Bersama Lima 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
I had some shots in mind to take already for this last trip, and one of them was of the anchor shackles located at the forecastle of the ship. Here I wanted to go for a selective focus. I realised I had to deal with rapid condensation quite often, since moving from the air conditioned confines of the ship to the humid weather outside often adversely affected the camera. I checked up a solution online and found all I had to do was keep it inside a plastic bag and wait for acclimatisation.
The next shot of the MISTRAL, or SAM launcher was one that suprisingly needed little retouching. The light was nicely dramatic, and all I wanted of the silhouette was granted naturally. The launcher, located on both sides of the ship, are meant to defend the ship against aerial attack should our escort ships fail to screen attack aircraft successfully.
My workplace is among those areas most classified on ship, and so I hesitated to put it up on facebook, even when only my Navy acquaintances can view the photos. Here's the console I work on when I close up. I had to bring up the ISO to 1000 for most all the indoor shots.
Helo ops was scheduled after some days, when we had to embark some important personnel on board. This Chinook came all the way from Singapore, I had no idea just how far a helicopter's range could extend to. Being quite senior, I had the privilege of not being the Helo Ops party, hence I was free to take this shot.
It was either later in the afternoon, or the day after, when another helicopter was expected, this time an Australian Sea Sprite. Pictured is my ship's Buffer and a flight deck officer before the Helo Ops commenced.
I was egged by the ME2 to venture beyond the safety of the flight deck shutters, and was really grateful for the chance to get photos from a much better angle. If not for the fact that my ship has quite a few people interested in taking photographs, including the ME2 himself, I might not have had the chance to go further with my camera.
The most heavily edited photo in the collection. The Sea Sprite struck an odd impression of something between oddly shaped and yet definitely deadly.
Here the flight controller motions for the Helo Ops crew to return to the hanger once the helicopter has been untethered to the flight deck.
We fast forward a few days to our few Replenishment at Sea operations, where we shifted to the West side of Tioman to refuel a number of RSN vessels in the span of a few days. Some took place in the day, others in the night and early morning. Large imposing fenders had to be lowered from our flight deck to the side of the ship in preparation, and on one occasion, we suffered an incident due to poor sea state.
The Major in the photo has posted out since this sailing, a few months shy of ORDing. His farewell warranted quite a celebration, and there was quite a lot of booze that went around. That was also in part due to one of our ship crew striking the lottery and winning cash in the zone of five figures.
Dauntless arrives for her fuel as rain clouds start to gather over the sky. Ever single time we refuelled her, it rained. Many said it was due to the large number of female sailors she had on board.
Yellow helmets and red Cherry fenders in preparation for the A/S.
The sky cleared up after the rain, and I was lucky to get a shot of the parting rain clouds. They almost seem to move aside for the protruding upper mast of the MCV.
This is perhaps my favourite shot of the sailing, with the depth clearly accentuated here. I realised all of my outdoor shots were just a slight bit too blue, so I had them tweaked.
I fast forward many more days now, in part because there wasn't much else to our role there but those operations for the next few days. Many realised that I had been logging on nearly everyday for updates on BF3 online, and indeed in the days running up to the game's release, I couldn't stop thinking about it. After some point in time though, time seemed to speed up considerably, and the sailing was over pretty soon.
The pictures here were taken on our first and only shore leave, lasting for about 5 hours on Tioman Island, a place that seemed to have taken East Coast Park and Pulau Ubin, and meshed them into a much bigger island. Leaving the ship on a fast beaching craft was truly something that I had been yearning for for a long time, and on the 29th, I had that curious wish fulfilled.
That day, we had to pick up other RSN personnel from various ships all anchored in our vicinity, for it was the end of the exercise and they were enjoying their shore leave too. Like a bus on it's daily route, we powered our way to different ships, five in total, picking up passengers along the way before heading for the beach. Sadly, we didn't beach on the island, but simply went alongside the small jetty where Australian shore leave personnel were already awaiting their return.
Men, ready weapons! Quite a few of us gamely posed for our D-Day stances as we came even nearer to the beach. You can see the speed of the craft accentuated by the motion blur of the surrounding water.
"Pillbox! There on the hillcrest! We take that objective, men!"
"Mm... I don't like the sound of that mission, sergeant..."
"Sustaining heavy fire! Push forward, men! Drive them back to Berlin!
Anyway, here's what the island more or less looked like. There were quite a few lodges for tourists, and apparently almost the whole population works in the tourist industry.
The whole island is a duty-free shopping area, so beers were as cheap as canned drinks, and the first thing we did was to get ourselves some Hoegaarden to drink while walking around. A nice one, I must say. I kept both bottle caps. We also drank some more at the eatery we stopped at, which was more or less all we had time for. Tiger cans littered the whole of our table, as you can see.
