A Thinking Street Photography Site
The geometry keeps changing.
Hong Kong is a good place to be a flaneur.
Take a step and the view changes itself.
Lots to absorb.
You could stand at the same spot.
The landscape will change very quickly.
It’s easy to enjoy the view.
You seek out order to square the circles.
Hong Kong will come to you.
And so will the rest of the world.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Ilford XP2 400
I’m fascinated by what you could see when coming down the Mid-Levels Escalator at Central in Hong Kong.
You could see lots of small businesses, restaurants and shops.
You could also see unruly leaves and branches against grey concrete buildings.
They’re part of human activity.
Things happen, though they don’t always announce themselves.
Life is understated sometimes.
At other times, it is in your face.
This is how concrete lives.
How we live with concrete.
The unruly beauty of nature and concrete.
We can’t help but look again and again.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Ilford XP2 400
I was in Singapore for a short working trip, presenting a paper called “The Poetics of Occupy Central – A Photo Essay” at an academic conference.
So of course I brought my camera along.
I spent an evening on my own, a day before wifey joined me at the hotel.
So of course I did the most natural thing that came to me – I pretended to be a tourist at VivoCity.
Darn – I can’t seem to fit a filter on my lens without it vignetting (see top corners).
It seems like my Voigtlander 35mm doesn’t like filters.
I’ve tried a B+W filter, and a Hoya filter as well. They both vignette.
I would be grateful for any advice from readers more knowledgeable than me in this respect.
Crowded shopping malls depress me.
There was a bridal fair – and you realize weddings are very regimental affairs.
Everyone (including myself) is searching for life’s defining moments in a cookie-cutter manner.
There’s a water park of sorts above the mall.
The feeling here is more carefree.
But such scenes are possible only because of the packed shopping crowd below.
They are paid for by all that buying and selling that happens below.
We all buy and sell in our cookie-cutter lives so as to achieve moments like the one above.
Of course, it’s not just Singapore or VivoCity that does this.
One could never be truly outside of VivoCity, even if one leaves.
Thanks for reading.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander 35mm F 1.4 Nokton SC
Film: Kodak Bw400CN
We’ll need to slow down.
We can’t think like skyscrapers.
We need to dwell a little bit.
Take a walk.
Sometimes to be inane is to make sense.
A certain order at a certain time.
Think good thoughts.
Let a thousand thoughts flourish.
So we need a better government of our selves.
So as not to run aground.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm 1.4 SC
Film: Kodak BW400CN
There’s so much to see.
And street photography forces one to stop and be grateful.
We’re often framed by things we buy and sell.
There’s a tale of capitalism waiting to be told.
We give in to what we want.
Our appetites.
There’re always boxes to open.
Things to sell.
People to talk to.
There’s money to be made.
Conversations to have.
And there’s the wait.
Wholesome food.
Fabric of a city.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm 1.4 SC
Film: Kodak BW400CN
So, my ten-year-old son is into Geocaching.
It’s basically a game where you hunt for hidden caches – you could then sign your name in the booklet in those canisters/boxes hidden or buried in various places in Hong Kong and the rest of the world.
We’ve found magnetic canisters stuck behind signposts, or hidden under piled-up logs full of ants and spiders.
You could then announce your success to the whole world and leave a few clues via the Geocache app.
So you see, it’s killing two birds with one stone.
I get to do a spot of street photography, and my son gets to do a bit of geocaching.
That’s what I call father-son bonding.
It doesn’t matter where I go as long as I’m on the streets.
We could meander and come back to the same place – it doesn’t matter.
Some people fish, others are into street photography, and of course, some are into geocaching.
And we’ll have a late lunch after a morning of running back and forth.
I suppose it’s another day in Hong Kong.
We do what we can to preserve our sanity…
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm 1.4 SC
Film: Kodak BW400CN
It’s that existential condition, of always searching, waiting and thinking.
We can only have images of ourselves.
The glimmer is often only a few steps away.
Thanks for stopping by today.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: 50mm Summicron Type II
Film: Ilford XP2
I’m a bit of a maximizer (as opposed to a satisficer) when it comes to choosing/doing things.
I try to find out all there is to know before making a decision.
When it comes to execution, I try to go through the various steps in my mind in order to get everything right beforehand.
Which is why zone focusing and street photography is such a re-creation for me.
We’re working with a circumference of acceptability.
Is good enough good enough? There’s motion blur here which adds to the sense of movement.
I was close enough, but it doesn’t mean I could see clearly.
And if we don’t always notice everything around us, why should we demand a photography that sees everything accurately and in sharp focus?
On the other hand, how much loosening up can one do before one loses discipline?
There’s a spectrum here, between trying to get everything clinically right and hence losing the moment and operating without some sort of discipline, as if one is holding a camera for the first time.
Sometimes, good enough is good enough in street photography.
Try to get everything right and one might lose the “street”.
There’s that tendency to overthink and hence lose the art.
On the other hand, one must possess discipline in order to lose it.
So my job is to learn everything I can, and then forget all I have learnt.
Imperfection is an art in itself.
And so is perfection.
And perhaps art is about improvising and about knowing how to move back and forth between perfection and imperfection.
Thanks for reading.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Summicron 50mm Type II
Film: Ilford XP 2
Given an ISO 400 film, if the light is good, I’d simply set the aperture to f/16 and shutter to between 1/60, 1/125, or 1/250 depending on whether I’m in the shade.
The f/16 aperture would allow for a broad depth of field, which allows me to zone focus with a wide latitude.
The whole procedure sounds complicated, but it’s for me the mid-point between going fully auto with a point and shoot camera, and going fully manual and getting all finicky and missing the moment.
It allows me to work intuitively and be disciplined at the same time – that’s the flow state I look for, whether I’m teaching, writing or on the streets with my camera.
I’m at Wu Kai Sha beach – yet again.
All images are from the same roll of film, all taken within an hour or so.
I like the word “take”. To take a photograph is to take something from the world you see.
There’s a contemplative and leisurely mood here I’d like to immerse myself in.
It’s nice to see people relax and do nothing in particular.
Like a frame with nothing at the centre, because the image is the frame.
My favourite street photography trick is to start whistling – people will look at me for a bit while my camera is pointing elsewhere and then ignore me after that.
They’ll think I’m a normal person… though the guy above wasn’t quite convinced…
At other times, they’re too involved with their own thing to notice.
I’d like to think that every photograph I take is an image of myself.
Sometimes there’s no need for explanations – it just is.
It’s a way of life – this awesome village house faces the beach.
We all have our journeys to make.
I wish I understand jogging.
I’m learning to look for patterns.
Looking for moments of insight.
We wait.
We’re on the lookout.
We look at ourselves.
We think some more.
Our pigeon thoughts will lead the way.
The pigeons are lining up in my mind.
Thanks for reading!
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Summicron Type II 50mm
Film: Ilford XP2 400
Here’s a mishmash of images of Singapore, significant to myself.
Though the underlying theme here is about how we try to snatch something beautiful out of what is essentially functional.
Form follows function in much of Singapore.
Life, too, follows function: poetry is a luxury we cannot afford.
There is one way only. The rest is barred.
If you live with it long enough, it becomes beautiful.
Draw the curtains.
Poetry delayed is poetry denied.
We are at the zoo.
The helpful tram driver and a passenger.
After the animal show – poetry is found after the event.
Reflections in the MRT.
The tree is obedient, bent in the wind.
Perhaps something is poetry after all…
Thanks for reading.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander 35mm f 1.4 Nokton SC
Film: Ilford XP2
Hong Kong Lucida 