and understanding.

So I would say my best photography experiences are the time we spend in the fields are not wasted but indirectly helps to contribute to society making audiences around the world more aware of their surroundings they lived in.

NPX: You’re blessed with many good places to photograph birds in Malaysia. Which is your favourite destination?

Roger: I have only been to a limited number of birding grounds. All these would remain unknown to me if not for the sifus who are willing to share and guide.

Yes! In Malaysia there are indeed many ‘hunting grounds’, only thing is that we don’t have that much time to visit these places other than the weekends and that too depends on whether you are available for the weekends or not.

There are few places where I find birding relaxing and interesting. 1. Berjaya Hills Resort. This resorts is (to me) actually located quite deep in the middle of the Pahang jungle main range. Here the weather is cooling and the paths are shaded. And the best part of it is, if you come at the right season for birding, the number of different birds that flew out to the fringes are plenty. We enjoyed shooting the Silver-Breasted Broadbill, Red-Bearded Bee Eater, Orang-Breasted Trogon and more here. And the best was when we are shooting the Collared Owlet; that was indeed an experience – where you see men being young boys.

Another is Rengit at Lanchang, Pahang. Here is the Trogon territory and many more, but the weather was very humid and hot with little breeze as the road where we shoot the birds are blocked and overshadowed by tall trees and virgin bushes, allowing little breeze to be blown in. I needed to change my shirt 3 times by the end of the day! Fraser’s Hill is a birds haven. The moment you wake up early in the morning you could shoot birds right at the door step till late in the evening. The birds are always there and are not afraid of people. This is one place for beginners who wanted to fill their CF cards with GB of birds photos.

In fact there are more and I would say there’s not one but all are our favourite ‘playground’ and it stretches from Sg. Balang, Parit Jawa all the way up north to Byram. Panti towards the end tip of Peninsula Malaysia, though not visited by me is also a renowned ‘playground’ for bird photogs from across the causeway.

NPX: Which excites you more, getting a new rare species, or getting a good action shot of a common bird?

Roger: It’s difficult to get a rare specie, what’s more if it is also new! LOL!!! It’s not a question of rare toward extinction, but would say, rather hard to get species, like the some of the Kingfishers, some of the Trogons, some of the Broadbills, Bee Eaters, Hornbills, Woodpeckers, Owls, Nightjars, Eagles, etc. etc. The birds are there but it’s hard to get. Like example, the Red-Headed Trogon… all regular birders knew the bird is there, but how many managed to get a good shot of this specie? I have been there on more than 10 occasions and yet have managed to sight or get a clean shot of this specie.

Similarly for many other species of birds. Out of so many regular bird photogs, how many are able to see and shoot the species I mentioned. They are not of a dying breed and rare, but just hard to spot or be seen and shot!

But when you talk about good action shot of a common bird, I would say three quarters are ‘fluke’ shots whereas only the one quarter planned their shots. To me shooting a good action shot is really not that difficult if you know the art of capturing action shots.

Capturing a good action shots on birds to me are similar to photo journalists who are able to capture good action shots in playing field of sports, whether it was football, tennis, basket ball, formula 1 racing, winner or summer Olympics, etc. etc. If you studied carefully the shots, you will notice that there are some similar styles in these photos, e.g. like table tennis, golf, football, tennis, formula 1, motor GP, etc. etc. Thus, capturing a good action shots is either through knowledge and experience for the seasoned ones or through fluke luck for people like me.

So if you asked me, what excites me more… I would say a good clean perch of a ‘hard-to-get’ specie with a creamy background.

NPX: If you have to choose TWO favourite photos which you have taken, which will they be? What do you see in these 2 photographs?

No.1

These photos were taken when I was in China for another holiday trip early of this year. I picked these 2 photos for my second favourite.

It was taken in a another small rural village known as Kingdom Village – Wang Village (Town of Fu Rong) , located somewhere in-between the routes from Changsha (the capital city of Hunan) to Zhangjiajie.

What happened was this. Our tour bus took a detour on our way to Zhangjiajie to visit this Town of Fu Rong. Firstly is for us to relieve ourselves after a long journey and secondly is to view a spot or two; one which was famous for the best ‘tau foo’ in the whole of Hunan, made famous by 2 famous China actresses, namely Liu Xiao Qing and Jiang Wen, who did a location shot at this place many, many years ago before China opened her doors. (well, that is another story….)

