Exploring Labrador Boardwalk。。。

Since my last solo nature walk to Labrador Park in late April, I had decided to return again to explore the other end... I had wanted to visit the Labrador Nature & Coastal Walk since its opening! Today, I brought my dslr & tripod along, starting my walk from Berlayer Creek, situated next to Labrador MRT Station. A quick glance on the map showed that the walk covering Berlayer Creek & Bukit Chermin Boardwalk will be around 45 minutes.

It was a humid evening and I started the walk before 6pm... In the past, this is a mangrove area which was impossible to walk across. With this broadwalk, one can take a look at the mangrove swamp area... this reminded me of Chek Jewa at Pulau Ubin! I am not sure is it due to the timing or a lack of sight, I didn't manage to sight any interesting flora & fauna along the trail. As there's nothing interesting to shoot at ground level, I was attracted to the lovely blue sky instead. As I walk along, I saw the early Moon Rise! It was quite big & round but shrouded by clouds... I did not bring my zoom lens! Wat a pity! Instead of chasing the sunset, i found myself chasing the Moon! Sounds silly? keke!  With Sg's weather, it is difficult to catch a nice blue sky!

I call these 'Directional Clouds' as they r all pointing right!

A plane flying beneath the Moon

When I reached Bukit Chermin, I was rewarded with a pretty sight of the waterfront... It is definately more exciting here! On the left is the Bukit Chermin Hill, which sat the Black & White conserved bungalows... while on the right, you can walk into Labrador Park itself. There were families, both young & old folks enjoying a leisure walk around here. From here, you can also see the cable cars leading to Sentosa! There were many passing boats & ferries too! I spent quite a fair bit of time at the end of this boardwalk, trying to practice long exposure at Keppel Bay. Situated here is the unique architecture of 'Reflections at Keppel Bay' ~ luxury living by the waterfront.  This is so idyllic... How i wish i am living by the waterfront too! Keppel Bay is also a private marina where the rich folks 'park' their private yachts.

From golden hour to blue hour, time seems to come to a stand-still at Keppel Bay. Just past 7pm, i heard party-goers having fun on one of the yachts... then, a whiff of BBQ smell from the condo filled the air! This made me hungry manz! However, there's no-thru route to walk out, only residents of Reflections can walk thru' the estate... So, it is either continue walking or back-track, both equally the same distance! I decided to continue walking & snapping the last few shots before the Blue hour ends.  

I walked thru' another private condo ~ Carribean at Keppel Bay and was reminded of the fun time I had at someone's house there years ago! Then, I saw the lights of the Keppel Bridge turned on & decided to set up my tripod again for a few shots. My cam's battery was low and just sufficient for me to do a few long exposure... Had to wait patiently for the blue lights to come on as i find its illumination of the water looks great!

Finally, I reached Harbourfont & settled for MOS burger ... a total of 2.5 hours walk without resting is pretty good, now i can check this location off my To-Shoot list!

When the Sun Goes Down...

Today spelt the start of ‘一個人生活’, wat shld i do since my frens were all unavailable? Woke up to a jolt of loud thunder & it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Cos the extremely hot weather got a dose of thunderstorm in the early hours. I decided to venture to Labrador Park in the evening to chase sunset! It has been on my 'To Shoot' List for a long long time... last year waited for  the circle-line to open, then the boardwalk... i still haven go!

At 5.30pm, i started walking from the Mapletree Business City towards Labrador Park. This is my first time going... i was lazy to bring my tripod, so juz brought my wide angle & 50mm lens. There's quite a number of people walking in & out the path. I never expect it to be such a long walk! The walk seems perpetual as I sweated a gallon! Finally, i reached a fork-path & asked a couple to confirm which direction to take. After 15mins, i finally caught sight of the sea!

The carpark there was almost full! I was surprised to see so many people flocking the park... got couples lazing under their tents, families & frens BBQ-ing... the whole park was buzzing wif activities. I checked the map & decided to stroll along the waterfront... Along the way, I saw many fishing enthusiasts... I also saw both the young & old jogging along the path. And off course, there were some sunset-chasers like me...thou i noticed mostly were guys!

It's pretty cloudy today ... however the weather in Sg have been like that all these while, either rainy or extremely hot! Quite hard to have the perfect weather & get nice fluffy clouds. However, i know that Labrador Park is a sunset hotspot for photography lovers... I had seen nice pics done using ND filters.  It's a pity that the old jetty was fenced up for public safety. Cos the nice pics were shot from the beach there!

Luckily I got my 50mm wif me! I used the 50mm to shoot thru' the fence, as a wide aperture would be able to blur-off the fence totally! I saw a few guys climbed over the rail to get to the beach but not sure if they really captured any gd shots, haha! For the first time, I used not only my dslr but my Sony hp to shoot in HDR too.  I wanted to show ppl if you are at the right place, at the right time & wif an eye... you can get a gd shot wif your hp too! I'm a fan of the social photo app ~ StreamZoo... which made me realised the power of photo apps. I also tried my hands at editing & surprisingly my simple leaf hp shot garnered likes speedily on StreamZoo! ^o^

Sunset @ 1854

Last bit of Ray @ 1901

I saw a HUGE whale-shaped cloud, do you?

HDR ~ Hp Shot

I was feeling really blue the day before & this photo-walk helped me to de-stress. It certainly made me felt better, thanks to the lovely sunset i saw! I gotta return again to do the broadwalk section...