The Papers

Neatly arranged newspapers at a small shop at the outskirts of Klang town, Malaysia.

Pride of Malaysia

An angled view of the Petronas Twin Towers, rendered in sepia.

Happy Flower

A young lady dressed up as a flower parades down Dataran Merdeka during the recent Florathon 2007, a colourful and flowery event held in conjunction with Visit Malaysia Year 2007.

Big Brand Factory Outlet

The abandoned storefront of an out-of-business shoe factory located in Klang, Malaysia.

Urban Sprawl

A typical Malaysian housing estate in the middle of Kuala Lumpur.

Drift (4)

An old Nissan Bluebird with squealing tyres drifts along a curve at the IIUM AutoFest 2007, Malaysia.

Drift (3)

This is a Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 (note the fixed headlights). The Sprinter Trueno, a near twin of the Corolla Levin with pop-up headlights is shown in the previous post.

Incidentally, the name "Levin" is actually Old English for "Lightning". "Trueno" in Spanish means "Thunder". So we can surmise that the AE86 comes in two flavours, "Thunder" and "Lightning". How cool is that?

Drift (2)

A Toyota Sprinter Trueno (AE86) drifts across an open helipad during the AutoFest 2007 held at the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM).

AE86 is the chassis code for the Toyota Sprinter Trueno/Corolla Levin. The difference between the Trueno and the Levin are the pop-up lights on the Trueno (as shown in the photo above). Corolla Levins have fixed headlights.

The AE86 was made famous by the Japanese anime series Initial-D (first produced in 1998). Nicknamed "hachi-roku", which means eight-six in Japanese, the AE86 was first developed and marketed by Toyota in the early 1980s.

The AE86 has proven to be extremely reliable and surprisingly powerful despite having only a 1600cc twin-cam powerplant, designated the 4A-GE. Incidentally, the AE86 is also the last rear-wheel-drive (RWD/FR) cars in the series.

Initial-D's popularity and it's use of the "hachi-roku" as the "hero" of the series has made the car legendary -- up to a point where the value of the 20 year old model has skyrocketed to more than 3 times it's previous market value before Initial-D.

P.S. I once had a 4A-GE engine in a Toyota Corolla KE70 (in the days long before Initial-D ever appeared). That's where I got my nickname "Levin". So pay attention folks; before Initial-D, there was ME! :P

 

Drift (1)

A well-executed drift taking place at the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) AutoFest 2007.

Stairway Lines

It's been a terribly long time since I shot anything abstract. This photo was recently shot in a shopping centre and later processed in Photoshop. I desaturated the pic, boosted the contrast, added some vignetting and applied film grain filter to it.

Click here to view the original unedited photo.

Speed

A fairly sharp capture of a Toyota Vios powering up a long curve. I'm particularly happy with this shot as it was one of the first few panning shots of motorsports that was taken at a shutterspeed lower than 1/100 seconds. To be exact, this photo was shot at 1/80 seconds.

A slow shutterspeed allows for the effect of motion blur. The difficulty in panning the camera lies in properly tracking the object to ensure it remains sharp while the rest of the scene blurs out.

Navigating The Corner

Shot at Sepang International Circuit during the Transit Sound of Smoke 2007 New Year Celebration.

The Making of Zouk Horror

A professional make-up artist converts a pretty young lady into a scary-looking ghost.

Zouk Horror (2)

Continuing from the previous post, this young model had her face painted for a party held at Zouk Club KL in conjunction with the launch of horror movie Seed of Darkness, the first local Chinese film to be distributed by an international distributor (Columbia).