Tag: flats

Life Follows Function

Posted on by eddietay in About Singapore, Monochrome

Here’s a mishmash of images of Singapore, significant to myself.

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Though the underlying theme here is about how we try to snatch something beautiful out of what is essentially functional.

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Form follows function in much of Singapore.

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Life, too, follows function: poetry is a luxury we cannot afford.

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There is one way only. The rest is barred.

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If you live with it long enough, it becomes beautiful.

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Draw the curtains.

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Poetry delayed is poetry denied.

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We are at the zoo.

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The helpful tram driver and a passenger.

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After the animal show – poetry is found after the event.

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Reflections in the MRT.

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The tree is obedient, bent in the wind.

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Perhaps something is poetry after all…

Thanks for reading.

 

 

Camera: Leica M6

Lens: Voigtlander 35mm f 1.4 Nokton SC

Film: Ilford XP2

 

 

Mostly Monochrome Singapore

Posted on by eddietay in About Singapore, Colour, Monochrome

I’ve lived in Hong Kong long enough such that I could see Singapore with a fresh set of eyes.

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Some of the buildings have become rather futuristic.

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And public housing flats are beginning to look very homely.

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Singapore is home, a comfortable grid.

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We’re all fitted into grids.

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Nice looking public housing.

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Was at Hard Rock Café with my family.

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An amazing acoustic set – it’s nice to listen to local acts with my wife… while trying to get our children to eat their broccoli.

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The HRC I know were Saturday clubbing nights, 2 decades ago.

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As I looked around at the various tables, I saw expat families with kids, tourists and middle-class locals out for dinner.

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Times have changed – or perhaps I have changed.

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Once upon a time, I wanted to be a rock star with my acoustic guitar.

The lyric he’s singing: “I’m all about that bass, about that bass, about that bass…”

Subsequent serious research (Google and Wikipedia) tells me it’s really a very cool song.

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Now, I see HRC as an F&B outlet using rock music as a marketing tool, reaching out to customers like me who’ve come of age with the likes of GnR, Bon Jovi and Skid Row.

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Perhaps I’m getting older and more cynical.

Still – it’s good to be young and idealistic.

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HRC still looks impressive.

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The colour is wonderful.

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Orchard Road is gearing up for Christmas.

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Hilton façade with a dash of nature.

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A Martian landscape in full colour.

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Equally interesting in monochrome.

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It’s nice to be young…

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An empty bus looks somewhat disturbing, like an unfulfilled promise.

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This looks better – all blurry and full of promise.

Thanks for reading!

 

Camera: Canon 600D

Legacy Lens: Meyer-Optik Gorlitz Lydith 30mm f. 3.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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…