Stefan, the CBA (Chinese Born American) was glued to Fruit Ninja for most of the trip. He was quite upset when, during a previous sailing, the Buffer I mentioned earlier beat his high score in one try, scoring about 1300.
Nothing special about this photo, except that the sign board invites you to eat at a 'Shady Bakery'. Heh, not my cup of tea.
Here my camera was hijacked by the CBA dude, who showed me a light motion technique that produces pretty interesting results. Pictured is my Weapons specialist PO.
The reluctant Corporal made it up the hillcrest to take the pillbox that day. He's actually a regular, though. Weapons.
Here we chance upon a stall selling Ramlee burgers. It took some time, and apparently other shore leave personnel had to cook their own burgers because the islanders simply idled too long when cooking the burgers, and invited them to be the cook. Ours was fine, they apparently have Supermarket-packaged Ramlee burger patties ready to cook there.
The last shot of the sailing, taken in the ship's briefing room. The distortion here is accentuated by the lens and angle. The two in the photo are part of the Flotilla's 20th Anniversary team that I'm in, and we got some things done during the slow-paced sailing.
In the far corner is the Resolution Lighthouse, something I came up with and constructed for the ship. It was perhaps the most arduous effort I put in for the ship. It did get me an artfriend membership though I guess. And one duty off.
Until the next update, then.
posted by joseph at 4:09 PM
Friday, November 4, 2011
If everything goes as planned, the two-week sailing that I just came back from will be the last time I join my ship out to sea. There are quite a few small sailings coming up from Exercise Northstar, but I have been able to clear leave on all those days, effectively giving me an eight day work month, give or take a day. I'm about to ORD, and I'm still mixed over whether to celebrate or feel slightly disappointed.
This post is more about the sailing, though. My last opportunity to enjoy the Navy experience, if you will. Also my last chance to take any photos that I want on and off the ship in the Navy, and here they are.
It nearing the monsoon season, there were only a handful of days at the beginning where the light was good and weather dry. We got there in around twelve hours (Tioman Island is located to the central east of Malaysia) and promptly dropped anchor East of Tioman. This would be where we'd fulfill our role as an overwatch for diving operations, and activate fast craft to rescue divers in danger should the need ever arise. We had the company of Malaysian, Australian and New Zealander divers on our way there, but once we reached Tioman, they left for the beach.
The seaboats that we had to launch from the very stern of our stern ramp got us soaked to the waist with incoming seawater that poured in rhythmically, and it made an impression on me how strong a force the waves could be. The rougher sea states had yet to come, though.
Our role the first few days was pretty insignificant, and we didn't do much each day but to laze around, completing watches on the bridge and finding things to do the next. This first shot I took was during Dogwatch, from 1630-1730, where people are free to exercise should they have a permitting schedule. Running around the flight deck is a staple for some, despite the small route and repetitious cycles. It offers good views but often harsh sunlight. See the small black ball next to the upper mast? It indicates that our ship is at anchor, and on which side the anchor has been dropped.
I had some shots in mind to take already for this last trip, and one of them was of the anchor shackles located at the forecastle of the ship. Here I wanted to go for a selective focus. I realised I had to deal with rapid condensation quite often, since moving from the air conditioned confines of the ship to the humid weather outside often adversely affected the camera. I checked up a solution online and found all I had to do was keep it inside a plastic bag and wait for acclimatisation.
The next shot of the MISTRAL, or SAM launcher was one that suprisingly needed little retouching. The light was nicely dramatic, and all I wanted of the silhouette was granted naturally. The launcher, located on both sides of the ship, are meant to defend the ship against aerial attack should our escort ships fail to screen attack aircraft successfully.
My workplace is among those areas most classified on ship, and so I hesitated to put it up on facebook, even when only my Navy acquaintances can view the photos. Here's the console I work on when I close up. I had to bring up the ISO to 1000 for most all the indoor shots.
Helo ops was scheduled after some days, when we had to embark some important personnel on board. This Chinook came all the way from Singapore, I had no idea just how far a helicopter's range could extend to. Being quite senior, I had the privilege of not being the Helo Ops party, hence I was free to take this shot.
It was either later in the afternoon, or the day after, when another helicopter was expected, this time an Australian Sea Sprite. Pictured is my ship's Buffer and a flight deck officer before the Helo Ops commenced.
I was egged by the ME2 to venture beyond the safety of the flight deck shutters, and was really grateful for the chance to get photos from a much better angle. If not for the fact that my ship has quite a few people interested in taking photographs, including the ME2 himself, I might not have had the chance to go further with my camera.
