Martin Liew PhotoBlog

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Official Finding Vivian Maier Trailer Released

The official movie trailer for the feature length documentary film Finding Vivian Maier is out!

I've been following Vivian Maier since 2009 which I blogged it here.. Her street photographs and negatives and many undeveloped rolls of film were found by John Maloof at a furniture and antique auction in Chicago. Vivian's work is so inspiring that I have had picked up my TLR camera and made some street photographs. Well using a fully manual camera with a waist level viewfinder on ground glass, poses great challenges besides focussing and composing shots of moving subjects. I've shared my shooting experience in a past blog here.

Through Vivian's street photographs of strangers, one can feels the closeness between Vivian and her subjects where she made good portratiures upclose and at the same time the subjects are relaxed and being natural. I think it's time I would try again on my TLR street photography.

OK let's watch the trailer.

A Pair of Triplets

One of three security personnels is hanging a vegetable in preparation for the Lion Dance auspicious ceremony, Cai Qing outside Paragon. Color image made with Samsung S3 LTE and converted to black and white in Photoshop.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Street Photography in 2013

Happy Lunar New Year to all my Chinese friends and readers. Here's one of the first few digital street photos in 2013 - a cyan white car parked outside Lasalle new campus. Taken with my Samsung S3 LTE phone camera. Cropped and post-processed in Snapseed app. I do not know much about cars so I do appreciate if any kind soul would be helpful to share some info. More after the jump.

Asian Beauty Retouch

Beauty headshot by Andrew Missisippi Ng.

Today we're going to talk about something different which is post-production retouching. The beauty headshot shown above is taken by my photographer friend, Andrew Mississippi Ng. It was retouched by none other than myself, of course. Shouldn't it be the photographer himself who post-processes his own work? You might ask. Well here's the little story behind this little project...

A 10th Anniversary Tribute to Eye é City

Eye é City Book Publications from 2005 - 2010

How is everyone's new year so far? Yes, I know. This blog came in very very late. But hey Chinese New Year is coming soon so I'm trying to get this blog out ASAP. As usual, I was busy juggling between my work, family, and yes, photography as well but was somehow slacked away and lost in time.

So today, in this blog I want to talk about this Uniquely Singapore event; an annual year-end event that participants would document the social and environmental changes in Singapore in the last 24 hours of the year i.e. 31st December. Yes, I'm talking about Eye é City 2012.

Make the jump to read more about my tribute to this meaningful event.

Old Playgrounds Video Part 3 Now Showing

Sampan Playground

Finally the much anticipated video is out. In this finale video, you'll get to see some unique and interesting playgrounds. Hop right on board the sampan and sail for the video.

New Video on Old Playgrounds Uploaded

Clock Playground @ Bishan Street 13

OK here it is. The second part video is uploaded. It's almost one month now since I started to embark on this playground project. Well maybe more than a month. Anyway it's fun traveling around to different locations finding some of the rare old school playgrounds. More after the jump.

Goodbye Playground @ Dover + 2 more

Today I want to share with you a news. A sad news that is. Yesterday I organized an outing with two friends, to visit some old school playgrounds in western area of Singapore (dated 28 July 2012, Saturday). To our great astonishment and disappointment, we found the above photographed playground has vanished. Make the jump to find out more.

BTS Video: Sculpture In The Park

An Enclosure For A Swing

Here's a new update on my location scouting where I went to Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park to check out this interesting and unique sculpture, titled An Enclosure For A Swing by artist Kevin Lim Fun Kit. I did a simple and short BTS video clip. Get ready to swing and make the board jump to view the video.

The Sketch Exercise & The Power of Pre-visualization

OK you must be thinking what this pencil sketch of a structure in a form of a rabbit, got to do with photography. Well, if you have been following my night photography blogs, you could have or might have figured out what I'm going to talk about today. If you have not, take a side track to my night photography blog here. Make the leap forward for the sketch exercise.

On Assignment.. Barbie's Christmas Fantasy

A photographer friend of mine got me this job assignment; a roadshow event organized by Takashimaya Shopping Center @ Ngee Ann City, titled Christmas Fantasy. As Christmas festive season closing in, they are selling children toys, stationeries, T-shirts and other merchandises. There are even 3 Meet and Greet sessions with special appearances of Angry Birds characters starting now until 10 December, Saturday. Well, it certainly draws a huge crowd, especially kids. Christmas Fantasy roadshow ends on 26 December, Monday.

Make the jump for more info on this Barbie Girl.

On The Street...As I See It

Christopher Pereira, The Tree Wizard

I was doing street photography this afternoon along Orchard area. When I arrived at ION, I saw a man doing self-portrait shoot with an Elephant art display, displayed outside ION sidewalks (as shown below)

It rains out of a sudden and everyone takes shelter. While waiting for the rain to stop, I went up to the man and asked if I can take his pictures and he gladly agreed. I recognized him as I met him before at Sculptor Square three years ago during Eye e City 2008. The man is Christopher Pereira, The Tree Wizard. I was doing black & white film for Eye e City 2008 and this is one of the last 2 shots I did.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

My First Try on Polaroid

What you see here is a Polaroid image which is my very first test shot. A week ago a long time friend of mine gave me a Polaroid 636 Talking Camera. Well I have never took photos with a Polaroid camera before. Neither do I fancy. Well I thought it would be fun to try out some shots with it since I got one now. However I wouldn't know if it still works. So I went down to a local camera store and bought the new Impossible (brand label actually) PX600 Polaroid film with ISO 600 and grey frame, as seen here in the image shown above. Yes the film is in monochrome with sepia tone.

