Night Street – Phone Booth

Night Street – Shadow in the Light

Apple iPhone 6 Plus on default mode and post-processed in Snapseed in 16:9 vertical crop.

Street Photo – Red Feet On The Grid

Street photo - PLANET

Beautifully balanced on a languid arm of a sleeping boy child, this seven ton, 383cm by 353cm by 926cm bronze cast sculpture floats like a heavenly body above a verdant earth. Renowned sculptor Marc Quinn (b. 1964) created this work in a depiction of his infant son, Lucas Quinn deploys an assortment of materials and techniques to explore nature under human influence in themes that include the changing human body and the dual meanings of human life, between spiritual and physical surface and depth,cerebral and sexual. This piece is the second of three editions, and is gifted for permanent display in the Garden by the Bay.

Photo info:

Captured with an Apple iPhone 6 Plus on default mode. Post-processed in Snapseed and Color Efex Pro 4 in Photoshop CS6.

LAST DAYS of the SUNGEI ROAD THIEVES' MARKET

Today I would like to share with you on a humble collection of street photographs I made of the Thieves' Market in Sungei Road. Coming 2017, this flea market has to make way for the new Jalan Besar MRT station which will be due completion soon. No exact date is announced by National Environment Agency (NEA) at the moment of posting this blog.

Make the jump to view the last glory days of the flea market scenes.

Read more

Modern Day Coolie

A trip to Huang Long, Sichuan, China in mid-October, and I spotted this modern day coolie; a middle-aged man in his 50s, along with 4 others were carrying loads of goods weighed at about 80kg or more. They were walking along the street towards Huang Long National Park. I think they were delivering stocks to stalls located in the mountain with height above sea level at more than 3000m. With no proper mode of transport to deliver up to the mountain, and at high air pressure with thin oxygen level, these men are more fitter than you and me. It's pretty tough task actually for an average man, but you just gotta respect them for their perseverance and strong determination, all because to make a living.

Street Photo – Ice-cream Vendor

Another street photo captured on my Apple iPhone 6 Plus on default mode with post-process in Photoshop using Google Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin. Somehow Blogger seems to alter the beautifully generated monotone of this photo, into a duller flat tonality. Hope Google's Blogger do something about this issue.

An Autumn Trip to Jiuzhaigou & Huang Long 秋览九寨沟及黄龙 2016年10月16至20日

九寨沟之原始森林

九寨沟之珍珠滩瀑布

九寨沟之小瀑布

九寨沟之五彩池

九寨沟之五花海

九寨沟之长海

黄龙景区

Photos info:

All photos are made with Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm with Circular Polariser and Apple iPhone 6 Plus. Post-processed in Adobe Photoshop CS6 with enhancement in Google Nik Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro 4 and Snapseed respectively.

Street Photo - Under The Umbrella Tree

As surreal as it may seem, I came across this location spot while roaming the streets in Little India and took this shot with my iPhone 6 Plus on Chrome mode, followed by some editing in Snapseed. At the time of snapping this shot, I didn't notice that India fellow on the foreground until I post-processed the image. For a moment I thought he is handicapped because of the way he sat on his right leg. Seeing his pair of shoes I believe he isn't.

Street photo - Untitled

Captured this quiet moment at a nearby wet market on a weekday morning with my Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Chrome mode and post-processed in Snapseed.

Street Photo - This Is Our Future SG

Today is our National Day. I took this street photo of a little girl yesterday morning at a MRT station where she was wearing this cute red T-shirt with our national flag. The little girl and her Grand-ma were in red and white. How nice and appropriate to capture this moment in time!

Happy Birthday Singapore! Happy National Day!

Travel Photo - Fishing Boat

Fishing boat sat stationally on the muddy shore during a low tide in Kukup Malaysia, a fishing village located about 40 kilometres southwest of Johor Bahru, in the district of Pontian, Johor, on the Strait of Malacca in Malaysia.

Great sunny weather to capture this on my Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Chrome mode. Post-processed in Snapseed.

Travel Photo - Kelong

Went for a short trip last weekend to Kukup Malaysia, a fishing village about 40 kilometres southwest of Johor Bahru, in the district of Pontian, Johor, on the Strait of Malacca in Malaysia. It was my third trip since last August.

I woke up the next morning to a wonderful cool scenery of this kelong and swallows flying around, which I was fortunate to capture one that flew by in this photograph. It was captured by accident with my Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Chrome mode. Converted to black and white with other tonality adjustments in my all-time favorite mobile photo editing app, Snapseed. Cropped in 16x9 panorama aspect ratio for that cinematic effect.

Street Photo - Light & Shadows

Saw this chiaroscuro scene this morning and compelled to make this shot with my Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Chrome mode. Post-processed in Snapseed for a dramatic black and white.

Street Photo - Red Man Red Car Red on Reading

All red came into place at the right time with my Apple iPhone 6 Plus on default mode. Post-processed in Snapseed.

Street Photo - Blue White Reflection

Water reflection of a newly painted heritage house, made possible with my Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Chrome mode and post-processed in Snapseed.

Untitled Street Photo

Gloomy sky looming over a building. Captured with my Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Chrome mode and post-processed in Snapseed.

Cheers for Beer! (A Cinemagraph)

Click to enlarge

Lately I got interested in cinemagraphs and this is my third attempt. Though not ideally the kind of result I wanted but I'm still quite pleased with the overall effect.

