Singapore – Page 5 – Hong Kong Lucida

Searching for Singapore I

Posted on February 21, 2014March 10, 2014 by eddietay in About Singapore, Monochrome

I’ve been living and working outside of Singapore for many years now, and every time I return, I’m reminded that I’ll never truly return to the Singapore I know.

It’s like that quote from Heraclitus – you’ll never step into the same river twice. It’s never the same river, and you’re never the same you.

My long-suffering wife knows of my street photography obsession (passion). She understands (bless her!) that I get cranky sometimes and need to go away for a while for an afternoon or two whenever we’re in Singapore.

I can’t help but walk around with my camera(s) with a sense of both recognition and alienation.

That’s the “chwee kueh” (water rice cake, according to Wikipedia) hawker auntie at the market near my place, where I also satisfy my cravings for “chai tow kway” (fried carrot cake) and “char kway teow” (unhealthy rice noodles with black sauce, pork fat, pork lard and cockles).

I have a mental checklist of food to tick off every time I’m in Singapore, such as satay, mee siam, mee rebus, hor fun…

That’s the uncle who for some reason, prefers to sleep at the void deck on most afternoons.

The above are homely scenes for me, while some of the scenes below remind me how commodified Singapore has become.

That’s a tourist, who, for some reason decides to lie down and take a nap near the Merlion Park.

That’s another tourist … every time I am here I am reminded of how Singapore is a place for tourists… I wonder how many Singaporeans actually come here to take photographs …

That’s at Waterloo Street, where you could find a street bazaar.

And of course, that was the Chinese New Year period. Huat ah!

And lion dance performances can really be mesmerizing…

This is Ion Orchard, the shopping mall at Orchard Road.

And there’s something about the architecture that puts together celebrity culture with consumer culture.

We’re all encouraged to shop like celebrities.

Sometimes we “relac one corner” (relax) and claim a little space for ourselves.

And maybe we’ll find something meaningful after all …

This is “Searching for Singapore I”. Part Two, in full colour, will arrive in due time.

Thanks for reading!

River Safari

Posted on January 14, 2014March 10, 2014 by eddietay in About Singapore, Colour

We’re still on the theme of street photographs taken during family outings some time back.

This is the newly-opened River Safari in Singapore.

I went absolutely berserk with the various compositional possibilities in front of the large fish tank.

As everyone else is looking at the exhibits, no one is looking at me – that’s the perfect set up for a street photographer.

I’ll call this series The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Taking Photographs (see Damien Hirst).

Utter fascination.

Innocence.

Musing. This is a work of art.

Look! Look!

Looking.

The trick to this is knowing telepathy and fish language.

I’ve managed to convince those fishes to frame themselves around the human exhibits.

I am a very talented photographer.

Still looking.

Finally, a decisive moment.

Thanks for reading!

Singapore Zoo

Posted on January 9, 2014March 10, 2014 by eddietay in About Singapore, Monochrome

Yet another set of street photographs taken at in-between moments during a family outing at the Singapore Zoo a few months ago.

That’s our friendly and helpful tram driver.

My son loves the pony ride.

I am a very talented photographer – through telepathy, I’ve managed to convince the person in the background to bend a little bit so as to be confluent to the pony handler’s face and shoulder outline.

Here’s the horse carriage driver.

Here’s the horse.

It’s interesting how high contrast monochrome changes things. The photographs look somewhat hard-edged and menacing at times …

Go to the zoo if you’re ever in Singapore. It’s really not so menacing …

The crowd at an animal performance show.

We go to the zoo every time we’re back in Singapore.

So, I’ve seen the performance many times.

Now, instead of looking at the performance, I look at the crowd and think about how to photograph the human exhibits.

I am a very talented photographer – using telepathy, I’ve managed to convince a stranger to stand up so as to create a contrasting element to the crowd.

That’s err… a bird animal creature with two legs and feathers…

I suppose that’s my nod to Gary Winogrand‘s The Animals.

Thanks for reading!

Sentosa Snapshots

Posted on January 3, 2014March 10, 2014 by eddietay in About Singapore, Monochrome

I’ve been looking though images taken a few months ago in Singapore with my trusty Canon G11. It went through an overhaul and is now good as new.

Generally, on family outings, I bring along my G11 for family snapshots.

Usually, I make a division between street photography (film cameras only) and family pics (digital only) just to keep things simple. But life is not always simple.

I find myself in street photography mode often at various moments during family outings.

These were taken at Sentosa.

I find the high-contrast Daido Moriyama style rather addictive.

The scene looked so good I can’t resist another:

I’m still waiting for my G11 to break down so as to have an excuse to get that Ricoh GR Digital.

More next time.

My Singapore

Posted on August 23, 2013March 10, 2014 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:

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…

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