Man in the Mirror

Man in the Mirror

© 2005 Martin liew Photography

I got this street photo by chance during an outing in Little India circa 2005. If I remember correctly I shot with a Seagull 205 rangefinder with a fixated 50mm lens. I think the film used was Ilford FP4 Plus. I wanted to get even more closer to the old man, but he turned his head around as he saw my reflection in the mirror, approaching in his direction.

Though the chair and table in the foreground are pretty distracting, somehow I think they serve as part of the elements in this photograph. It tells alot about the environment the old man was in. Actually they belongs to a kopitiam (coffee shop). The most important thing to me in this photograph is that expression the old man put up.

Missed Chances on a Beautiful Day

As the blog title speaks for itself. I was there, witnessed those special moments slipping by and I wasn't able to capture them with a camera, but only with my eyes. My eyes kept blinking as if I have had taken many snaps of the beautiful scenes before me. This morning as I was moving out for work, heading my way towards Boon Keng Road, I have to use the CTE overhead bridge to cross over the other side. After completed the first flight of staircase, I saw before me two old folks; one old lady with a walking stick and behind her, an old man. They were taking every single step at a time with cautions, balancing themselves and finally reached the platform. I'm sure they are a lovely old couple. That very moment as I saw them climbing the stairs, with the bright warm morning sky and beautiful clouds formation, touched me deeply. I could have make a few good exposures. I stood right behind them, petrified. I took a clear look at that scene for almost half a minute. Well I smiled and blinked my eyes. That scene was captured in my memory and it's still vivid as I'm writing this. It really hard to come by this golden opportunity but what the heck! This is Life and I love it! Guess I spoke too soon. While waiting for my bus at the bus-stop, I saw an old man riding on a bicycle with a little boy sitting in front of him. The boy is cute with small little beady eyes. He was rubbing his eyes as if he had not sleep enough. I blinked my eyes again. Moment captured in my memory which somehow brought back fond memories. I remembered when I was a kid, I used to sit behind my Dad's bicycle every morning, riding all the way to Grandma's place at the old Kallang kampung area. Dad used to work there, in Grandpa's boat factory. How nostalgia! Next missed chance came along. My bus arrived and I took seats on the upper deck and there, sitting in front of me, was an Indian fellow with his headphone on. His hands pressed and held on it to listen hard to his favorite tunes. He rested his left cheek on his left palm and looking out the sceneries as the bus rode on. Those fingers, hand and side view of his face, somehow showed that he's indulged and engrossed in his own world. To me that moment was special. Well all I could do was to observe and see. I'll look forward for a better tomorrow and better photo opportunities when I hit the street with my rangefinder camera.

A Day @ Sentosa Flower Festival 2008

I was out with two of my friends at the Sentosa Flower Festival 2008 last Sunday, 10 Feb. I arrived really early at about 8:15am despite the Fest opens at 9am. I travelled by the monorail from VivoCity and alighted at Imbiah Station.

After looking around for a while, I decided to take my first shot of the gigantic Merlion structure and the floral decorations.

Well one can consider this as a warm-up shot. I continue to explode around the area for more ideal subjects. Then I came across these giant man-made swans which are made up of white flowers. Don't ask me of the flower name which I know nuts about them. Here's the shot I took.


OK I do not own any macro lens. I took with me 2 lenses on that day i.e. Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.8. Yeah I know. Of cuz you think I had brought the wrong lenses there. Well here are 2 close-up shots extracted from one single photo. Just playing around with different compositions.




Well initially I wanted to take floral pictures but I don't wanna end up taking those same old flowers again as I had took in 2005. So I decided to look out for something different i.e. the people who visit the place. In the end, there wasn't any interesting subjects or scenes to take. So I took another still life shot of this water fountain.

Well that's all I had take for that day with my Nikon D70s. I brought along my Seagull rangefinder as there's a roll of film inside, which contains shots from Malacca and Chinese New Year relative gathering on first Lunar New Year day.

I'll post some of those photographs here soon.