When it comes to PJ (Petaling Jaya), not many photographers would think that it’s a city with complicated and mesmerizing cityscape… like the ones in KL. While this is quite true, PJ still has some unique and interesting skyscrapers too. One of them is the Menara Celcom PJ, located right in the heart of PJ. This building is elongated oval shaped in design… and this is what attracted me to want to get this shot in the first place.
On 1st day, I met up with a fellow drone pilot, Vuong. Together we went to the Padang Astaka and took off from there. Here’s the location of in case you guys are wondering where is Padang Astaka.
After flying for about 10 minutes or so, it started drizzling. We both agreed to continue flying… but after just about another minute… heavy rain started pouring. So, we had no choice but to abort our flying mission and quickly got into the car and drove off to A&W to wait… hopefully for rain to stop before blue hour. Luck was not on our side as the rain continued the whole night. We called it off in the end.
Went back home, I downloaded some of the shots to see if there’s any angles that I liked. Here’s one of the angle.
This angle definitely felt odd, as I cannot get the main subject (Menara Celcom) to separate off from the other tall buildings behind. No matter where I move, left or right, somehow I couldn’t get the subject in the right position.
On 2nd day, I changed my take-off location from Padang Astaka… to Dataran Petaling Jaya. Here’s the location below.
From here, I was able to change to a much better angle. Here’s a shot of the new angle below.
Of course it had to rain on the 2nd day too… the weather god is really testing my patience! As you can see from the photo above, there was a storm brewing on the right side… and it was approaching REALLY FAST towards me. Just out of curiosity, I turned my drone to the right and take a shot of the brewing storm… no joke man, it’s really big! Have a look at the photo below and see for yourself.
Trusted my instinct, I decided to land my drone immediately… and in less than 5 minutes after landing… it was raining cats and dogs. Oh well, 2nd day was another failed attempt. I had to call it off.
On 3rd day, I went back to the same location again at Dataran Petaling Jaya. This round, it didn’t rain… and surprisingly the atmosphere was quite clear and visibility was superb… just that it was a bit too cloudy. Hence, there was no sunset… just grey sky whole evening and then direct transitioned to blue hour.
Took my drone off a few minutes before 7pm and waited for the ambient lights to be turned on. Shortly after that, I managed to get the shot that I wanted. Finally, after 3 days in a row, my patience paid off. The 2 moving trains in the frame were a nice added bonus though. Here’s the unedited shot below.
Did some minor edits in Lightroom and continued to Photoshop for more extensive adjustments… and below is the final image.
Shot with DJI Mavic 2 Pro
F5.6 | ISO 100 | 1s
Conclusion, if you want to take this similar angle… the nearest & safest open area for you to take-off your drone will be at Dataran Petaling Jaya.