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.