Author: eddietay

I am a poet and an educator. I have come to realise in recent years that the act of writing poetry has trained my mind to be always on the prowl for everyday moments that might be suitable material for my writing. Hence, I turn to photography in order to record some of these moments. I soon discover that the photographs I am taking, using film rangefinder cameras which are more discreet and hence suitable to the task at hand, are in the tradition of street photography. In search of poetry, I have become a street photographer. What can Hong Kong teach me about street photography, and what can street photography teach me about Hong Kong? This blog seeks to address that question.

My Singapore

Posted on by eddietay in About Singapore, Monochrome

I was in Singapore recently and of course, I brought along my Leica M6 fixed with a 50mm Summicron.

I was paranoid at first about the film going through airport x-rays. But I could see no fogging to my beloved Ilford XP2 films on a previous trip despite them having gone through 4 x-ray cabin baggage scanners at the airport at HK airport, then at Dubai where I transited, and back again.

I took a walk around my neighbourhood and walked past him, circled around, and took this:

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This was at the National Library. I simply love this particular angle of the architecture:

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This was in Hans, the café at the library. I like the rectangular grid:

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And yes, the kacang puteh man:

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You might say there’s a statement here waiting to be made about the life of a kacang puteh seller, as our attention is drawn to the newspaper headline the seller has put up.

And then I had my Singapore-style chicken rice here. They do it very differently in Hong Kong…

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The photograph below sums up my ambivalent attitude towards my country of birth, in which I’ve spent 3/4 of my life before moving to Hong Kong. About 80-85% of the people live in public housing, and the facades of these HDB flats are often used as symbols of conformity, depicting the cookie-cutter and pigeonholed lifestyle and aspirations of middle-class Singaporeans. I have in mind those haunting images at the beginning of Eric Khoo’s 12 Storeys.

I think of the photograph below as saying something opposite.

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I like the tree here because it symbolizes something else, that perhaps there is life, rejuvenation and fresh insights that might arise. I sense a poem coming …

Finally, since some of my friends have been asking about my street photography and the point of it all, here’s an essay by Nick Turpin that says it.

I especially like this quote from Nick’s essay:

“As a Street Photographer you are different, you are not like the others, you are an oddity both in society and in photography. In society you are odd because you are just standing their [sic] looking whilst everyone rushes past to their next shopping experience or intake of salty, sugary, fatty food. In photography you are odd because your motivation is not financial and you don’t go to photo trade shows unless it’s to people watch. You are really not part of either world, it can be lonely not talking about equipment and bags and not oiling the wheels of retail….if it weren’t for online street photography forums you could feel isolated like some lonely eccentric.”

Sometimes I stop and look around and wonder where everyone is rushing off to…

Looking Out a Bus Window

Posted on by eddietay in Monochrome

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This is one of those grungy images that jumped out at me. I was on a double-decker bus and he was on an adjacent seat, looking out. I like the urbane, dreamy and defiant attitude. Definitely a Wong Kar-wai Chungking Express moment for me. In fact, the bus went past Chungking Mansions moments before I pulled out my camera.

That Nikon signage was a serendipitous element so crucial to street photography.

Glasgow and Edinburgh

Posted on by eddietay in Monochrome

Oops – how time flies. I’ve been busy. Between June and August I’ve been to Glasgow to give a conference talk on poetry and photography at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, popped over to Edinburgh to visit the museums, came back to Hong Kong, back to Singapore, to HK, to SG and back to HK again.

So here’re 2 of my artist friends I’ve met in Glasgow – it was wonderful to be talking to them about the various paintings we saw at the Kelvingrove.

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I simply love the street life in Glasgow and Edinburgh:

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These were all shot with my trusty Yashica 35 GX.

Umbrella Man

Posted on by eddietay in Monochrome

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I cannot help but be aware of my class consciousness even as I think on this image. He looks up, as if in hope, and the umbrella might shelter him from the harsh sunlight. Yet what has he to look forward to except a life among slightly decrepit buildings such as the one above him in the background? The tattoo of his left shoulder speaks of a defiance against a middle-class, executive presentation of the self. I can understand how such an image could be aestheticized, probably in a film by Wong Kar-wai.

Is this the only narrative I could conjure for him?

Sermon

Posted on by eddietay in Monochrome

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Sermon

Was it God I saw talking to his women,
holding a jug of wine?

I am reading Genesis, chapter five,
where Enoch walked and he was not,
for he was taken.

In this fever of Hong Kong
there are no hermits in caves,
no saints on mountain tops.

It is not easy to see with this fever,
and I am numb to my face,
all thumbs in my eyes.

Is it possible to believe
a beard and a light bulb?

Fingers on my throat,
I try not to dance in my sandals
to the hymn.

I am no mime artist.

I am not a Roman centurion.

I am no Caesar,
though I try not to add salt
to the wound.

I am waiting for a voice
to rip me open to the sky.

I am reading Genesis, chapter five,
where Enoch walked and he was not,
for he was taken.

Poem and photograph previously featured in Friends Newsletter. Hong Kong: Friends of the Art Museum, CUHK. Jan 2013 Issue.

Waiting

Posted on by eddietay in Monochrome

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Waiting

Waiting, for our train to stop or to start
a line, we want our clockwork poetry.

We want spreadsheets to write a smile
on a Chinese businessman’s face.

Surely there is a law against waiting too long:
we bow to the lesser gods.

On the station concourse, we exchange life
too quickly for a message on our phones.

Like me, you are a man limping
without a watch and a tie.

We need assurances of fortune cookies
out of the smelting factory of our days.

Sometimes I am tired like a tourist
eating popcorn in an amusement park.

We are snails out of a shell of countries –
can there be a Spirit like water from a stone?

My wallet is a short talisman against the hour –
is there a book waiting to be read?

Poem and photograph previously featured in Friends Newsletter. Hong Kong: Friends of the Art Museum, CUHK. Jan 2013 Issue.

Bamboo Noodles

Posted on by eddietay in Monochrome

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Already there is a pattern to these photographs – the commonplace activities of walking and driving, roads and pavements, people on display – a city is united in pedestrian activities. I happened to be at Cheung Sha Wan on an errand to pick up bamboo noodles for my wife and I chanced upon this. I too am a pedestrian, albeit with a camera. What is that private epiphany here? In Camera Lucida, Barthes focused on memory, family, loss and grief. I am interested in production, action, and mobility of both thought and writing.