National Day

Is viewed as a annual culmination of our country’s efforts to bind us Singaporeans together, reminding us all that we are but a community, a hive mind desperate to avoid any form of internal strife, whatever the cost. We work together for the progress of our nation, toiling to bring Her the grain and earth that She needs to expand Her influence over the rest of the universe.

At least, you’d probably think that way if you’ve been listening to half the crap that comes out from all avenues of our life around this time of year.

This year’s National Day celebrations took place at the Marina Bay floating platform, right next to the ubiquitous Benjamin Shears Bridge that links our city hub to the residences of the East.

A lone patriot cowers in the darkness.

As usual, I couldn’t possibly pass up a good chance to grab some shots of fireworks, and thus, armed with a brand new 17-70mm f2.8/4.5 Sigma and a SC-28 hotshoe extension cable (which details I will elaborate on another time, as their combined price), I set off around early afternoon in order to scout out the surrounding area for suitable vantage points.

By the time I had consumed my lunch and an early dinner, it was already around 3 p.m., which I took as a good sign, seeing as guests in the floating platform had been advised earlier to be seated by 4.45 p.m. sharp. Things took a turn for the worse, though, when I realized that the Singapore Armed Forces, in their questionable mission for crowd control, somehow managed to devise a way to make everyone who wanted to celebrate the spirit of the nation experience as much inconvenience as all the chevrons in the world could muster.

One of the jets leaving smoke trails in the clouds.

Routes were closed, civilians redirected to other routes that were closed or so tightly bottlenecked not even anthrax could have filtered through, and to top it off (as always), when I finally managed to find a way to my preferred vantage point, the Benjamin Shears Bridge, from which I could have a brilliant overview of the floating platform and the barge from which fireworks would be fired from, I discovered that a single, lone barrier stood between me and awesome shots: policemen who would not be swayed by my tripod which I could possibly have hollowed out and hidden a M24 inside, I suppose.

Seriously, are you fucking kidding me? Blocking off a fucking bridge when I could just have easily headed over to the other side of the Bay and sniped anyone I liked from the Merlion, no less.

A set of fireworks right before their explosion.

Anyway, I huffed my way all around the perimeter of the Bay (I had a ticket to enter the stadium, actually, courtesy of my mom, but I didn’t like the view from inside the stadium and that’s not even taking into account the problem of light pollution, not to mention the annoying-as-hell security checks) to the Merlion, where I encountered some decidedly unruly people.

People who, when given a chance to move through the thick of the crowd anxiously waiting for am event to begin, plant themselves in front of my camera, blocking off my view and refusing to move when requested to.

People who, when I adjust my tripod in order to avoid being blocked, move around again to cut off such an avenue. People, who place mats on the floor, expecting such a gesture to indicate that they somehow own such a surrounding, and that no other mortal may enter such mats sacred.

Thankfully, I am no mere person.

Totally keeping in theme with National Day, who would have guessed.

I am more thankful, however, to the brave soul who shouted from behind me at those two men to sit the fuck down or face the wrath of an angry crowd mentality. While such a peace was, at best, temporary, and soon broken by yet another group of rascallions, it set a precedent of sort, with few people daring to block my view again.

For my part, I did make every effort to ensure that my D50 wouldn’t act as a goddamn flagpole, sticking out like a sore thumb in people’s peripheral vision. Even when it started raining, I didn’t extend my umbrella fully, opting instead to protect my camera and equipment and letting myself soak in the watery torture.

By the time the parade got under way, the 10 or so photographer wannabes who had been with me, tripods and all, had whittled down to a miserable 3, and soon one of them left, too.

It's actually the same set. How 5 seconds changes things!

I got to know the guy who had set up his D80 right next to me (specifically, he tapped me on the thigh while I was sitting cross-legged and introduced himself and his buddy, just like that), and I helped him out with a couple of tips and stuff, seeing as it was his first time shooting fireworks.

Unfortunately, he only had his D80 18 - 135mm f4/5.6 kit lens, so I didn’t get to try anything new. I did, however, let him try out my 70 - 300mm f4/5.6 telephoto to grab a few aerial display shots.

The parade itself seemed to take close to forever to reach its highly-awaited (by me, anyway) climax, and when it finally did, it came without warning and worse, it was highly underwhelming when compared to displays I’d covered previously.

Oh well. Considering this entire thing was set up by the Army, I guess I should be thankful that they even had fireworks at all.

Kind of looks like a star went kablooie.

Additionally, I decided to go against my better instincts and instead, stick with my brand-new lens for the entirety of the event, though I had only minimal experience with it from my few test shots and my brief stint with it during the recent cohesion event at East Coast. Considering that I’m still getting a little confused by its completely opposite approach to zooming in/out, I’d say that I did rather well. Additionally, shooting wide open is pretty nice with this lens; I daresay a small step up from my previous kit lens.

The fireworks display got a little haphazard towards the end, though, with multiple sets firing within milliseconds of each other. While this might make for a dazzling flash of light, it’s not so nice when the amount of smoke generated starts to creep into the what the fuck territory. Smoke tends to reflect light generated by fireworks within itself, causing the photons to bounce off the particles and in so doing, appear incredibly bright even when exposed for a brief moment.

As such, my captures towards the end became a lot more messier than I had expected, with some shots being un-salvageable thanks to blatant overexposure. It was pretty much unavoidable, but I was hoping for better.

A bunch of morons pointing at pretty things.

Additionally, once the main fireworks display ended, there was about a 5 minute interval in which everyone had begun to pack up and start leaving before, as before, another short firework display erupted without warning. Having already kept my tripod, I had no choice but to attempt a standing shoulder posture.

While I did capture some pretty good exposures even then, I was a little peeved at the sheer absurdity of the stunt. Why surprise your fucking audience, especially when they’re about to leave and they’re never going to get to see such an event again until next year? Why not fire the fucking things a little earlier, to keep things interesting enough for the crowd to remain just that little while longer to soak up the celebrations?

The mind boggles.

Anyway, that’s pretty much it. I’m aiming to try my hand at this again when August 22nd rolls around; the annual Fireworks Festival commences on that fateful date. I missed it last year due to certain social obligations; here’s hoping this year won’t have me meeting the same fate.

Oh, and by the way, I still have a whole load of other photographic endeavours to write about. So don’t expect any illustration work for a while or so, since most of my time lately has been spent opening ten tabs of various bullshit in Firefox while having Foobar and Lightroom opened on the side.

Yes, I’m pretty fucking lazy. Enjoy that parting shot.