Tag: Olympus XA2

Searching for Singapore II

Posted on by eddietay in About Singapore, Colour

I usually have 2 cameras with me during a photo-walk.

The previous post was with my stealthy Olympus XA2 loaded with Ilford XP2 400 film, while this is a Summicron 50mm Type II Rigid on a Leica M6 loaded with Kodak Portra 400.

I sometimes go all Daido Moriyama with my Olympus XA2 (or I try, at least), while with the Leica, I get that understated Martin Parr social commentary look (or I try, at least).

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So that’s the flat visible from Bras Basah Complex, my favourite haunt since when I was a teenager as it’s the place to go to for secondhand books.

I took an Irish colleague there once and he said quite accurately that he could see that Bras Basah Complex was a formative part of my education.

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Good old civil defence!

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Singapore, along with its many historical landmarks, are works under construction.

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That’s just outside the Arts House. I supposed you could call this commissioned graffiti.

“If You Dream Too Long” calls to mind If We Dream Too Long, the title of a novel by the late Goh Poh Seng. I met him once at a literary festival.

The author of yet another great Singaporean novel, Heartland,  Daren Shiau, once told he admires the writings of Goh a lot. Heartland is many ways a response to If We Dream Too Long. Read these two books if you want to know Singapore.

Yes, yes, that’s my inner Singaporean literature nerd emerging.

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That’s outside Ngee Ann City, a very appropriately named shopping complex because it’s so gigantic.

Yes, the humongous bookstore Kinokuniya Books is in there. It’s a place I go to for inspiration.

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The stone lion outside Ngee Ann Complex, representing prosperity and all the good stuff and guarding all that conspicuous wealth inside the shopping mall.

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That’s the ice-cream uncle at Orchard Road. I’ll usually buy a durian ice-cream wrapped in bread from him. It costs all of SGD$1. Pretty amazing.

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That’s “Urban People”, the art sculpture in front of Ion Orchard, delighting tourists always.

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We’re always being framed by brand names at Orchard Road, with fashion models watching over us, reminding us of what we could be if only we’re willing to spend just a little bit more …

Thanks for reading!

Mongkok

Posted on by eddietay in Monochrome

Again, I find myself wandering around in Mongkok.

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I find that the side streets parallel to Nathan Road are more conducive to street photography.

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The pace is slower, it’s less crowded and so you can see further and anticipate, unlike the pavements on both sides of Nathan Road on weekends or during rush hour.

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For the above, I zone-focused, snapped and turned around without even stopping.

Yes, it’s my Olympus XA2 again, loaded with Ilford XP2 400. It’s so small once you remove the flash.

So it’s always with me.

There’s yummy sugar cane juice at the coconut master’s shop.

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There’re quite a few shops selling traditional Chinese foodstuff along Woosung Street.

They sun some of their goods on the street…

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There’re lots of people in this particular shop.

So I hung around outside for a bit.

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This por por in the photograph below took some time to select the lap cheong (Chinese dried sausage).

So naturally I took a few shots of her.

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She suddenly turned around and said in Cantonese, “Oi, handsome, are you done? The hook is too high.”

So naturally I obliged.

Street photographers are supposed to fade into the background, but I suppose it’s hard to do so for me given my looks …

😛

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Thanks for reading!

The Art of Life

Posted on by eddietay in Monochrome

I’m planning to use the following quote for a talk on poetry and photography for fellow writers.

It’s from Zygmunt Bauman, a sociologist who has written on what he calls “liquid modernity”. This passage from his book The Art of Life is relevant to those who are on the quest for meaning:

To practise the art of life, to make one’s life a “work of art”, amounts … to being in a state of permanent transformation, to perpetually self-redefine through becoming … someone other than one has been thus far. (The Art of Life 73)

I now have the habit of bringing along one or two film cameras wherever I go. It’s usually a Leica M6, paired with either a Yashica GX, Canonet QL 17 Giii or more recently, the Olympus XA2.

The Olympus XA2 is really stealthy because of zone-focusing. And it’s really quiet too. For example, I could do this in a cab without the driver noticing:

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Try that with a Canon 5D Mark III.

Part of my fascination with film cameras has to do with their longevity – digital cameras either go out of fashion or break down after 3-5 years (though it has to be said that my Canon G11 is still going strong). The Olympus XA2 was made in the 1980s, which means the thing in my hand is about 30 years old.

I guess I am now using my cameras as a sketchbook of sorts, storing material for writing and thinking. This is probably a little too deliberate, but I think of this as pushing myself beyond what I am, “becoming someone other than one has been thus far”, asking street photography to teach me to be a better writer and thinker.

For now, the art of life for me is about storing moments which might otherwise seem artless.

Lately, I have begun to take pictures with only my eyes, imagining what a scene would look like on a photograph… click… click…

And I like this quote from William Todd Schultz, who wrote An Emergency in Slow Motion: The Inner Life of Diane Arbus, a wonderful psychobiography of Arbus:

Artists aren’t always in complete command of their material. Sometimes it commands them and they let it; they get out of the way, the subject matter comes unbidden, it compels them and they follow its lead.

This might be a careless comparison, but Arbus is to photography what Sylvia Plath is to poetry.

And as for material for the street photographer, there’s often poetry to be found in places you least expect, which is why that tiny Olympus XA2 is so handy:

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The above is just next to where I live, a plot of land on which a small shopping mall is being built. *sigh*

I’m always fascinated by how one could be in a built-up area in Hong Kong, and after walking for 20 minutes, be in the midst of idyllic village houses where clothes are hung in open air and kitchens are next to public walkways:

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And then, 10 minutes later, one is at the beach.

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And you would come across scenes like this:

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This is Wu Kai Sha beach, and there’re now plans for land reclamation in the area which would mean the beach would be no more… *another sigh*

Thanks for reading.