The Fisheye View of Sandakan

In my line of work, one is blessed with opportunity to visit places where under any normal circumstances wouldn’t have the chance to. But what is normal anyway? Visiting Sandakan might be ‘out of place’ for me, but for scores of others, it could be part of their annual, monthly or even weekly ‘balik kampung’ ritual.

Anyway, I was on a trip to Sandakan with Kenny Sia and Gareth (Shaolin Tiger) last weekend for the launch of MAS Kuala Lumpur-Sandakan direct flight. We visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and spent a day on the Kinabatangan River bank.


Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre




River folk in Kinabatangan River.

So during the trip, I brought along my new FishEye2. This funky looking thing was my birthday gift bought a week ago, by guess who, myself. Retail therapy (Thanks Geeps) is effective and inevitable since I worked on top of the most popular mall in Malaysia. For those unfamiliar with lomocam, this baby runs on film.



Armed with a roll of ISO 400 film, I happily embraced the number one lomography philosophy- don’t think just shoot. It wasn’t easy, transitioning from SLR (yes without the D) to this toy like snap-shot device. I can’t zoom, can’t do focusing, even the shutter sounded surreal to me. Everything needs to be guesstimated- lighting, distance, framing... I have no choice but to just. let. go.

The result?



Fisheye guide book says, this is the way gold fish and lomographers see and live life.

To which Kelvin Lim said: “Does that mean you live with five seconds memory?”

I agree with both. Whole-heartedly.


P/S: Yay, MAS posted it in their blog!