2 hours at the rally brought quite a few interesting moments, some of which I managed to capture in stills while others just zipped by because I was not ready. Here's some of the highlights for that night.

Taking Down the Moments


Little boy riding on Daddy's shoulder, armed with a camera phone, taking down footages of the rally with a bird's eye view. How I wished I could do that too, so I don't have to raise my arm high up all the time. Taken with the F11


3" LCD, the gentlemen in front of us was happily snapping away with his casio? camera. Taken with the F11.


This boy had a video camera on tripod blocking people's view on the stands. Is he doing this for a project? I won't know. Taken with the H1.


Most people were just taking the occasional shots using their camera phones held high up. Like in this case. Few brought decent cameras to the location perhaps they were more interested in the rally than taking photos of the rally. Taken with the H1.

Flags and Banners

Flags were been sold at $2 a piece outside the stadium to raise funds for the WP. But hammers like these must be taken off from his son. Anything goes to show their support. Taken with the H1.


What do you do when your hands are not long enough to raise the flags high enough? Put them on an umbrella to raise them. Taken with the H1.


Of all the banners, these seem the most interesting. Long Men Ke Zhan, Feng Yun Zai Qi (龙门客栈， 风云再起). Or literally means "The wind and clouds rises again in the Dragon Gate Inn". I would had missed this banner if not for the H1 super zoom.


Many banners were given to the WP. Most of them read something like "Wei Min Fu Wu" (为民服务) which means working for the people. The two big hammers you see in the frame are used to direct candidates to the stage. Supporters will shift and open a path for candidates when they see the hammers swinging by. It's quite a sight when it happens, really. Taken with the H1.

The Three Most Recognizable Candidates.


The Man, Mr Low Thia Khiang. Taken with H1.


The Lady, Mrs Sylvia Lim. Taken with H1.


The Man in Deep Shit, Mr Gomez. Taken with H1.

Gomez Saga
News from Channelnewsasia reported that Mr Gomez was detained by police when he tried to board a flight back to Sweden where he worked.

According to the WP candidate, a police official had told him that he was being investigated for a case of criminal intimidation. At about 5pm, Mr Gomez was escorted by three police officers to the Police Cantonment Complex, where CID officers interviewed him.

Criminal Intimidation? I've seen more unreasonable, daunting and worst case in my life. An animated man screaming, yelling and jumping up and down to force an officer in the airport to get seats for him and his family in a plane. That seems more intimidating to me than what Gomez did in the many reruns of the video seen on TV. Did Gomez threatened to kill their whole family if he don't get his way? I'll be interested to know what constitute a criminal intimidation too. Maybe Gomez should have just call for a press conference to explain his choice of words and actions away. Like how Mr Lee explained the word "fix" he used in the rally so you can't complained that Mr Lee tried to intimidate the opposition candidates.

I'm starting to get disgusted with the unfolding events. Oh, Gomez did explained his actions, but Mr Lee and Mr Lee was not satisfied with his explanation. Ah well... The PAP had done so much for Singapore, but I'm disappointed to see this happen. I'm sure the PAP did this to uphold justice and integrity of the Elections Department plus a whole list of many other valid reasons. But I had also learnt that not all humans are perfect and despite their imperfections, we had seen many great leaders who rose up to the occasions.

Challenges faced using the Cameras
H1 was not meant for night shoots, I knew that all along for its noisy images at higher ISO. But I didn't care for noise, what was more important that night was to capture the moment and H1 was the camera that could provide the zoom range. But even ISO400 was not quite fast enough for my full zoom shots as I had to hold my camera at awkward positions. So most photos ended up underexposed and I needed to do some editing.

The F11 on the other hand performed reasonably well with it's high ISO ability. Being able to take shots at ISO1600 was helpful as you can see quite a number of shots I had taken were from the F11. In fact, those wide angle shots were from the F11 and zoom ones limited to H1.

All the photos you seen here are taken with the F11 and H1 by me and sucre.

Links to relevant posts on the Elections
Elections, Rally, Personal Experience
Elections Reflections
Elections, Rally, Videos

singapore elections rally worker's party wp pap politics James gomez photoblog dsc h1 fuji f11 essays