Well initially I wanted to include the flowing beer inside the bottle as it pours out into the beer glass. But that requires some handiwork which is to cut the beer bottle bottom half and clamp it sturdily on a light stand. Actually it's sort of like a funnel. Once the bottle is positioned above the beer glass, the video recording is running and I would pour another bottle of beer which is out of the frame, steadily at a moderate speed through the cut bottle and out pours the beer into the beer glass.

There are more room for improvements and with proper planning I believe I can produce better cinemagraphs.

Street Photo - Babysitting Is Not A Crime!

Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Chrome mode and post-processed in Snapseed.

Street Photo - Night Reading

Night Reading

Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Noir mode Square format and post-processed in Snapseed 2.3 without crop.

TLR Street Photo - On Reading...

Seagull 4A on Ilford FP4 Plus
Developed in 1:1 Kodak D76 for 8 mins 50 secs
Post in Photoshop and scanned on Epson V700

Stewords Riverboat in Retrospect

Came across this old photograph I made twelve years ago while I was tidying up my photo archives. If I recall correctly I was using Nikon FM10 with a 35–70mm standard zoom lens on a color negative film. This boat restaurant was anchored at a harbor in old Sentosa before it sailed away for new development into Resort World Sentosa (RWS) today. The boat restaurant serves American (Santa Fe) Tex-Mex Grill Food and currently located at Marina South Pier.

TLR Street Photo - Great TV Sale

Seagull 4A on Ilford FP4 Plus
Developed in 1:1 Kodak D76 for 8 mins 50 secs
Post in Photoshop & scanned on Epson V700

GREAT NEWS! Google's Nik Collection Is Now FREE For Download!

On 24 March 2016 Thursday, Google announced that its desktop photo editing software, Nik Collection (worth USD$150), is now 100% FREE for download. What an awesome great news!

I got to know about Nik Softwares (originally known as) back in 2007 or 2008 and it was acquired by Google in late 2012, along with Nik's popular mobile photo editing app, Snapseed. Here's what Google wrote about this news.

“Today we’re making the Nik Collection available to everyone, for free. 

Photo enthusiasts all over the world use the Nik Collection to get the best out of their images every day. As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it. 

The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins that provide a powerful range of photo editing capabilities -- from filter applications that improve color correction, to retouching and creative effects, to image sharpening that brings out all the hidden details, to the ability to make adjustments to the color and tonality of images.

Starting March 24, 2016, the latest Nik Collection will be freely available to download: Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Viveza, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Dfine. If you purchased the Nik Collection in 2016, you will receive a full refund, which we’ll automatically issue back to you in the coming days. We’re excited to bring the powerful photo editing tools once only used by professionals to even more people now. ”

My all-time favourite of Nik Collection is Silver Efex Pro which has a bunch of black and white presets to choose from and I can even tweak settings to achieve the results I wanted. Most often I use this plug-in for all of my color digital photographs, selectively, as some look great after B&W conversion. As for B&W film after I got them on high resolution scan, I would use Silver Efex Pro for further enhancement on tonalities.

Below are a few photos using Silver Efex Pro alone. I've yet to try out the other 6 plug-ins. All photos here are made with my Nikon D70s on wide angle and prime lens respectively.

OK! That's about it! Go get your FREE copy of Nik Collection plug-ins for Photoshop and Lightroom now! Keep shooting and tweaking to your heart's content.

LAST DAYS of the SUNGEI ROAD THIEVES' MARKET - A Teaser

COMING SOON

Street Photo - Visitor

Visitor

Apple iPhone 6 Plus on default mode • Flash & HDR off • Post-processed in Snapseed 2.0 without cropping

Street Photo - Alternate Way

Alternate Way

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

Street Photo - Fashionista

Fashionista

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

Street Photo - CUSTOMAXXX ROAR

CUSTOMAXXX Chopper Bike

This is the first street photo post in 2016. Expect more to be posted here on this blog site so do subscribe and stay tuned for the latest updates.

OK here's a little story on how I got this street portraiture of this cool dude with a cool killer big chopper bike. It was in mid-2014 on a Sunday morning as I was walking along the sidewalk of Marina Bay Sands, I saw this guy riding on this strangely shaped bike. It reminds me of a Harley-Davidson-styled bike but this one is different. I told myself I wanted to take a few photos of him and his cool chopper bike but he rode away.

A few moments later, he came around and stopped to rest, and this is the only chance I got so I rushed up and approached him. I told him I'm a street photographer and I found his bike so unique and asked for his kind permission to take a few photographs. He smiled and gladly agreed.

After the photo shoot, I asked for his contact so I can send him a copy of his best portrait, and he gave me his business card. And he told me he is the owner of a bicycle company by the name CUSTOMAXXX, where they make customized chopper bikes like the one he rides on. Pretty cool eh! I thanked him and he rode away.

This is what I like about street photography. You never know what would be unfolded before your eyes and it always happens when you are least expected. When that moment occurs, trust your own instinct and self-confidence, and go ahead to seize that opportunity to take photographs, be it with kind permission or taking a few quick candid snapshots. It may or may not be the best street shots you have taken but at least you have no regrets about letting those beautiful moments slip by.

Photo info:

Seagull 205 RF on FujiFilm Neopan 400. Developed in 1:1 Kodak D76 for 500 seconds and scanned on Epson V700 with slight tonality and contrast adjustments in Photoshop.