6th May 2016: Urbanscapes 2016 returned to the center of Kuala Lumpur, in the beautiful Art Deco building that used to host OCBC Bank, now known as 2 Hang Kasturi, and perhaps Urbanscapes House.
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Graffiti in the basement floor.
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I’m guessing this was the former bank’s storage area.
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I’d heard of an underground bicycle parking area, but I would not be able to tell.
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Annoying magenta light, the bane of concert photographers everywhere.
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Makes for difficult white balance.
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Urbanscapes’ first ever event was at Grappa Soho, Bukit Bintang, as an offshoot of KLue Magazine that covered the Kuala Lumpur scene; I bought that magazine and on it was a sleeve with a ticket.
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I was there, and I’ve been to Urbanscapes every year since then.
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Of those who went to the first, I guess not many people can claim to keep this streak.
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The festival happened in many sites in Kuala Lumpur, but none as near to the origins of where Kuala Lumpur got its name as this.
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The building, on the intersection of Jalan Hang Kasturi and Leboh Pasar Besar, was just a 2 minute walk from the Klang River bridge on Leboh Pasar Besar that overlooks the intersection of the Klang river and Gombak river, where a muddy estuary formed; “muddy estuary” is translated to Malay as Kuala Lumpur, and that is where it got its name, and is the zero point, or exact center, of Kuala Lumpur.
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I wondered if this ever flooded.
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My ticket into this venue was Hey Orang Kita (screening + live gig), which was happening on the ground floor. We got to see a short bit of the movie; after that, the cast talked about their experiences. Left to right: Raja Syahiran, Christian Palencia, Takahara Suiko, Talitha Tan.
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Talitha Tan! This was also my first time hearing her speak Chinese, and only in film.
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The crowd.
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Raja Syahiran!
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Takahara Suiko!
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She also performed with Christian and Talitha backing her.
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Christian Palencia!
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Christian’s cool cut!
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Accentuated asymmetry.
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I only brought my Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon 24mm F2.0 ZA T* SSM, so I’m glad it is sharp enough to be able to be cropped like this.
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Another crop.
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The focal length worked out pretty well.