SPB Agong | Daulat Tuanku

© 2009 Wazari Wazir | Hari Keputeraan Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong | King Birthday Celebration

I like to cover this assignment, “Hari Keputeraan Agong” or King Birthday only held once a year here at Dataran Merdeka Kuala Lumpur usually on the very first Saturday in the month of June. Another special occasion that took place here is Royal Flag Bearing Procession in conjunction with His Majesty Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Wathiqu Billah Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin Ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Mahmud Al-Muktafi Billah Shah (The King) Birthday Celebration. Very colorful event and what I like most about covering this historical event is that “The Man In Uniform” very nice to look at and will be a great photography subject. Malaysia is a very unique country, our King keeps on changing every five years. It’s our constitution.

As usual this event took place on the early morning. Our King arrive at 8:00 am sharp, so we photographers must be here one hour earlier to secure our position. It is very crucial to get a very good vantage point. Even though we are the official photographers or  press photographers, we are not provided with a special place. Usually they, the organizer will have a steps for us to position ourselves. This year there were none, we just like everybody else, the public, this is open place, we can choose our angle wherever we want but this is not good for us because we have to compete with the public, we are here to do our job, we are not here for a holiday so we should be provided with a better angle from the rest of the public because our picture will be  seen across the world so we need to show the best from our country and for our country.

Nevertheless, I still get a  good angle, standing next to me is Ahmad Yusni from EPA and Zainal Abd Halim from REUTERS, so I’m in a very good company, three of us are using 300mm lens as our primary lens because the ceremony took place  a bit far across the field. This special event only last for one hour, by 9:00 am our King will leaved this place and proceed to National Palace where another event will took place, it was very busy day for our King during his Birthday as a King. I took a lot of photos and feel free to visit my flickr for more pictures.