Here’s some of the wonderful Marina Bay Events that I am looking forward to for the month of December !

- Extreme Sailing Series at Marina Bay

Date : 9th – 11th December 2011

The final and ninth Act of the global 2011 Extreme SailingSeries and Marina Bay will be graced by 10 Extreme 40 teams out on the waters of Marina Bay in Singapore and I am looking forward to catch them in action there!

- Marina Bay Singapore Countdown and New Year Eve Fireworks

Date : 31st December 2011

My all time favourite event is to find a spot at the Marina Bay, find a location to soak in the Countdown atmosphere and to shoot the beautiful, amazing and exciting New Year Eve Countdown Fireworks with the gorgeous night landscape of Marina Bay as my background! Check out the various fireworks of Marina Bay over the past few years here on my Flickr and if you like to learn about fireworks photography, check out my Fireworks Photography Tips here!

Do check out Marina Bay Singapore Facebook Page for more information and updates, remember to LIKE the page and stay updated! Here’s the online version of Marina Bay 2011 December events !

Starting on a Friday, 4th November 2011, the pool action kick started till Saturday. It wasn’t just the big boys in action, the ladies teams were playing, along with the school boys, providing continuous sporting action on the grounds for the crowds to enjoy. Besides the sports, there’s the sideline carnival festivities of food and drinks.

Many teams from different parts of the world coming back to Singapore to play in the 64th SCC Rugby 7s, although one of the crowd favourites, the South Africa Vipers wasn’t able to join this year, some teams returned back to Singapore playing in the SCC Rugby 7s again, the Swedish Vikings with their awesome Viking Hats whenever they ran on to the pitch! The French connection consisting of French Development and NAPTHA Pyrenees7s, this was their maiden debut in the SCC 7s competition! These teams provided more flair and spectacle to the SCC 7s!

Shot over 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, great to watch and enjoy the rugby matches at the same time. Check out my sports photography of the 64th SCC Rugby 7s on my Flickr , SCC Rugby 7s 2011 – Day 2 and SCC Rugby 7s 2011 – Day 3. For more information into the history and heritage of the SCC Rugby 7s, do drop by their website and the information is available there!

 

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

The Ablitt Cup Competition, fought between Daveta and Borneo Eagles, was a great game that lived up to the reputation of fast flowing attacking Rugby 7s, hard fought, passionate, fast paced, fierce and competitive. Daveta from Fiji came up tops and they are the 64th SCC Rugby 7s Ablitt Cup holders! Congratulations to them for a great fight, sporting spirit and passion! Let’s all look forward to the 65th year of SCC 7s in 2012 and will love to watch Daveta coming back to defend their crown!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I was invited to the SCC International Rugby 7s press conference on 2nd November at the Padang, an opportunity to meet Captains from defending champions HSBC Penguins, French National team, Fiji team Daveta, listening to their views of the upcoming SCC 7s and autographing a rugby union ball and a SCC 7s 2011 jumper too! Quality, talented and exciting rugby 7s teams would be in Singapore and they would be providing great sporting action to all here and around the world too! It’s a great line up with high octane action on the fields !

The draw has been made and here is the draw for the Pools

Source : Singapore Cricket Club International Rugby 7s 

The Pools competition schedule for the 64th SCC 7s can be found here in pdf format. For more information, here are the links

- Official Website : Singapore Cricket Club International Rugby 7s

- Facebook : The SCC 7s

This is an exciting weekend ahead for sports fans! Here’s some photos on Flickr that I captured during the 60th SCC Rugby 7s  at the Padang! For more exciting and adrenaline sporting rugby 7s action, head down to the SCC 7s at the Padang from 4 to 6 November 2011 !

I was kindly invited by the Marina Bay Division of Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) for a day of social, leisure and recreational activities on 24th September 2011 and it was a dream coming true when I was able to board the beautiful and magnificent Audi Ultra Super Maxi Yacht for a short trip on the Marina Bay waters!! Alright, before I go further into my adventure story telling, here’s more information on the Audi Ultra Racing Team. Here’s the technical details of the yacht and it’s an awesome sight to be on this gorgeous yacht! Check out them on Audi Ultra Racing Team on Facebook too!