While walking towards the tour bus, I noticed an old lady sitting on a stone slat watching the world passes by. For her age, she might have seen a lot since last.

I presumed, daily, she will be sitting there… watching the incoming tourists by the bus loads to her small town, situated somewhere in-between the routes from Changsha (capital city of Hunan) to Zhangjiajie. (Most of the tour buses are parked beside where she sat – an open ground meant for tour buses to park). She was the ‘gate-keeper’ to that stone-stacked toilet, i.e. if you could read that 4 Chinese words.

What was in her mind? What are her thoughts? I presumed she grew up from this small village – thus she might have seen a lot – how a single movie directed by one of China’s most popular film director and starred by 2 famous China actresses, namely Liu Xiao Qing and Jiang Wen, location shot at her village would have turned her village into a popular tourist site today… and today, there she sat… watching the world passes by.

You might have asked me…”What’s so special about this photo?”

Unless you understand the background on this photo, you would see nothing in this photo. Let me tell you the story in brief. (Again!)

I spoke to her, asked her permission to take her photo, she obliged…, I couldn’t understand her Mandarin, it was so different from what I heard often.

I told her she is very healthy, because I told her she still got her good set of teeth and all her finger nails are intact and not worn off… I told her she looks very pretty… she smiled and I took her photo…

I posted these photos under http://www.naturepixels.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2512&p=25306&hilit=cactus400D#p25306 and got interesting replies from our forum members and from a simple innocent looking photo of a happy, aged, Grand Lady, so much interest could be derived from around her… and that was something we see in that photo.

For example, one of them was Choo and he posted. He said: “Hi Cactus400D, She is probably speaking Hunan dialect to you. Most of the area in China does not speak Mandarin; you will be surprised that the population that do not know how to speak Mandarin is still very high. Those areas that do not speak Mandarin, the cultural preservation is very high and these are probably places you can get very niche shots. “

I replied: “ Hi Choo, yep… I think you got your point correct there. She might understood but communicated back to me in their Hunanese dialect and if she was from a local tribal, like the Maoxi whom are found predominantly at Zhangjiajie county… you could hardly understand what they speak.

A local Maoxi mei, mei explained to me while there… that their dialect sounds like Mandarin but it’s not, because everything they speak are some sort like ’short-cut’ out of Mandarin (half the word). It’s very, very difficult to for me to understand, though most young mei, mei could communicate in Mandarin nowadays.

And talking about very niche shots… I would say ‘fantastic’ if only you are travelling on your own transport… not in a tour bus, because this bus won’t stop for you to take niche shots… indeed the terrains where they plant wet rice are so beautiful and when I saw them, I could imagine how ‘golden’ looking the whole mountain terrains will look like when the rice ripen! Likewise the villages within all these…

The whole journey to Zhangjiajie is interesting if you care to ‘open’ your eyes to nature and their surrounding life…

I give you an example on what I saw…

A shallow, cold stream about 20-30 metres wide runs along the winding road, but was about 100 metres down. The nearest village (small town) was above a few kilometres away (cos once I saw what was happening below), I ‘track’ for the nearest village. (Initially I thought how come out of no-where was there a group of people at the bottom, at the stream).

(You see)… while on the bus, I could see another village (where they live) across this stream… about 1.5 – 2 kilos in; there was a small winding path leading from another end into the village, but to cross the stream would cut their walking distance by a few hundred metres. And how lucky was I to observe a group of villagers (male/female – all dressed up clean/nice n beautiful) and all holding their shoes and wadding across the shallow cold stream. I was quite a sight – where a group, consisting of big and small, holding their shoes and things bought from town… wadding across the shallow, cold stream.

Now let me ask… how often do you see all these??? Interesting, isn’t it???”

Choo continued to post in reply. “Thanks for the insights Cactus400D. In fact Hunan is a beautiful province, lots of beautiful small size ladies too, not sure you heard about ?????? They are quite friendly and submissive (Those who are single here must go there and take a look! ). The life of rural people itself is in fact a good opportunity for photography, like their house, people and farm. I had been looking into different part of China on their traditional housing design, especially the roof, there are so many types of variation. Hunan has many notable and famous figures in Chinese history. Examples are Mao Zedong and Ma Jing-jeou (ancestral root) (Taiwan premier?). Quiet a good fengshui too indeed.”

