Carlina Teteris Photography

22 June 11

Laos Part I | Houay Xai | Muang Sing | Luang Nam Tha | Nong Khiew

So this trip was almost two months already… I’ve been caught up with all sorts of stuff since then, good and bad and everything in between. Other than Nong Khiew I only spent about half a day in any of these other towns.

Each of these towns is completely different: Houay Xai is insanely overpriced, to take advantage of all the tourists just arriving in the country from Thailand. Muang Sing is a charming little town, but has a curious lack of transportation, unless you do the smart thing and rent a motorcycle in Luang Namtha and drive there yourself. Luang Namtha has about as much charm as a Chinese industrial town, although I had a lovely massage and herbal sauna in a bamboo hut in the middle of a freezing cold rain storm. …And Nong Khiew is a dream. Definitely what I had in mind when I decided to roam around northern Laos. Stunning little town on two banks of the slow-moving Nam Ou River, connected with a great big bridge, and surrounded by mountains and jungle. Most of the guest houses are huts overlooking the river with amazing views. Mine was sort of full of bugs, but smelled really good for some reason. Then I jumped in the river and got an ear infection and couldn’t take the boat ride to Luang Prabang because there wasn’t enough people for the boat so I got stuck on another bus. The End. Here’s the pictures.

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guanhui - hey! love your photos!! are you using 50mm f1.4 for your food pictures and 105mm f2.8 for the people/candid shots?

thanks!

Carlina - @guanhui.. thanks :) a lot of the portraits in this set were with the 105mm 2.8 VR. The rest were mostly a mix of that, 24-70mm 2.8 and 50mm 1.4. Unfortunately somewhere between Laos, BKK, Singapore and Vancouver I managed to lose my 105mm macro :( so sad

guanhui - hey thanks for the reply!

shit! thats a huge lost! hope you get a replacement soon :)

Carlina - I know right… lost that AND over 50gb in CF cards. Sometimes I hate myself :( Not sure I’ll replace the lens, considering picking up a 60mm macro again and 135mm f/2 DC when I can justify spending the $

Igor - Beautiful series, you really have a great eye(s) and technique. Should get this published in a travel magazine.

Igor - Wonderful series. You have a great eye and technique.

Should get this published.

Magalie - Darn you, now I want to go back! Seriously, people (eg., me) would love to travel with you and get loads of photo tips!

PS. You were right about the squirrel / rat question: point proven! :)

Carlina - I didn’t want to have to post the dead squirrels, but I will do what it takes to win an argument… you left me with no choice ;)

blogmulo - Carlina,
What a magnificent set of travel images!
I am planning to visit Luang Prabang in january myself, so I would have a closer look at your flickr stream ;)
Best,
Romulo

Carlina - Thanks Romulo~ I’ll be posting up the full set from Luang Prabang soon… almost done processing them :) I Can’t wait to see your laos set! Your photos are incredible… the one of the dunes and dead trees you posted on flickr today is mind-blowing! My colleague and I were drooling all over your flickr stream today

Heather - Wow. I love this set of images. I have been a fan of your travel photography for a while following your stuff on flickr. I was just wondering, when you travel, what gear do you usually take? Lenses, bags etc. I’d love to plan a photography trip to Asia soon and I have a habit of packing too much… just in case!
Cheers

Carlina - Hey Heather~ Thanks for saying hi! I don’t travel light, that’s for sure! I pretty much take everything I think I might want. My theory is that I don’t buy thousands of dollars of gear to use it at home shooting monkeys in the park. The bag thing is a completely different issue. I HATE camera bags, I hate everything about them. they’re ugly, uncomfortable and always too big and not big enough all at the same time. Right now I’ve got a lowepro slingshot bag and a crumpler 7 million$ home. I don’t like either, but I use the 7mil more. There are some companies that make travel backpacks with built in and removable camera bags, which I’m contemplating investing in, but they’re kinda expensive. This is one of them that looks pretty good

Stefan - Hi Carlina
Have been following your Flickr stream for some time. Not only do I love and admire your style of travel pfotography with the sense to spot so beautiful details of your environment. I also love your funny, ironical and partially sarcastic comments and stories.

And I would really have at least a part of your post processing capabilities.

Last but not least I would like to know the background of your obesession to dead fish :-) Any bad previous experience with live fish?

Hope you travel soon again to see more of your fantastic images.

Carlina - ahahaha… one of these days I’ll do a post dedicated to the dead fish habits :) My collection’s just not yet complete.

I hope I travel again soon too! Probably not until October though

Souvik - Hey Carli, amazing pictures as always. I had one quick question for you, do you use any filter, or more specifically, did you use any circular polarizer for your shots above?

Thanks
Souvik

BLOGMULO - Hi again!
Your Laos set on flickr is wonderful, but I do love this album on your blog.
Your pictures are fantastic! I am a huge fan! ;)
Take care

03 May 11

Back from Laos

Just a quick note to say I still exist. Really, I do! I’ve just come back from Laos, with a camera full of monks, dead fish and probably a whole lot of mud, too. Working on the photos as I unpack and try to catch up on a boat load of emails and stuff at work. Will get a proper post up as soon as I get through more of the photos. In the meantime, I’ll be posting a few more as I go along on my Flickr stream.

