Advance preparation did not help me from making mistake however. With a few Bali photographer friends I went up to Ubud a little too late, resulting in parking our car far away from the event. It took us almost an hour on foot, half of which trapped in thousands of crowd. A friend who brought along a tripod and a portable ladder was forced to leave both of them back in the trunk.

Quite a coincident that the event took place only a few days after arrival of my new Canon 5D replacing my old Nikon D200, so it was my first Canon project. I spent the nights before to familiarize myself with its character, menu structure, and so forth. But a little time with the camera only on my front yard did not give me a lot.

Whilst I do not have a problem with menu structure, familiarizing myself with positioning of buttons and dials were the biggest challenge. Being the second was its exposure characteristic. However, I did aware that the event would be a real challenge for the strength of Canon 5D. I couldn’t wait to see how its full frame sensor results in two extreme situations: (1) Ultra wide shoots to capture everything in one frame, which I thought combination of full frame sensor and 17-40mm L lens should excel. (2). High ISO in low light as the schedule told that the fire would be set after the sun went down.

We got to the event after parade was over, so we lost a few important rituals. All of the ceremony’s elements including bade (carriage), lembu (the bull), and nagabanda (the holly dragon) are all placed on the ground of the royal setra (cemetery). We spent the whole half day to shot different angles of those magical stuffs and human interest shots of the thousands of crown in mix of local and foreigners. My game was wide angle shots with the brilliant 17-40mm L lens, and human interest with the very cheap 75-300mm which proven to work quite well in full frame DSLR. Ken Rockwell was right when saying that among the benefit of full frame is even crappy lens produce good shots.

As the sun went down preparation for cremation started by a series of rituals, including placing the body of the deceased into the bull. The fire actually set after dark burning both bulls with bodies inside. With very limited lighting (only a few lamps available on quite a wide ground), practically the only available light was the fire itself. The actual cremation took very short giving very limited time to fight the crowd to have a chance to fire just a few shots, during which times I replaced my lens a few times. I was disappointed with the performance of my ultra fast 50mm F1.8 which theoretically should excel in low light. In fact shots taken by my 17-40mm L F4 were by far better, even I had to shoot in high ISO to compensate is smaller aperture.

1. Theme
30 years of Bali Art Festival.

2. Object
Qualified photography objects are all activities related to the 30th Bali Art Festival 2008 which can include performing artists during the event starting from the carnival in the opening ceremony on June 14th 2008 through the happening event on July 7th 2008, as well as the visiting audience.

3. Participants
Participation is open to general public without classification and free of charge.

4. General Rule

• Color photo, weather taken in analog or digital.
• Each participants can include up to 10 (ten) photographs.
• Participants have to submit photographs both in print (size 10R) and in digital (in .jpg format, delivered on a CD, file name participantname_title.jpg).
• Detail of participating photographer shall be submitted along on a paper sticked behind each photograph mentioning name, address, phone number, title of the photo.
• Participants are allowed to do minor digital retouching (saturation & cropping). However photo collage is prohibited.
• Last submission shall be received by Tuesday, June 8th 2008 at the following address:
  Panitia Lomba Foto Pesta Kesenian Bali XXX – 2008
  Dinas Kebudayaan Provinsi Bali
  Jl. Ir. Djuanda No. 1 Denpasar 80235 Bali
  Contact person: Widnyana Sudibya – 0361 7869173

7. Prizes
1st winner is entitled to a sum of Rp. 2,000,000.-
2nd winner is entitled to a sum of Rp. 1,750,000.-
3rd winner is entitled to a sum of Rp. 1,500,000.-
4 additional winners are entitled to a sum of Rp. 750,000.- each.

Winners will be announced on the publication board of Bali Art Festival 2008 at Taman Budaya Bali. Each winners will also be contacted by either mail or phone.

Prize will pe distributed on the closing ceremony of Bali Art Festival 2008 on July 12th 2008 at Taman Budaya Bali.

The cremation ceremony will be held by The Royal Family of Ubud and therefore will take place at Puri Agung Ubud and related surrounding area. Series of rituals have been started since June 18th 2008, but the main event is taking place on July 15th 2008 between 00.12 and 21.00 Bali time. Most breath-taking moments will be between 10.00 and 18.00 when the soaring “meru” and accompanying bull statues will be taken in parade to the funeral ground for actual cremation.

Following is the complete schedule:
00:12 Nunas Toya Penembak
03.00 Pralina
05:00 Mebumi sudha/nyukat karang
10:00 Melaspas bade dan lembu
10:00 Nunas Tirta Pengentas Siwa lan Budha
12:00 Layon tedun
12:12 Manah Naga Banda
18:00 Parade to cremation field
19:00 Nganyut
21:00 Mepegat

To ease access closer to important objects it is advisable to wear simple Balinese traditional costume. It is a mega event, and therefore most probably accesses to Ubud will be closed during the event. It is advisable to arrive early.

View more results in the gallery.

Many photographers, professionals and hobbyists, locals and foreigners, enthusiastically took this event as a gift. Some of them paid a trip just to take pictures from the event. I was just at no exception.

Unfortunately as I had to go to work in the morning, I came late. I lost the chance to get a space close to the tribune where the parade participants made their performance in front of the honorable invitee which included the president and a number of his ministers, local high-ranking officials, and foreign representatives.

I made the same mistake for the second time. I should have arrange my schedule so I have a full-day off, and therefore can come earlier. Well, as always, regrets come later.

I did what I can do, taking pictures of the line-up at the narrow alley where participants were marching to get to the front of the tribune where they were about to perform. Some of them started to show their actions, but most of them were yous walk. Was it bad? Well, maybe … compared to getting the chance to frame them in action. But taking pictures of them in colorful traditional costume was an amazing moment on its own.

Knowing that it was going to be crowded with not much chance to change lens, my setup was Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8D ED N attached plus a Nikon AF 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5 in my pocket. On the spot, in did not use the 35-70 at all.

Having experience from the same event last year, when in most cases participants include at 20-30 people dressed in identical traditional costume, my theme was thin DOF, getting focus locked to one person, with others in identical costume rendered out of focus. My Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8D ED N was perfect for this. Both long focal length and wide aperture support thin focus isolation.

I fact I could not leverage too much from focal length. The crowd did not allow enough distance to get the frame more than portrait, I stuck to 80mm in most of the time. The only parameter I could use was aperture. But it was not that easy as well. The event was held at 15.00 PM, when in Bali the sun was still almost as bright as the mid-day. Dragging aperture to the maximum of 2.8 sometimes wanted faster shutter speed than what my camera body could handle.