By: XEONIQ [ Instagram | Tumblr ]
In 2024, Kuala Lumpur has emerged as one of the top ten popular tourist destinations in the world by arrivals. Lacking the pockets of extreme destitution in Jakarta nor the increasingly globalised sterility of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur provides a multi-cultural South East Asian “jungle city” where modern high rises compete with tropical plant-life, immense crowds of locals and tourists, alike, and a vibrant market economy amidst a myriad of narrow, traditional laneways. As transnational corporate capitalism continues its relentless homogenising commodification of the array of our world’s once diverse mega-cities; Kuala Lumpur was a welcome surprise to me as a traveler. While not quiet yet a “developed” or affluent nation, Malaysia’s capital city has attracted significant commercial, tourism and infrastructure development, including a monorail system, which unlike those that failed in Sydney and Gold Coast, Australia, runs sustainably and efficiently as public transport. The combination of low income street life and high luxury in Kuala Lumper made me wonder if such a balance was necessary to avoid the banality of our developed cities, while not exposing the average person to the depressing reality of poverty. As tourists, we often want “excitement” and some measure of authentic grit, but never have it actually be dangerous, nor do we want to confront the sobering realities of our own individual roles in spreading corporate and cultural imperialism to the beautiful, and perhaps fleetingly unique, locales that host us.
I have divided this short set according to the type of 35mm film I’ve used. I will give a small impression of each film stock and some commentary on the subject and content of each photo as well as any notable photography practices or theory I’d like highlight. As for my gear, on a trip I really want to just enjoy myself these days. I choose lenses and cameras I enjoy handling and shooting with over any kind of performance expectations. In Kuala Lumpur I was using a Canon T70 with a 50 year old Tamron 38-100 F3.5 zoom and a Canon nFD 50mm 1.8 prime lens for night shots. Photo walks in the morning on my own with the zoom set up were immensely enjoyable shooting experiences with Kuala Lumpur’s copious directional light; and I felt the process itself greatly enriched the trip.
CineStill Film 800T
CineStill Film’s ever-popular 800T is an expensive Kodak Vision 3 repack, providing blue tones shot during the day as it is Tungsten light balanced for night shooting. And while I see no discernable difference than Cyberpunk 800T (or any other Kodak Vision 3 repacks), I will say there was not a single light leak on any of the frames in my CineStill Film 800T roll. The quality control is clearly a lot higher than inexpensive repacks like Cyberpunk [SHELLZINE Review Link Here]. Motion picture film repacks like CineStill Film 800T remain my favourite 35mm film stock for their, obviously, cinema-like rendering of scenes, red circlets of highlight halation and surreal colours when used during the day. For whatever the reason, the range in which I can edit shadows and highlights with CineStill and other repacks far exceeds that from stock such as Kodak UltraMax. For those that don’t overly edit their film scans, that may be of less interest; but I often do enjoy spending time “perfecting” a shot to my tastes, and for that reason CineStill and it’s peers are my consistent choice for the 35mm format.
Foilage foreground, buildings at infinity, and winding roads and track serving as leading lines. A textbook cityscape shot that I’ve done far too many of in the past, but can’t help selecting this frame to open the set.
While not as tepid as Singapore, the heat and humidity in Kuala Lumpur are still significant for anyone who hasn’t spent time in tropics. The early morning light is diffused by humidity and combines with the remjet-removed CineStill to provide a soft glow to glares.
Sun showers in Kuala Lumpur’s bright morning light cascade heavy droplets of rain that shimmer as jewels against the hard reflective glass of commercial architecture.
In Kuala Lumpur, tropical weather and considerate civic management sees that certain trees are allowed to mature and thus many grow to magnificent proportions; enmeshed into the city’s twisting, and sometimes seemingly organic, metropolitan infrastructure. It truly feels like an urban jungle and is absolutely gorgeous to walk through compared to oft overly-landscaped or barren cities that you might find in other countries.
