Penang Street Photo - Kek Lok Si

Kek Lok Si

While visiting the famous Chinese temple in Penang, Kek Lok Si (极乐寺), I was wondering around and in hope there's an interesting subject set against this colorful temple. In my mind's eye, I pre-visualised a monk or nun is sweeping in the yard. Well it turned out that an old civilian man came down from the stairs and started sweeping. Without hesitation, I took a few frames and this is the best shot.

Nikon FM10 on Tamron 17-35mm | Kodak Portra 400 color negative | Developed and scanned at Whampoa Kodak Colour Centre, along Balestier Road. No further color adjustment and cropping in post. Below is a monochrome conversion for a different visual effect. I think the color version works great.

Street Photo - Three Burmese Monks

Three Burmese Monks

Nikon FM10 on 50mm lens, shot on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in Kodak D76 for 405 seconds. Scanned on Epson V700 with minor burning and tonality adjustments in post.

Street Photo - On a Raining Day

On a Raining Day

Seagull 205 RF on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in 1:1 Kodak D76 for 456 seconds and scanned on Epson V700 with minor tonality adjustment in post.

Street Photo - On Reading...

On Reading...

Nikon FM10 on 50mm lens, shot on Ilford Pan 400. Developed in Kodak D76 for 360 seconds. Scanned on Epson V700 with minor tonality in post.

Penang Street Photo - Lorry Passing Through

Lorry Passing Through

Seagull 205 RF on FujiFilm Neopan 400. Developed on Kodak D76 1:1 for 500 seconds. Scanned on Epson V700 with tonality adjustment in post without crop.

Street Photo - Santa and 4 Little "Christmas Elves"

Santa and 4 Little "Christmas Elves"

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas everyone! Here's an early Christmas greeting from me with this image of four "Christmas elves" rushing Christmas gifts delivery for Santa Claus. Hope you like this street photo. Merry Christmas to all and a Happy  New Year! May all prosper in 2014!

Seagull 205 RF on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in Kodak D76 1:1 for 456 seconds and scanned on Epson V700 with cropping and tonality adjustment in post followed by digitally hand-coloring.

Vivitar PN2011 on Kodak PJ100. Expired color negative was sent to Whampoa Kodak Colour Centre, Balestier Road, for developing and scanning. Minor cropping and tonality adjustment in post with Christmas greeting text super-imposed.

Street Photo - One Way or Another

One Way or Another

Nikon FM10 on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in 1:1 Kodak D76 for 600 seconds and scanned on Epson V700 with minor tonality adjustment in post.

Guard by the "Bitch" (Beach) - Pun Intended

Guard by the "Bitch" (Beach) - pun intended

Seagull 205 RF on FujiFilm Neopan 400. Developed in Kodak D76 1:1 for 500 seconds and scanned on Epson V700 with cropping and tonality adjustment in post.

Street Photo - Last Wash at Old Stadium

Last Wash at Old Stadium

Nikon FM10 on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in 1:1 Kodak D76 for 540 seconds. Scanned on Epson V700 with minor crop and tonality adjustment in post.

Street Photo - Cross Cultures

Cross Cultures

Nikon FM10 on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in 1:1 Kodak D76 540 seconds and scanned on Epson V700 with minor tonality adjustment.

Street Photo -The Girl With The Tiger Bag

The Girl With The Tiger Bag

Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens. Minor adjustments in post without cropping.

Street Photo - 'A' Happiness

'A' Happiness

Nikon D70s on 50mm prime lens. Adjustments on color tones brightness and contrast in post without cropping.

Street Photo - Bare Foot Dining Very Good!

Bare Foot Dining Very Good

Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens. Monochrome conversion in Photoshop using Silver Efex Pro 2 without cropping.

Street Photo - Swimming Through

Swimming Through

Made with Seagull 205 RF on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed in 1+1 Kodak D76 for 480 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with tonal adjustment in post.

My First Roll of Kodak Portra 400 + One More

In a recent blog, I mentioned about photographing with Kodak Portra 400 and I did my first roll, not on my rangefinder nor swing lens camera, but instead on a plastic toy camera, Vivitar PN2011. A compact point-and;-shoot camera with fixed focal length (aka focus free) of 28mm, wide angle plastic lens and fixed setting of aperture at f-stop 8.0 with fixed shutter speed of 1/125 second.