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12 February 11

The Great Malaysian Road Trip

A few days before a 4 day weekend when you have no plans, if a friends says, “hey, wanna go on a road trip,” the only appropriate answer is HELLS YES!

We pretty much covered as much of peninsular Malaysia as was humanly possible in 3 days (we came home a day early to avoid the jams at the border). We did 1500km and hit 6 states. If we had 2 more days I’m pretty sure we could have made it to the rest of the states, including Sabah and Sarawak. We’re that awesome. I’d hate to think about how much tea I drank on this trip.

Anyways… the itinerary went something like this: Escaped Singapore about 1am on Thursday, stopped for coffee around 3am and decided where we should aim for. Decided to try Pulau Pangkor. Arrived at the jetty some time in the morning, realized it was insanely busy, so made a detour to the beach paradise of Teluk Batik, with an incredibly classy octopus taking over a building. cool. Decided to try Taman Negara, and easily found a place with rooms available there. Drove past Ipoh, through Cameron Highlands, ended up almost out of petrol somewhere in Kelantan, and realized there was no way we were going to make it to Taman Negara, so we settled for the raging metropolis of Kuala Lipis. (At least they had good food there, which can’t be said about Taman Negara). Next day we made it to Kuala Tahan (Taman Negara) and visited the Orang Asli the next morning. The way back we almost went through Kuantan, but got bored, so turned around and took a super extra long way through KL. Most of the photos are from the car…. for obvious reasons.

Kiamat Selalu Dekat.

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Tracy Wallace - Such beautiful imagery. Thanks for sharing with the rest of us :)

Keko - Hahahhaha… “KIAMAT SELALU DEKAT” winks..winks..

Virus - Good one. Im goign there too on friday.

mnj - good shoot. roadtrip unplanned.maveles

iem ahmad - awesome photos! and that sentence ‘kiamat selalu dekat’ scares me quite a bit..thanks for sharing

Ali Celik - Very nice photos!.. Thanks for sharing.

I am for 6 month in Malaysia – Penang. I am going to have a road trip, too. If you have some better improvings of your trip or some general tips, then let me know.

Thank you ..

Ali Celik (

Carlina - Hi Ali, this trip had no plans for any sort of destination. We just basically wanted to drive anywhere, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend anything based on this one! Enjoy Penang!

Premala - Nice pics guys.. we are also planning for road trips.. thanks for the idea… :P

Ivan - How much you guys spend including petrol for 3 days?

Carlina - Ummm… No idea. It was a fee years ago. I think about one tank of petrol each and a little bit for rooms and food. Our biggest expense was probably tea. We drank a lot of tea.

Raafik - Hi Carlina, i love your photos. All of it. May I know what camera did you used and lenses?

25 January 11

Penang | Malaysia

World class street food!

So I think we’re officially foodies. We flew up to Penang for one night, just to eat our way through town. Of course none of the four of us (Jo, Alita, Ruby and myself) ever leave the house without cameras, so we did manage to snap a few photos along the food trail. I still can’t believe it took me 26 years of my life to make it up to Penang. Loved the town and could happily spend a whole lot more time wandering around all the old buildings, dreaming of buying a shop house and renovating it into a studio or lounge or my dream home or whatever….

Unfortunately I was struck down with a nasty flu the morning we arrived, and only made it out of the hotel a few times. Even though my sense of taste was pretty messed up because of the flu, Penang food is definitely everything it’s cracked up to be. YUMMMM! Unfortunately my fave café where I normally go for asam laksa just doesn’t cut it anymore.

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jowena - super like!

Magalie - Torture!!!! I love Penang, can’t believe you hadn’t been there before!

PS. What’s with the cat???

ruby - burp!

i wonder how many photos you’d make if you were not sick.

Peter G @ Souvlaki For The Soul - Malaysia is def a foodies paradise! Great pics again Carli!

Carlina - hahaha… Silly Alita decided to buy a singing and dancing cat from a guy on the side of the road.

Roger - Superb set of images – for a girl…

Carlina - @Rog… is that how you’re gonna play this, old man?

Jomak14 - superb photography as always!!!

Penny is awesome - I can’t believe you didnt even mention about your daughter AT ALL. The only reason why you love Penang is because me is from that land. If you would make some correction in the post, that will be much appreciated. Hahah!!! :p

Makes me miss mamaland food. You should come back again when I’m in town. Will bring you to some even more kampung places.

Katherine - Wow these are amazing, I was drooling over the album hahaha, so many pictures of food I miss dearly. Take care love!! Living vicariously through your photos:)

sydney - the photos are breathtaking!!　：）

ALLABOUTPENANG - Thanks a lot for the awesome photos! Thumbs up for good food and
restaurant in Penang!

17 January 11

เกาะลันตา | Koh Lanta

Just wanted to add a few snaps from the rest of the Koh Lanta weekend. I guess I travel quite a lot, but there are only a few other weekend trips that I would rank quite as awesome and memorable as this one…. ok… two, to be exact. Anyways… this was definitely among my three favorite island weekends, even though it was windy and cold the whole time. Lots of awesome people; a trip across the island on a motorcycle that was in the process of breaking down, to fetch a drugged up cat from the vet; roosters competing with the mosque to see who could wake the neighborhood up earlier, going to Drunken Sailors 3 times a day; and some of the best Thai food I’ve had in AGES.

Next up: A delicious set from Penang….