This is easily my favourite shot of this set. I am extremely inspired by vintage media in creating my own images. While I prefer the landscape orientation, I am resigned to the fact that the majority of my audience will view my photography through a portrait-oriented phone screen. This vertical perspective lends me to taking inspiration from movie and video game cover art and from promotional posters used in the 80s and 90s. The clean, bright and beautiful architecture is framed by vibrant palms and trees, which first capture the viewer’s attention, while the lower third darkens to a street-level scene where makeshift barriers made from traffic cones accompany electric LED signage as loitering men bleed into the structures they lean against. This shot captures what I typically set out to find on a street walk and paints an image of a tropical cyberpunk locality, one the audience can hopefully immerse themselves in.
Kodak Professional Ektar 100
Kodak Professional’s Ektar 100 is not a 35mm film stock I use too often. I actually prefer it on 120 format and most of my perceived best shots are taken with it. However, the superiority of Ektar’s image quality as one of the latest developed colour negative stocks on the market is clear. It is sharp, vibrant and has great contrast for a colour negative film, sometimes rivalling colour positive/slide film. This is precisely why I don’t often use it however, because I find the results too similar to digital photography to be worth the additional expense and effort of shooting on film. Ektar 100 was available locally in Kuala Lumpur and I was happy with quite a few shots I captured on it.
One of the few shots where I feel I’ve managed to capture some juxtaposition between large capital development, lower income living space, and the ever-encroaching greenery that blankets the city.
The weakest shot in this set for me. However, I did like how the motorcyclists were lined up, their gazes converging with the trajectory of the oncoming monorail.
Using a large crowd of people, slightly out of focus and intentionally indistinct as a frame for a city scape is a technique I’ve been dabbling in the past couple years. I would have liked the large LED video signs that adorn the monorail track’s pillars to have been more prominent, as I found them striking in a kind of “cyberpunk” way; but the energy and flow of people in this area of the city was well captured in this shot.
Kodak UltraMax 400
UltraMax is a long term film favourite for many shooters as it is versatile at a 400ISO speed, has a pleasant warm colour cast and is both inexpensive and widely available around the world. However, with inexpensive cinema film repacks being more affordable and with better sharpness and editing latitude than UltraMax, I only use this stock if I have run out on a trip, cannot order online and it is the only available film in a locality’s retail.
Unhappy with the image quality and overall composition here, however I enjoyed the integration of the palm trees into this high rise glass and cement building. The palm trees are themselves quite a few stories up, which I neglected to capture as the street level was both unlit and quite unaesthetic with parked cars and garbage bins wallowing below.
Another crowd as framing device to show activity. This market street had many restaurants and hawkers attempting to bring prospective eaters into their establishments. The Christian signage and Chinese aesthetics provide an interesting contrast.
Included only because I found the makeshift green plastic roofing over sidewalks an interesting frame and the building signage provided a clear indication that the setting locale was in Malaysia.
One of the least attractive photos, I do enjoy the random panda-bear-costumed pedestrian (imagine wearing that in 32C/90F heat with 90% humidity), the dead on stare of the LED screen model at the camera lens and the surreal, even if slightly ugly, colours that came out of this shot.
Ending the set with yet another monorail shot. The immense cement tracks and the constant feel of motion occurring overhead, above vehicular ground and pedestrian traffic provides yet another visceral structural element to already busy city centres. For a photographer, extra components to compress into a single image is always welcome. As a cyberpunk fan, the admittedly old technology that monorails represent do give a city a kind of 80’s retrofuturistic aesthetic that I can’t help but feel enamoured by.
Kuala Lumpur is not just an excellent and unique holiday destination, it is also extremely affordable and for photographers, there is no shortage of subjects or scenes to capture here. Combined with some of the best food in the world and ample access to world-class consumer brands and services, I find little that I could critique the city over as a tourist destination.
If you liked the images in this set, you can see more of my photography on my Tumblr or Instagram.