Make the jump to check out the color images.

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Street Photo - Pre-Festive Shopping

Pre-Festive Shopping

Two hours to local Hindu's festival, Deepavali or Diwali, popularly known as the 'festival of light'. I took the above picture last year, with my Nikon D70s on a wide angle lens. Post in Photoshop.

Though it's not the typical colorful photo of the lighting decors along Serangoon Road, I prefer to show case this one with human subjects. Close to daily life activities; more organic

 I hereby wish all my Indian friends a Happy Deepavali Day.

Street Photo - Dodging Coconut

Dodging Coconut

Nikon FM10 with wide angle lens on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in 1+1 Kodak D76 for 540 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with cropping and tonal adjustment in post using Photoshop and Silver Efex Pro 2..

Street Photo - Morning Reading

Morning Reading

This photo was taken yesterday morning while I was having my breakfast at McDonald's Shaw Plaza. This gentleman was sitting right opposite me and totally engrossed in his reading of the papers. The ambient light and the light of the overhead lamps are bright which is good as it creates this great soft light on the subject. I'm lovin' it!

Most of you might think this is just any other mundane and uninteresting photo. Well make the jump and let me explain the whole creative and thinking process behind this picture.

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Street Photo - Minion in the Neighborhood

Minion in the Neighborhood

Shot with my Samsung S3. Post and cropped in Snapseed and resized in Photoshop Touch for Instagram upload.

This is my first Instagram post here on my blog site. I've added my Instagram link here on the right hand side panel. If you like to find out more of my Instagram pictures and short video clips, do follow me in Instagram.

Kodak Portra 400

Most of you readers know that I shoot in black and white film exclusively and extensively for my street photography as well as night photography, with Kodak Tri-X 400 and TMAX 400 respectively. I have used them for almost 5 years and I do love these films, especially from Kodak.

Lately I came to know about Kodak's popular professional color negative film, Portra 400. I've read the product reviews and saw images taken by many photographers around the world, and I thought maybe it's time I should shoot color pictures. Well some of my color street photographs were taken digitally with my Nikon D70s. I had shot Agfa Vista 400 color negative film on my Horizon Perfekt panorama camera. Didn't like the colors and image quality.

The latest batch of Portra films are all new mixture of the formerly VC (Vivid Color) and NC (Natural Color) films. As a first time user, I can't say much and so I've yet to load up a roll of Portra 400 into either my Seagull 205 rangefinder camera or Horizon Perfekt. The sales person at Ruby Photo said this new Portra produces rich colours with lesser or no film grain. Yeah will find out for myself soon.

Until then, I will send a couple of rolls to the photo lab for film development and scanning. Will definitely post some good street photos here. So do subscribe to this blog site to get future updates.

All photos are taken with my Samsung S3. Post in Snapseed.

Cheers for Beer! (An Experimental Fun Shot)

Cheers for Beer

My mother went for a cooking event held in City Square Mall yesterday afternoon and in the goodie bag, there are these two mini cans of Asahi Japanese beer. Yes one cannot tell how mini they are from the above picture unless I placed a regular size beer in scale comparison. The mini can measures 3 inches (7.8 cm) height 2 inches (5 cm) diameter. The whole can is in silver tin color which makes it very glossy and reflective.

Well I just thought why not do a simple photo shoot so I did a quick set up with a lighting diagram after the jump.

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Street Photo - Daddy's Little Girl

Daddy's Little Girl

Made with Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens. Monochrome conversion in Photoshop using Silver Efex Pro 2.

The Alternative Resource

I posted this image on my Facebook page this late afternoon. I was asking viewers to guess what these items are. Have you guess it right?

Make the jump to find out the answer and what I can do with these items.

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Street Photo - Red Dot on Top

Red Dot on Top

This street photo was taken in early March this year. I was walking around Anderson Bridge that links Fullerton Hotel and Asian Civilization Museum across the Singapore River. As I crossed the bridge towards ACM, I noticed this man was standing with his hands on his hips, reading the signboard. As I approached the subject closer to get a better composition, I saw two cyclists riding from my left on the background and right across behind my subject. I anticipated and took that precise moment where I wanted the two bikers to be positioned.

