Australian War Memorial

I had the day off from work and Trixie asked me what I would be doing, so naturally I said, "Sleep." But after much thought, I decided to take a trip to the Australian War Memorial which is around 10 minutes from our place. I knew that I would find something interesting there because Sabah and Australia have ties since WW2 because of the infamous Sandakan-Ranau Death March. As an ex-tour guide in Sabah, I have some knowledge of the march. What I found, apart from other historical exhibits, is a whole room and wall dedicated to Australian troops who died during the Death March. I had a short emotional moment thinking how they sacrificed their lives for the Sabahans.


View of the Australian Parliament House from the War Memorial


Entrance to the War Memorial


Inside the memorial - quite similar layout to the one in Kundasang


How Sabah is highlighted


Photos of those who died during the death march

The reason for my existence:

Trixie, my wife of 10 years and our son, Kimo Xan

Adding to my vintage collection

Last Saturday, Kamal (fellow photographer, my wife's ANU schoolmate and Malaysian) and I went to the Canberra Camera Collectors sale at the Irish Club here in Canberra. I have never been to one so naturally I was excited to see what was on sale. I had no intention to buy anything (because I am so poor) but limited myself to $20 if I did so. There were many vintage stuff and also some earlier DSLRs.





Price was very reasonable and I was tempted, plus an auction at the end of the sale was really good.


The auction

At the back of my head, I was thinking, "Where in Sabah will I get these kinds of cameras?" So, with my 20 bucks, here is what I got.


Got this from the auction for 5 bucks


And what I thought was a good buy was this 1961 Yashica J series in working condition.


$10 for this

The remaining $5 was spent on a vintage leather strap for my Minolta Hi-Matic G, which I bought at the Salvation Army Thrift store or Salvo's.

A few hours at the Floriade, Canberra

Floriade is the biggest flower festival in Australia, a spectacular celebration of spring, set in Canberra's Commonwealth Park.

We planned to go to the one-month event earlier but it had been raining and cold, so finally the weather was better yesterday. As for me, I have never really seen so many tulips in my life. I wanted to see some 'black tulips' which I read about when I was a kid. Creating a black tulip was the holy grail for the flower enthusiasts back in the days in Holland. As much as I could see, however, were no black tulips at the Floriade, just really dark maroon ones.

Here are a mix of family and Floriade pictures I took.

Starting my vintage camera collection

I started fooling around with photography around 1992-93 and had real gung-ho aspirations to be a photographer since then. I inherited an old Yashica SLR from my father and went shooting with my buddies Romeo, Disney and Kelly.

*Not the exact Yashica but a photo from Wikipedia

I remember we all had old cameras and mine would always jam up, and finally on a climb to Mt. Kinabalu, it finally gave up on me and the mirror never came down..it was stuck for good.

So I requested, I think for my birthday, for a camera from my sister, who gave me a 2nd hand Canon SLR.

*again, not the exact Canon. Mine had an all black body.

I think I only managed to use it once for a body-building competition at Kiulu, then the same problem happened, the mirror got jammed. This time it was sent to a technician to be fixed but it really conked out.

I was without a SLR camera for a long long time, till I got my first DSLR in 2008, a Nikon D200.


Coming to Australia has it downs for me, not being able to work in my chosen field of Photojournalism. The pros is, however, endless. I can now shoot without pressure to deliver to my editor or client.

I was chatting online with fellow Sabahan, Flanegan Bainon, who is in Melbourne studying Photography and he told he had started collecting vintage cameras. I found that really interesting and kept an eye out for old cameras at thrift stores and garage sales.

This is my first vintage camera I bought at the Salvation Army store. It cost me AUS$15.00. The Minolta Hi-Matic G was made in 1974, the year I was born, and still works. There was still a roll of film inside when I got it. I changed the battery and the meters went 'alive'! I think I got a good buy.