You see… for photos to be interesting, we must be able to ‘communicate’ through them. Good examples are these 2 photos. You might not agree with me, but these are the ‘juices’ that made me think that it is one of my favourite photos.
No.2

This photo was taken during one of my holiday trips in China last year. It was actually taken in a small rural village named Qidong, located about 2 hours drive from a major city named Henyang in Hunan, China.

This photo was taken in the near evening, where this grandma sat at the doorway happily cuddling her grandson. The smile on the elder’s face is so naturally happy and cheerful though weather ‘beaten’ and wrinkled through years of farming with her grandson. The baby faces is so innocent looking, cubby and look at the rosy cheek! Note also that he was all clothed up except his face!

You might have asked me…”What’s so special about this photo?”

Unless you understand the background on this photo, you would see nothing in this photo. Let me tell you the story in brief.

I was holidaying in Guangzhou, met some friends and decided to followed them back to their village. We took the over night train ride, left Guangzhou at around 10.00pm to reach in the early morning at 5.00am in Henyang, a major city which is located in Hunan. The sky was already bright but the weather horribly freezing cold like in a freezer!

After our breakfast we toured Henyang and went to visit one of their famous temples located near some mountains. This temple is so famous that the whole village only sells the worshipping peripherals and nothing else other than some small restaurants and souvenirs shops. And the way they went about worshipping is a sight behold. (well, that is another story…)

There are a lot of trains going to and fro from Hunan, Henyang being one of the many stops. Always the trains are full with Hunanese people. Though packed, all are allotted with a numbered seats and the train system is so efficient in China that you could buy your ticket from one of the many computerized counters located in the city of Guangzhou and the seats will be there waiting for you.

The simple reason that these trains are packed was because of the heavy influx of Hunanese people coming into the Guangzhou city to work. There are certain jobs that the ‘rich’ people of Guangzhou would not do. Taxi driving is one of them. Construction, blue collared works and hard labour works are the others. The girls from Hunan come to Guangzhou to work in shopping complexes, shops, restaurants, factories, foot massage parlors and more.

So initially the most seniors of the family will venture out to Guangzhou or other major costal cities to look for jobs networked by others from similar villages. Soon settled down, they will go back to the villages to bring along their younger brothers and sisters and soon the whole family other than the older ones will leave the villages for greener pastures in these modern coastal cities which pay much more than they could earn over a year of farming.

Qidong is one of those villages where all the young ones have left for the cities.

I was fortunate enough to visit Qidong though they got nothing much to show me. Infact one of these friends of mine wanted to show me her house which was located across a river and from there on, there are no roads but paths. You pay two to three yuans to hop on a motorbike to take you to the place you wanted to go if you decided not to walk.

Crossing the river was by mean of a small sampan (boat) that could carry roughly around 10 persons. We waited for almost half-an-hour for the boat to come from across but the boat man thought otherwise.

Because it was getting late towards the evening, we decided to give it a skip and to rush back to Henyang to take the night train back to Guangzhou.

So from the river we walk our way out towards the main road where the taxi we have hired was waiting for us.

Along the way out, I noticed a lot of newborns. I counted roughly that there are more than 30 newborns, all of them in the care of their grandparents. None was seen under the care of their parents.

My friends explained to me that the newborns parents are away working in the cities and could only come back probably twice a year to see their young ones as they are busy earning a decent living in the city, thus their newborns are left in the care of their grandparents till they reach schooling age, where they would joined their parents in the city. Soon nobody will work on the fields any more…

She explained that taking care of the young ones is not a burden because in China, you are allowed to have only one child. So being the only ‘dragon child’ in the family, the grandparents will off course take good care and love them most.

So that evening while we walk our way out of that village, we could see grandparents sitting at their door way with their grandchild, enjoying the last ray of the warm evening sun before the cold sets in. For that reason, they are all clothed up in layers of warm clothing because the month I was there was just 2 months past winter… and knowing the background and understanding why, made me think that it is one of my favourite photos.

NPX: Thanks for the interesting interview, Roger. (Me looking dazed)

Roger: Well, you know there is this one time ……

NPX: Errrrrr, just say ‘thanks’ will do. (laughs)

Roger: Thanks. (laughs)

________________________________________________ Interview conducted by William Susanto.