Martin Liew PhotoBlog: January 2010

Sunday, January 24, 2010

First Photography Outing in 2010

It's been a long time since I last joined an organized photography outing. This morning marked my first such outing for 2010. Though I have always doing street photorgraphy alone most of the time, it's another kind of experience doing in a group. It's great to know new friends, too.

Location? It's none other than Serangoon Road, Little India. The turn-out was good. There were 10 of us. We met up at Farrer Park MRT Station and started walking towards Kerbau Road area. It was a leisure and fun photo-walk outing where we walked, talked, laughed, ate, drank and of cuz took street pictures along the way.

I wanted to travel light hence I armed myself with Nikon D70s fixed with 18-70 mm kit lens without lens hood. In my usual street photography, I shoot film with either a film SLR or rangefinder camera, and lately with a TLR*.

(*Photos from my TLR street photography will be uploaded soon, along with many other streets photographs. If you want to get the updated blog, you can subscribe via RSS, or email. If you like my blogs, you can join as a follower.)

OK make the jump to view the selected street photographs I took from this outing. Hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Eye e City 2009 Judging Day

I attended Eye e City 2009 Judging Session today. It was a great pleasure viewing every participant's photographs. Though 2 of my single fotos are not selected, I did learn a few things out of it. I might had missed the mark on which my images did not speak to the Judges and other viewers. And upon seeing through all the participants' images, there are many things I have had overlooked or did not know about. But I learnt better at how and what to look out for, not only for Eye event but for my progress in social and documentary photography. It's a great learning experience.

Here are the 2 rejected fotos:

On the other hand, I've realised...

Men in the Mirror

I have fell in love with this place located in Little India - a "Kopi Tiam" a.k.a. coffee-shop in Chinese Hokkien dialect. I just love the environment and surrounding area, and of cuz the coffee and toasted bread with Kaya spread and butter. While I was enjoying my food, I noticed something interesting...

Photo of the Day - Dog and its Master

Dog and its Master

One morning in November 2009, after having my breakfast at the coffee shop, I made my way to the bus-stop. Just as I was waiting at the traffic light, I saw this cute little dog resting its fore legs on the low wall as seen in the photograph above.

Without hesitation, I took out my mobile phone and make one shot. Just as I was about to snap another shot, an old lady walked out from nowhere, right in-between the dog and its master. Well, my camera phone is slow in focusing. Howsoever, I love the second shot because of its triangular composition formed by the three subjects.

Taking a closer look at the man, his elbows are resting on the low wall behind him, which also form a triangle shape. Well, in contrast with the three pillars on the background, this image is just perfect to me!

Guess I was at the right place, at the right time.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

TLR Street Photography

In a previous blog I talked about street photographer, Vivian Maier's work and how much I got inspired. Well, for the first time since I have had been doing street photography with 35mm rangefinder camera and film SLR, I took my newly repaired Seagull-4A out to the streets today.

I have had this undescribable sensation and it adrenalized me to do more street fotos. I guess I did. Well I did not shoot as many as 10 rolls of medium format film, but just 2 rolls. Previously I got 2 rolls of Ilford FP4+ left and thought I could just use them.

From the experience I got today, I discovered that there are advantages and disadvantages in using a TLR for street photography, which pose challenges. Let me list them out here as you make the jump:

Unchanged Melody series 4 - Master Hong Hanlin, Artisanal Shoemaker 洪汉林 - 手工制鞋匠

Hong Hanlin 洪汉林, 80-year-old is making shoes when I arrived at his tiny shoe shop at Bencoolen Street Food Center. He is one of Singapore's few remaining artisanal shoemakers. His father passed away when he was a child, and his family was poverty-stricken. At the age of 15, he went into shoemaking, and endured a very hard period as an apprentice.

Make the jump to listen to what Master Hong said about his life as a shoemaker.

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010!!!

Another new year has begun, another chapter of our life just started. Eye é City 2009 just ended and every participant has submitted their photos today. Preliminary fotos selection will be held next week on 9 & 10 January 2010, Saturday & Sunday from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm at Beach Center, Beach Road. I'll be there as one of their facilitators in helping out the participants with their fotos selections. Looking forward to see their work.

It was my 5th year that I took part in this annual event. It was great to meet friends during the Registration night on 30 Dec 2009. On the actual day, weather was awesome; hot, sunny and occasionally windy day. A great day for street photography.