Mount Pulag and the Sea of Clouds

Mount Pulag has been an anticipated goal since the beginning of this year. It never came upon me how much I would want to go to a place (or any place for that matter) just to see a spectacular show of mother nature, that is to witness the infamous "sea of clouds" at the peak of this mountain.

For those who are not aware, Mount Pulag is the third highest peak in the Philippines at 2,922 masl. It is located in Province of Benguet in the Philippines.


May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.
May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

Adventure Awaits

I've never been this excited in months (or years, maybe?) This may also be the first time I have ever enjoyed packing. This is a good sign. Looks promising.

This weekend, I'm going on a hike to climb my second mountain for the year! Big fat Yay!

I am very anxious, but looking forward to seeing mother nature again and God's beautiful creation. I don't know what else to expect except that it's going to be really cold (and I have low tolerance to low temperature). Here's to hoping I make it without injuries. I'm very hopeful to see this amazing world from a another "angle."

So after wrestling with the bag, I finally got everything in. It actually doesn't feel that heavy. But I'm sure I'll be able to feel the weight after hours of carrying it on my back.

Adventure awaits. See you when I get back!

Bay East Panoramas

I think I had never visited the Marina Bay area as often as I did in the past month. I went there for three consecutive weekends and, no offense to anyone who might simply love this place... but as beautiful as it still is, it doesn't qualify to the list of places I never ever get tired of coming back to no matter how many times I've seen it.

One time and I went there to tag along with a friend from Cebu who was visiting, and twice I went there to take long exposure shots of The Gardens. I never got things done during my first visit. Despite the fact that I went there by myself with nobody in control of my time but me, sometimes I still cannot get over how bad this habit of mine is, (eternally late). I promised myself to be there by 2pm but my lazy ass got there at five... thirty. So naturally, the sunset shots I wanted to take were no longer possible as I had to find the spot I wanted.

I made up for the shots I missed during my second visit. This time, I found the place to setup my tripod to get the angle I had in mind, that is, the Garden domes, the Supertrees, the Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore Flyer in one frame, with a body of water in the foreground.

Before I got to Bay East, I had to pass through Satay by the Bay and Marina Barrage. That was actually an area I saw then for the first time. At Marina Barrage, there were quite a number of people flying kites, which kind of surprised me (in a good way). It was nice to see that people still fly kites today seeing almost everyone is into gadgets and all. It was a great place to take pictures, but I was late for my sunset shot so I had to just walk past, hurriedly, almost running actually.

Sunset , I heart you forever!

I arrived at Bay East a bit late for sunset. I was lugging around my camera and opening my tripod while walking. Along the way, I already found a few other people taking photos with all their gear set up already at the perfect spots.

I wanted some photos for my Instagram so I also took snaps with the 4s.


This time, I tried shooting RAW. I seldom shoot RAW because I never felt that I needed to. I'm really pretty much satisfied with jpegs. This was processed using Lightroom 5 using a computer running Windows, never been a fan but it will suffice. I did wish the foreground had been smoother and had appeared more mirror-like but I guess maybe you need filters and other accessories for that.

Singapore skyline, sunset in single frame
six-frame panorama, photo merged in Photoshop
Evening shot, seven frames
I also went back to the Supertree Grove just to take panorama frames of the trees. No more light show when I got there. I think you might already know why.



ten-frame panorama, Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3
That day, I took about 125 frames for the skylines and Supertrees, all 125 had already been filtered because I never keep scrap photos in my camera. They are simply a waste of precious disk space.