It's the month of May, the most anticipated month of the year for the Kadazan, Dusun, Murut, Rungus native of North Borneo. It is the month of harvest festival celebrating and honouring the spirit of paddy for the year bountiful harvest. The peak celebration is held on the 30th and 31st of May every year in which all eyes are on who is getting the crown of the traditional beauty pageant called Unduk Ngadau Kaamatan. This beauty pageant started as early as the end of April all the way to the 30th and 31st May that involved in every district level selection to go for the state level. I have the opportunity to tag along a very well known photographer to cover the Kota Marudu Unduk Ngadau selection on the 2nd of May, a week ago.
Kota Marudu is located in the north of Sabah, about 2 hours and 30 minute drive from the main city of Kota Kinabalu. We started our journey as early as 7.00 a.m in the morning and reach to our destination around 10.00 a.m. The journey is quite relaxing as it's a public holiday in conjunction of the first day of Eid al-Fitr. The only downside of the journey is that a lot of restaurant were closed and it's quite a struggle for us to find a restaurant for breakfast. Thankfully in Tuaran, there's a shop still open during that time and we managed to get our breakfast there before continuing our journey.
As we arrived at the registration place, there's already about 10 participant ready to be taken photo for the registration. Here's a few behind the scene of the photo session that I take.
In frame is the Organizer president and the official photographer David Aramaiti.
A very good weather that day because the last few days it's been raining heavily and this place has a history of flooding. Thank God that everything is great that day.
This is the few managers of the participant that came early escorting their talent for the registration.
David is setting up the exposure for the photo session as I become the test subject.
David is showing the participant the photo taken so that they can adjust their pose better.
Happy environment do help a lot for the tense participant and this shows it as the organizer is very friendly and help calm down the participant.
A selfie photo, David trademark of work with all the organizer.
All the 16 participant that came to the registration day. They will compete for the district contest and one winner will be representing this district to the state level at the end of May.
All the official photo of the participant can be seen Unduk Ngadau Kota Marudu 2022here, personal page of David Aramaiti in Facebook. As of this writing, all the other district already started they own registration and competition. I wish all the participant good luck and all the best. Until the next post, have a great week everyone.