I do not know much about Polaroid history but here's what I've found on the internet for your reference. Make the jump to read more.

Eye e City 2010 Book Collection + 1 sad news & 1 good news

This afternoon I went to collect my copy of Eye é City 2010 publication book (shown above). In fact I got 2 copies because I used to help the Eye Committee as a Volunteer and as a Facilitator. In addition, I even got to choose 2 more extra copies of past Eye é City publication books. I chose 2005 and 2008. There's a sad news and a good news. So make the jump to read more.

TLR Street Photos

How times flies. I've been away for quite a long time since my last blog post. In early January 2010, I blogged about TLR Street Photography and I was too busy with many other things I forgot to post some of the street photos I took with my TLR camera until I went through my Blog Archive.

Well, fortunately I already got the first few rolls developed and here are a few that I edited. Make the jump to view the pictures.

On the Street... As I See It

Young Japanese Busker

© Martin Liew Photography

I came across this young Japanese busker performing outside Takashimaya Shopping Center. The musical instrument she was playing looks like an inverted cooking wok with circular dents with each dent produces different musical tones. It was played in the form of percussion by hands. An unique music performance and I was drawn to the sounds. Passer-bys dropped money in a separate wok as a token of appreciation for her performance. She bowed her head and said "Arigato!" with a smile.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

On the Street... Public Fashion Runway

Public fashion runway, right outside Takashimaya Shopping Center.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Past and Present

Today I want to talk about something that revokes the past and the present. There are things that did not change after a long time, generations after generations. Well maybe there are slight changes due to the modern standard of living in comparison. Yes I want to share a street photograph I took few weeks ago. Make the jump to read on.

Urban Exploration: The Old Capitol Theater

The old Capitol Theater. Year and date unknown.

Two years ago I posted this old postcard image in which I talked about collecting postcard. Our topic today is solely on the old Capitol Theater. The 79-year-old building which screened its last movie in 1998, is undergoing redevelopment along with its adjoining buildings - Stamford House, Capitol Building and Capitol Center.

An underground pedestrian walkway will link City Hall MRT Station to the future development at the Capitol Theater site, on the other side of North Bridge Road. From the Capitol Theater site, pedestrians will be able to use the existing network of covered walkways to reach other buildings in the area.

How long does it take to complete this redevelopment project? I do not know. One thing I do know is the opportunity has arrived for me to explore the building interiors. Make the jump to find out more.

Old Style Kopi Tiam Gone Forever

Men in the Mirror

Hi everybody! I'm back. Yes three month since the last photography blog I wrote. I was busy with my digital portraiture projects; doing mainly fashion photography and in between I was doing some light-painting jobs. Yesterday I took time off from work and went out in the morning to do some street shootings on impromptu. Well sort of.

Some of you might have seen the picture (shown above) before on this blog or on my website. There are many changes happened around this old style coffee shop area. Make the jump for new updates.

Candy Girl Beauty Shots + 1 More

Hi everyone! First of all, I have to apologize for being absent for almost 2 months since my last blog. I felt bad about it as I was too caught up with some personal strobist projects on fashion shoots and yes, beauty shots as seen on the image above. Which so to speak, I'm gonna talk about it today.

Make the leap and discover the beauty shots inside.

A Great Lighting Reference + Lotsa Guessing Work

I bought this book at a local photography bookstore today. When I saw this book I told myself that this guide book saves me lotsa time by trying to visualize what lighting setups I should use for my portrat shoots. The book can do alot more than that. More after the jump.

CROSSTOWN - Street Photography in Retrospective

It's Sunday today and I got a little laid back though. I just recovered from a cold and have been staying at home for the entire day yesterday. So I forced myself out of the bed and stepped out of house to have some freash air. I went to the library and came across this book, titled Crosstown by one of the twentieth century's most important photographers, Helen Levitt.

More details here after.

Goodbye 2010! Hello 2011!

Dragon Fountain

Finally 2010 had ended and a great welcome to 2011 with open arms! Yes I've delayed for 3 days to write this blog. Well let me update my fellow readers to whom I would like to thank you all for your kind support. I'm greatly appreciate for your precious time to read my blogs even though I'm not a really good writer but I assure you that all these words are written from the bottom of my heart and from my own experience. I will work hard to continue writing this photography blog.

In this brand new year - the Year of Rabbit/Hare, I'm posting this monochrome image of a Dragon. Yes I know, Year of Dragon will be in 2012 but Dragon has always been a sign of prosperity, good luck and good health. So I hereby wish all my readers a Happy New Year with great prosperity, good luck and good health. May you attain all your new goals with great success.

Photo info:

Horizon Perfekt | Ilford XP-2 rated @ 200 | 1/250 sec. f/8 Infinity | Adjustments in Brightness & Contrast and Burning & Dodging in Photoshop | Location: Whampoa

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Update: One Final Glimpse of National Stadium

The blog title for today speaks for itself. Last Sunday I went back to the old National Stadium demolition site. I wanted to see for myself the progress since my last visit in October. It's been 2 months now and the demolition pace accelerated. Make the jump to view the video I made.