All elements in this photo came together perfectly at the right place and at the right time. Elements of different shapes and sizes consist of the red circular board on top, white rectangular white board, four triangular shapes formed by the subject's arms and the two biker's right legs (both in same pedaling position, forming a symmetrical pattern) and lastly the four circular wheels of the two bicycles. In fact, there are additional shapes formed by the tiles on the ground.

This photo is certainly one of my favorite street photos in color though I did a black and white conversion which looks good. But I believe the color version looks better.. Moreover what I also like about this photo is the red circular board that is in a slight off position, perhaps due to soldering error during construction time. Such minor detail that breaks away from the overall symmetrical patterns in this street photo, certainly works great for me.

Made with Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens. Minor Levels adjustment in post without cropping. Make the jump if you want to view the black and white version.

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Street Photo - Bloated

Bloated

Made with Seagull 205 RF on Ilford Pan 100 and developed in 1+1 Kodak D76 for 540 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with cropping and tonal adjustment in post.

Trade-in for 2 New Books

Well, this week we're going to take a little break from posting my 35mm film street photos which I have been doing so since February. More to come. But today I want to share with you readers on 2 new books which I traded with my old photography books at a local photography bookstore. The book authors and publishers are different but the main focus or subject is of the same person. That person was none other than Vivian Maier. I've followed Vivian's work since I got to know in 2009. Here are the 2 book covers.

I really love Vivian's work that's truly inspiring. A documentary film was made in memoirs of her, titled Finding Vivian Maier. Here's a trailer. I do hope this film will be showing here in Singapore during some film or photography festival.

Street Photo - Habitual Pattern

Habitual Pattern

Made with Seagull 205 RF on Ilford Pan 100 and developed in 1+1 Kodak D76 for 540 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with cropping and tonal adjustment in post.

Street Photo - Scalp Protection

Scalp Protection

Made with Seagull 205 RF on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed 1+1 in Kodak D76 for 500 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700 and cropping in post.

Street Photo - Okinawan Ryuso

Okinawan Ryuso

Made with Seagull 205 RF on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed in Kodak D76 1+1 for 500 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with minor crop and burn in post.

Street Photo - Indian Ladies

Indian Ladies

Made with Seagull 205 RF on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed 1+1 in Kodak D76 for 500 secs. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with minor crop and burn in post.

Street Photo - Indian Boy and Four Chariot Horses

Indian Boy and Four Chariot Horses

Made with Seagull 205 RF on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed 1+1 in Kodak D76 for 500 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with cropping, burning and contrast adjustments in post.

Street Photo - Shadow Mapping 3

Shadow Mapping 3

Made with Vivitar PN2011 on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed 1+1 on Kodak D76 for 585 secs. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with minor crop and contrast adjustment in post.

Street Photo - Shadow Mapping 2

Shadow Mapping 2

Made with Vivitar PN2011 on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed 1+1 in Kodak D76 for 585 secs. Negative scanned on Epson V700 with minor contrast adjustment in post.

Street Photo - Sense of Scale

Sense of Scale

Made with Vivitar PN2011 point-n-shoot plastic camera on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed in 1+1 Kodak D76 for 585 secs. Negative is scanned on Epson V700 with minor crop.

Street Photo - Happy Little Girl

Happy Little Girl

A sweet little girl happily chasing after a pigeon along the sidewalk outside Ngee Ann City as she indulged herself in her happy carefree world with her arms wide open, as if to say "I believe I can fly." Such innocence moment which I was able to capture at the right place at the right time, certainly made my day.

What I like about this shot is the captured momentum of the happy girl in running motion along with the pigeon's strolling motion. The girl seems to be standing on one leg as she changed her running direction towards the little bird and simultaneously the pigeon's left leg stretched out to move forward. Does this shot considered to be a "decisive moment"? It's opened for interpretation. Personally I consider this to be my best shot by far.

Made with Seagull 205 rangefinder camera on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed in Kodak D76 for 500 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700. Dodge and burn and cropped in post.

NEW UPDATE!

As I posted this blog on my Facebook page, I noticed the square thumbnail preview image and it occurs to me that a square crop format is more defined and focused. So I cropped it and here it is.

