Wat Bo, Siem Reap

Wat Bo, the oldest and largest temple in Provincial town of Siem Reap, is also well known for its old paintings on its Vihara’s wall, depicting the epic of Ramayana (known as the Reamker in Khmer). The murals in the Vihara of Wat Bo and inside Royal Palace in Phnom Penh are said to be the oldest ones in Cambodia, though the latter one is older.

If you visit the temple and find the vihara closed, do not disappointed and find your way back. Try to find the old man with the key. He is kind enough to open the doors and windows for any person wishing to see the paintings. It was a bit dark when I was there, but luckily I brought along my tripod, without which it would be hard to get a decent exposure.

Read more about Wat Bo at expat-advisory

Angkor Wat

I have been to Angkor Wat on several occasions, but most of the time I failed to have a proper shot of the most photographed Angkor Wat in front of the pond. The above photo, took on 14 November 2010, many be the most decent one, I have taken, to date. The halo effect on the top of the trees at the left side is noticeable, apparently due to HDR post processing from a single exposure. Photoshoping may help to eliminate it, but I am just lazy to work on it again.

Photo Retouching

In the advertisement world, it is almost impossible to find an un-retouched photo, and even some photo journalists have risked their careers by manipulated photos to make them more intense. Thank to editing software such as Photoshop, more and more photos we see these day are altered or enhanced.

To be honestly, most of the photos I have posted here are also retouched, though I have limited it to color adjustment, cropping, perspective correction, clarity adjustment, sharpening and some other basic adjustments. My understanding on retouching is still poor, since I like to spend more time on taking photos than editing them. Yet, now I also want to devote some more time to dig deeper into it too.

Are you for or against retouching? Here are examples of retouching.

Straight-from-the-camera photo. Western moat of Angkor Wat at the evening. I set the White Balance to Auto but the sky turned bluer than it was.

Retouching by David Va, a quality-conscious photo enthusiast, trying to bring back the sky of setting sun.

My basic retouching, trying to reduce the bluish. I could not visualize the setting-sun sky (-_-)

From the center of Pre Rub

I have passed this temple no less than ten times, but only last week that I had my very first chance to step my feet on the temple. At about six in the morning, I was the first person to enter the temple, not even a guard showed up at that hour.

I thought the photos of the temple soaked in the morning sun would make some good photos, yet it turned out that my favorite shots from the temple were the ones I took from the central tower of the temple. Here are two of them.

Buddha statues inside the central tower of Pre Rub temple, Siem Reap

Buddha statues inside the central tower of Pre Rub temple, looking through the front door to the open sky.

Sras Srang at Dawn

I hate to wake up early if I do not have to, but again it is an exception when it comes to capturing sunrise.

My alarm rang at 4:20 and within an hour I was in front of Sras Srang where a few tourists were pointing their cameras at or enjoying the early morning view of the ancient pond. I was not able to visit the place in advance for location scouting, but I had some images of photos I wanted as I have checked some photos of Sunrise at Sras Srang. Luckily, today morning sky was not disappointed.

As a rule is not good to have foreground in the middle, but i had no power to remove it. That is why you find it here in an undesirable location.

Could not find any interesting foreground to include in this frame. And again as rule is not good not to have one.

Maybe this is the one composed by the rules. But sometimes we are taught to break those rules.

Actually a few minutes before 6:00 I moved to nearby Pre Rub temple, even before I could see the rising sun, as the sky was getting brighter and brighter, and I did not come with a long-neck lens.