The most heavily edited photo in the collection. The Sea Sprite struck an odd impression of something between oddly shaped and yet definitely deadly.
Here the flight controller motions for the Helo Ops crew to return to the hanger once the helicopter has been untethered to the flight deck.
We fast forward a few days to our few Replenishment at Sea operations, where we shifted to the West side of Tioman to refuel a number of RSN vessels in the span of a few days. Some took place in the day, others in the night and early morning. Large imposing fenders had to be lowered from our flight deck to the side of the ship in preparation, and on one occasion, we suffered an incident due to poor sea state.
The Major in the photo has posted out since this sailing, a few months shy of ORDing. His farewell warranted quite a celebration, and there was quite a lot of booze that went around. That was also in part due to one of our ship crew striking the lottery and winning cash in the zone of five figures.
Dauntless arrives for her fuel as rain clouds start to gather over the sky. Ever single time we refuelled her, it rained. Many said it was due to the large number of female sailors she had on board.
Yellow helmets and red Cherry fenders in preparation for the A/S.
The sky cleared up after the rain, and I was lucky to get a shot of the parting rain clouds. They almost seem to move aside for the protruding upper mast of the MCV.
This is perhaps my favourite shot of the sailing, with the depth clearly accentuated here. I realised all of my outdoor shots were just a slight bit too blue, so I had them tweaked.
I fast forward many more days now, in part because there wasn't much else to our role there but those operations for the next few days. Many realised that I had been logging on nearly everyday for updates on BF3 online, and indeed in the days running up to the game's release, I couldn't stop thinking about it. After some point in time though, time seemed to speed up considerably, and the sailing was over pretty soon.
The pictures here were taken on our first and only shore leave, lasting for about 5 hours on Tioman Island, a place that seemed to have taken East Coast Park and Pulau Ubin, and meshed them into a much bigger island. Leaving the ship on a fast beaching craft was truly something that I had been yearning for for a long time, and on the 29th, I had that curious wish fulfilled.
That day, we had to pick up other RSN personnel from various ships all anchored in our vicinity, for it was the end of the exercise and they were enjoying their shore leave too. Like a bus on it's daily route, we powered our way to different ships, five in total, picking up passengers along the way before heading for the beach. Sadly, we didn't beach on the island, but simply went alongside the small jetty where Australian shore leave personnel were already awaiting their return.
Men, ready weapons! Quite a few of us gamely posed for our D-Day stances as we came even nearer to the beach. You can see the speed of the craft accentuated by the motion blur of the surrounding water.
"Pillbox! There on the hillcrest! We take that objective, men!"
"Mm... I don't like the sound of that mission, sergeant..."
"Sustaining heavy fire! Push forward, men! Drive them back to Berlin!
Anyway, here's what the island more or less looked like. There were quite a few lodges for tourists, and apparently almost the whole population works in the tourist industry.
The whole island is a duty-free shopping area, so beers were as cheap as canned drinks, and the first thing we did was to get ourselves some Hoegaarden to drink while walking around. A nice one, I must say. I kept both bottle caps. We also drank some more at the eatery we stopped at, which was more or less all we had time for. Tiger cans littered the whole of our table, as you can see.
Stefan, the CBA (Chinese Born American) was glued to Fruit Ninja for most of the trip. He was quite upset when, during a previous sailing, the Buffer I mentioned earlier beat his high score in one try, scoring about 1300.
Nothing special about this photo, except that the sign board invites you to eat at a 'Shady Bakery'. Heh, not my cup of tea.
Here my camera was hijacked by the CBA dude, who showed me a light motion technique that produces pretty interesting results. Pictured is my Weapons specialist PO.
The reluctant Corporal made it up the hillcrest to take the pillbox that day. He's actually a regular, though. Weapons.
Here we chance upon a stall selling Ramlee burgers. It took some time, and apparently other shore leave personnel had to cook their own burgers because the islanders simply idled too long when cooking the burgers, and invited them to be the cook. Ours was fine, they apparently have Supermarket-packaged Ramlee burger patties ready to cook there.
The last shot of the sailing, taken in the ship's briefing room. The distortion here is accentuated by the lens and angle. The two in the photo are part of the Flotilla's 20th Anniversary team that I'm in, and we got some things done during the slow-paced sailing.
In the far corner is the Resolution Lighthouse, something I came up with and constructed for the ship. It was perhaps the most arduous effort I put in for the ship. It did get me an artfriend membership though I guess. And one duty off.
Until the next update, then.
Labels: interesting, jolly pirates, navy, photography, thoughts
posted by joseph at 4:09 PM