Frankly speaking, I wouldn't be able to make this shot with a TLR camera unless I anticipated and set myself in a vantage spot, ready to press the shutter when the girl runs into the frame. Well, you see, street photography is a difficult genre as things change and unfold unpredictably before you in a blink of an eye. That's the challenging and fun part and it's a skill to be learnt and practiced.

I'm still keen in TLR street photography as well as panorama format. I will keep shooting and practicing and learning.

Street Photo - Restless People

A group of people gathering outside an Indian restaurant to watch pilgrims and devouts walking along Serangoon Road on Thaipusam Day.. They all look restless with one man covering his mouth as he yawned. The older woman on the foreground left hand side, looked dazed with her eyes looking blankly in the air. The younger woman on the right side with her arms crossed, perhaps implying that she was bored.

It's always interesting to capture the every day life moments of people with different expressions while interacting. This is perhaps one of those mundane moments which may or may not happen again.

Made with Seagull 205 rangefinder camera on Kodak Tri-X 400 and developed in Kodak D76 for 500 seconds. Negative scanned on Epson V700 and minor adjustments in post.

Street Photo - Haircare Salesman

I don't know how to put it for this street photo. A middle-aged salesman found sleeping on his own bike along a busy street outside Mustafa shopping center. As seen here, a banner was put up on a fence on which promoting his hair care products. Quirky and weird. Even two Caucasian tourists found it strange.

Seagull 205 rangefinder camera on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in Kodak D76 for 500 seconds and scanned on Epson V700. Minor contrast adjustments and cropping in Photoshop.

Street Photo - Threes of 2 Kinds

Threes of 2 Kinds

I was walking on this pedestrian pavement along Serangoon Road when I saw ahead of me these three Indian fellows walking past a road sign. I ran up quickly to make this shot. There's this pattern and similarity between the three human subjects and the road sign that really caught my attention.

Made with Vivitar PN2011 on Ilford XP2 Super. Developed and scanned from a photo lab with post-processing in Photoshop for brightness and contrast.

Street Photo - Burger King GB

Burger King GB

Two Filipino ladies, wearing the same Great Britain flag T-shirts, are giggling and laughing outside a Burger King restaurant in Bugis Village. The colors of their tops in comparison with BK logo just spoke out loud to me and hence I walked up closer to make this photo.

Made with Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens. Cropped with minor Levels adjustments in Photoshop.

Street Photo - Little Girl and Minnie

Little Girl and Minnie

Saw this little girl with a Minnie haversack, pulling a small trolley luggage as if she's on her way to Disneyland. Image made with Samsung S3 LTE phone camera. Post-processed in Snapseed mobile app.

Street Photo - Lovers in Red

Lovers in Red

An Indian couple dressed in same red color tone, got intimated outside McDonald's restaurant at Shaw Plaza. Color image made with Samsung S3 LTE phone camera. Post-processed in Snapseed mobile app.

Street Photo - You Are What You Eat

You Are What You Eat

Well this photo speaks loud and clear for itself. There are many more fast food restaurants now than three decades ago. In which case either directly or indirectly, causing more obesity amongst younger children. Adults are affected too. They are addicted to fast food due to fast paced high pressurized and stressful working environment People do not have time for an hour lunch break and resort to fast food. Somehow food affects one's health, life style and state of mind.

Made with Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens. No cropping. Black and white conversion with adjustments on brightness and contrast in Photoshop.

Street Photo - Multimedia Platforms

Multimedia Platforms

Two men are reading newspapers and two men are chimping on their mobile phones. The double (two-for-two) patterns formed in this image i.e. their sitting positions and directions with alternate activities, that really caught my attention.

Made with Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens. Cropping and black and white conversion in Photoshop.

Street Photo - Interracial Street Talk

Interracial Street Talk

The folks are engrossed in their conversation along the busy street corridor in Little India. Color image made with Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens without crop. Black and white conversion in Photoshop

Street Photo - Walking On By

 Walking On By

I was walking in Chinatown one morning on Lunar Moon Festival 2012 and I took a break sitting on a small stairway and noticed this strip of light on a signboard. I begun to shoot by-passers and this is one of the best candid shots.

Made with Nikon D70s on Tamron wide angle lens. No cropping. Black and white conversion with minor adjustments on brightness and contrast in Photoshop.