With a great crew to sail us around the Marina Bay, explaining to us the history, specifications, power and capabilities of this yacht. We were given a taste of her strengths and unique feature of the canting keel! Sailing around the Marina Bay is very fun and I am looking forward to the future when there are more water activities on the Marina Bay, giving this beautiful Bay area, an even greater leisure and recreational environment! Sailing around the Bay, taking photographs from the heart of the Marina Bay waters, this experience is priceless. The group of visitors on the yacht were also given a tour of the deck below the yacht, having a first hand glimpse of how yacht living is like, it’s an eye-opener!

Do check out fellow blogger’s write up on the sailing adventure together with me!

- Jerome Lim

- Leone Fabre

- Would update the links here once other fellow bloggers share about their adventures!

While it was only a short trip around the Marina Bay, it was absolutely great fun, I got myself behind the steering wheel and acted like the captain of the yacht! Returning back to shore, I was very happy to say that I was on board a modern, powerful, sporting competition yacht, the Audi Ultra Super Maxi Yacht!  This would not have been possible with the special arrangement by Juliana Tan of Marina Bay Division and the wonderful crew of the Audi Ultra Racing Team. Thank you all for this special sailing event! Check out my sailing adventures photos here!

The Audi Ultra Super Maxi Yacht is now on its way for more adventures & competitions! Wishing her crew all the best and good luck!! Hope to catch you all again at Marina Bay !!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

With an exciting entertainment program line-up of international singers and performers, making Singapore F1 GP unique and special from the rest of the other F1 circuits around the world, bringing Singapore to a spotlight around the world. However, I was more interested in the F1 cars in high octane speed action, more than the performers. Therefore, I was walking around and soaking in the carnival atmosphere, watching the F1 cars zooming pass me and trying to identify each and every F1 car, capturing them down on my Canon 1Dmk3 with my 70-200mm f4 L USM lens. The sports photography of Formula One is very demanding, on the equipment, to be of the high end level, along with experiences, skills and tips.

Do check out my Singapore F1 GP collection and recap the memories !

- 2008 

- 2009 

- 2010

Starting off at Turn 13, at the Fullerton and Esplanade Bridge area, it was my favourite spot and it’s very crowded, having to squeeze in behind many rows of people and shooting the F1 cars with spectators heads in my photographs. After the practice session, I took a rest and enjoyed the cooling air-conditioning at the Esplanade before moving to Turn 8, near the Stamford Grandstand, another sweet spot for capturing F1 cars in action. Linked up with Renhao with his 300mm f2.8 lens and we were firing away during Qualifying Session.

While it was very challenging to capture the F1 cars in action, it gave me more experience than before and I would be planning to write my updated version of F1 Photography tips soon, looking forward into Singapore F1 GP 2012, I need to plan ahead, buy my 3 Days pass earlier and get the Premier Walkabout to capture F1 action from more angles, perspectives and locations in Singapore F1 GP ! There might be people out there who commented Singapore F1 GP is getting boring, personally, I think it will only get more exciting as we can see from 2010 and 2011, with more excitement on the rack circuit and more overtaking, with the F1 drivers getting more experiences on the Singapore F1 Marina Bay circuit!

Let’s all look forward to Singapore F1 GP 2012 !!

 

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Aussies are simply crazy about their sports and cricket is like a staple diet, a must have for them! Therefore, I slowly learned about the game, rules, lingo and terms, till date, I am still learning more about this sport. Recently, I was invited by the friendly folks of thePRelement, to attend the 2^nd Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) Twenty-20 Cricket international tournament, that was played at the Padang, a venue of historical significance in Singapore’s history, heritage and sports.

Although I wasn’t able to watch all the matches, I was able to catch a game on Saturday afternoon and the finals on Sunday. The weather was great on both days, hot and sunny, with beautiful sunshine, great for watching cricket games! Since this was my maiden attempt in capturing cricket sports action, I was changing locations at every few overs to capture different perspectives, angles and composition of the cricket tournament. Given the size of the oval and my lens focal length (70-200mm f4 on a 1.3x crop body), it was a new learning and challenging experience for me! Some spots around the oval field works still alright for my lens, overall, a 300mm or 400mm telephoto lens would definitely be more ideal for capturing cricket action (and most of the other sports action too)

Action wise, Twenty-20 cricket is more fast paced action as compared to the 5 days Test Cricket and 50 overs format. There were good fielding, bowling and a few batsmen were powerful with their 4s and 6s. Being my maiden attempt at capturing cricket action, adding on to my sports photography portfolio, a very good learning experience and love watching live sports action so close to them! The tips & tricks for shooting cricket especially the bowlers in action needs to be more researched and experimented more in the future! For more SCC Twenty-20 International Club Cricket Tournament photos, check them out here on my Flickr!

