Mudskipper. July 2008.

The Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve is celebrating its 15th anniversary. My friend Siva has blogged about the forthcoming event as well as a related photography exhibition and book launch.

Sungei Buloh is a great place to visit in order to escape from the hectic life of the city of Singapore. You were never sure what you may see when you visited. Over the years I have seen otters, Malayan Water Monitors, mudskippers, tree-climbing crabs, macaques, snakes, spiders and so on. Of course there is a rich variety of mangrove species as well.

Well, to share in the celebration I thought I would share some of the photographs I have taken at the reserve over the years…

Rain storm. January 3rd, 2003.

View from the tower

A view of the mangroves. April 12th, 2003.

Mangrove Pit Viper. 26th October 2003.

During my stay in Singapore I also helped out with the International Coastal Cleanup event at Sungei Buloh. I took photographs of the event and captured video. Galleries of those photographs can be found at the official site for the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore. Gallery 2001. Gallery 2003.

Happy Anniversary Sungei Buloh!

Late this afternoon, as the evening approached I went outside to see check the extent of the cloud cover in the western sky. I was hoping to photograph an interesting astronomical alignment of the moon, Jupiter and Venus. As I write this I am still hoping.

Anyway, the sun was setting and the I felt the sky looked quite spectacular. There had been some brief showers that afternoon. I grabbed my camera and took a few photographs. I noticed that the light from the sun was bending through the icy clouds generating some nice prism like effects. Hope you enjoy them.

Thought I might add this photograph I took of a sunset a few weeks back.

This post is not about folksonomy or tagging, web 2.0 style.

The school at which I teach is vandalised from time to time. The weekend just past eclipsed most of the previous acts of vandalism. An individual or two decided it would be a good idea to tag the school. They tagged brickwork, bulletin boards, social justice displays, murals, posters, water tanks, windows and more. It was everywhere.

The photograph above illustrates one of the tags. I will not show more. I do not want to give the individuals responsible for this crime the pleasure of seeing more of their criminal acts published.

This incenses me. Tagging has become a serious problem in our main regional centre. Parts of the city are ugly as a result. Ugly. Gratefully it is not yet a serious issue in my own town.

I was considerably restrained in referring to the persons responsible as individuals. A selection of other terms crossed my mind as I walked around the school this morning.

Graffiti could possibly be art at times when the work is performed responsibly and legally. Otherwise graffiti and tagging on public and private property is a crime.

Perhaps the culprits will be caught and given a little restorative justice ~ community work cleaning up tagging and graffiti around the town.