Neat placement.
Trees, building, person.
A kampong feel.
Tree and curve of building.
Greenery, bicycle.
Lens flare!
Mundane, yet…
Tag: architecture
Street Thoughts
I don’t want to over-intellectualize things, but after doing this for a few years now, I’ve come to the conclusion that for me, to take street photographs is to think on my feet.
When I came upon the above scene for example, I am reminded of how much culture depends on physical toil that is too often, invisible. We marvel at the Great Wall of China, at the pyramids in Egypt, and of course, there’s an invisible history of physical toil involved.
I like the way signs are re-appropriated for other purposes. The full-size image of an air hostess welcomes you into the shop, which is closed for lunch. I make it a point to come here every time I’m in Singapore, to check out some of those NATO watch straps.
The deployment of trees is part of the city’s architecture.
The trees frame the building. Living in the city, we tend to forget that it is ultimately nature that frames human activity.
Something we do every day, waiting at a pedestrian crossing. One of those insignificant yet ubiquitous experience that characterizes urban life which we tend to forget.
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Camera: Olympus XA 3
Film: Ilford XP2
On Looking
Sometimes it is the architecture of the city that teaches us how to look.
We look up.
We look again with a slight change of perspective.
We glance from far away.
A coordinated look.
Look up, look down.
We read.
We wait and read and see.
What does the look want?
The look of friendship.
Camera: Contax TVS II
Film: Kodak BW400CN
Corporate Cliches
We need to avoid doing the same thing and look out for or even create the next paradigm shift.
We need to think about how we can add value to our work.
It’s all about win-win.
What’s our ROI on this?
We need to think outside the box here.
This is inevitable – it’s because of creative destruction.
We need to synergize our mission and vision.
Let’s pluck the low-hanging fruit for now and circle back to this discussion later.
Camera: Contax TVS II
Film: Kodak BW400CN
Getting Out of a Creative Rut
Some days, it seems like things just won’t come together.
You’re feeling blocked.
The framing is off.
You look up.
You look back at people.
You look up again.
You try again.
What else can one do, but try to fail better.
And then you get the feeling that things are coming together finally.
And you find something that makes sense, finally.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Ilford XP2 400
Singapore Speaks Monochrome
Singapore is a work in progress, and the physical landscape never fails to remind you of this.
There could be cranes in the sky in built-up areas, and there could be views like the one below.
Occasionally, it gets a bit postmodern, like this:
The inside wants to be outside.
Our desires/appetites/wants/needs are very well structured and catered to.
Everything is for sale.
Cities are places where appetites are met.
Appetites transcend national boundaries …
Pig organ soup, anyone? It’s actually quite yummy.
Waiting.
Doing.
Working.
Cooking.
Buildings are structures of desires.
There’s ambition in the architecture.
These are homely desires.
There’s an architecture of modernity.
An architecture of nationhood.
And space in which we simply do nothing at all.
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Open-edition prints are available at my Saatchi Art page.
Singapore Speaks Colour
Various scenes in Singapore – some iconic, others a little whimsical.
Singapore the Garden City.
Executives waiting for a bus. This was taken while I was in a bus.
For the love of country.
Country loving fashion.
Looking up.
He posed for me.
The above and below few images are of workers who are maintaining a playground.
They saw what I was doing, smiled, and gamely went on with their work.
They were very thorough.
They were tightening all the screws.
And checking to see if everything is in order.
That’s a chicken rice stall – the kind of food I go for whenever I am in Singapore.
This is part of the everyday Singaporean culture often take for granted.
A sack of something on the pavement.
It makes for a wonderful art installation idea.
Barrier – though I wonder what the triangular cut-outs are for.
The durian.
Lamp shade.
That’s a partial rendering of the Marina Bay Sands, a tourist destination.
It reminds me of a Star Trek phaser.
Rooftop facade of the Esplanade – also known as the durian.
Swissotel the Stamford, designed by I.M. Pei.
A construction worker taking a break at a public housing void deck.
For collectors: open-edition prints are available here.
Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay
I finally visited Gardens by the Bay.
Check out the cool-looking Supertrees which are vertical gardens.
The above, I suppose, is an obligatory picturesque shot.
It’s a good place for photographers.
Lots of selfie moments.
You don’t really need to think to get a good shot – there’s something to be said about the blending of technology and nature at this place.
Picture-perfect convenient nature (if that’s what you like).
We’re in Flower Dome, one of the 2 conservatories here.
Mummy, daddy and baby cactus.
Phallus cactus.
Eagle photographer.
Eager photographer.
The future of tech and nature.
That’s Cloud Forest, another conservatory.
As I’m walking around, I can’t help but think perhaps this is the future of botany.
Maybe in the next twenty years, we’ll all be living in domes like this.
The temperature is nice though.
That’s the mineral exhibit area. Guess how I took this shot.
I’m a street photography genius…
This takes a lot of work.
Kudos to those who’ve put in the hard work to make this possible.
Oops – my lens fogged up when I stepped out of the conservatory.
I love mistakes like this.
I’m a nature photographer!
This is a nice blend of botany, technology, architecture, commerce, tourism and nation building.
A William Gibson quote: “The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
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Shanghai: How to Appreciate High Contrast Monochrome
Yes, I’ve recently acquired a taste for high contrast monochrome.
It is stark, clear, and in some ways, minimalist.
Stripped of colours, our attention is drawn directly to the subjects.
You could overexpose a bit to make a social statement about modernity – the face of the security guard is partially eclipsed, in contrast to the blown-out advertisement.
There’s the dichotomy between an individual and a building, and the image draws attention to rectangular grids of the building and pavement, in contrast to the white polka dots echoed in the two round shapes on the building.
The rectangular grids here are enhanced by the bus and the back of the shirt.
More grids, blocks and lines in the next few shots:
The face is blurred out, again emphasizing the blocks, grids and lines.
I’m about to reveal a useful street photography technique.
All these shots are done from a mobile elevated position.
I’ve set this up so I could do street photography on the move.
I spent $40 RMB setting this up, though the equipment involved, depending on the model, could easily cost more than $200 000 RMB.
I’m a very talent street photographer, you see.
Can you guess what it is?
It’s really a fantastic piece of equipment for the street photographer, which has to be manned by another person.
It’s called an open-air double-decker tour bus.
$40 RMB is the price of an all day ticket on a route with 3-4 bus lines.
My ten-year-old son wants to have a go. The next eight images are by him.
I gave him 2 very important street photography tips:
1) Try not to place the subject at the center.
2) Don’t drop the camera or else.
I’m responsible for the high contrast monochrome, of course.
But what can I say – he has good creative genes. 🙂
Okay, my turn.
The above is the street photographer assistant I hired, taking a break from handling that fantastic piece of equipment for me.
The youth of Shanghai, walking with a swagger.
I like the facial expressions.
Cool dudes.
A blurry shot, something I learnt from Daido Moriyama…
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My Singapore
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:
This was at the National Library. I simply love this particular angle of the architecture:
This was in Hans, the café at the library. I like the rectangular grid:
And yes, the kacang puteh man:
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…
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.
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…
Hong Kong Lucida 