 

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Hot fiery octane 2-on-2 action just got more intense and exciting along with the rise in temperature, showcasing a level of beach volleyball action showcase that presents the beauty and sporting moments of precision timing and teamwork, with teams from Indonesia and Oman, leading the way. Our local boys are good too, giving the big boys a run for their money and a good fight on the beach volleyball courts!

The quarter finals, semi-finals were a great sporting spectacle before the grand final and it’s an awesome sporting event, signifying the growth and popularity of beach volleyball in the world and here too in Singapore, just look at the beach volleyball crowds during the weekends on Sentosa island. The volunteers and organisers did a great job to organise the 2011 Beach Volleyball Championships, well done folks!

The VAS Singapore Beach Volleyball Open Championships 2011 is getting bigger and it would get bigger in the future!! Beach volleyball here in Singapore is going to metamorphosis into a mega sporting spectacle event! Meanwhile, sit back, relax and enjoy some of the beach volleyball action photography!

 

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

The Volleyball Association of Singapore (VAS) is currently having an Open Championships on 23rd July and 24th July 2011, held at Siloso Beach of the fun and sunny island playground Sentosa! Day 1 is completed, however, more exciting and high octane action is in Day 2, on the 24th July 2011 from 9am to 6pm!

Do come down, enjoy the sun, sand and beach volleyball competition, with teams from overseas countries gracing our Singapore Beach Volleyball Open Championships 2011! Great and exciting future volleyball talents producing great games for all to watch and enjoy! See you there at Siloso Beach for more Day 2 Beach Volleyball action!!

Here’s some snapshots of the VAS SG Beach Volleyball Open Championships 2011 Day 1 

 

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

It’s a great place to explore, exchange and entertain, highlighted in their vision page of Marina Bay website. From the many different events that graced Marina Bay, internationally recognised events that put us on the world map to our local events, there is something for everybody here. For the upcoming months, there are some awesome and interesting events that might be of great interest to you, the events calendar list can be found here! Wonder what kind of activities/events can be spotted in the heart of Marina Bay ? Or where can you go and take beautiful photographs of Marina Bay? Take a look at my photos collection of Marina Bay on Flickr!

Some interesting upcoming events that might interest you are

- SailFun at the Bay from 8th July to 10th July 2011

- Singapore Food Festival from 15th to 24th July 2011

- Baybeats 2011

- 2011 Formula 1 Singtel Singapore GP

An exciting list of upcoming events are waiting for you! Do drop by and check them out!

The crowds were great, simply awesome and it was vocal and loud, giving the Singapore U15 and U16 teams great support during the entire matches. I was there again, to capture a piece of the action from the 3rd and 4th placing and the final, shooting from the sidelines of the Jalan Besar football field, as I was part of the 25 selected participants from the sports photography workshop to take photographs of the Canon Lion City Cup matches and a chance to win the prize of Canon 600D too!

I was lucky that I was able to loan a 300mm f4 prime telephoto lens from the event organiser and it was my first time using the 300mm prime lens! A great experience overall, although, it took me 1 game, the 3rd and 4th place game between Singapore U15 and Juventus U15 before I got the hang of it, just in time for the 2nd game, the final between Singapore U16 and Flamengo U15. Being up close to the action was great, fun and an enriching experience, adding more to my sports photography portfolio.

Both the Singapore U15 and U16 teams played well through out the tournament, giving their counterparts a run for their money and a great platform to showcase their skills and potential. From these matches, we might be seeing future rising football stars of our nation! The Singapore U15 beat Juventus U15 for 3rd place while Singapore U16 lost to Flamengo U15 for the final, regardless the results, the young boys had done really well! Let’s all wish them all the best for their footballing future!

The Canon Lion City Cup 2011 is over, let me bring you through the photographic memories and moments of the 3rd/4th placing and Final -

3rd/4th Placing – Singapore U15 versus Juventus U15

 

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Final – Singapore U16 versus Flamengo U15

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.