Martin Liew PhotoBlog

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

The Power of Mother Nature

Last weekend, I visited the Singapore Botanic Gardens in search of more ICM subjects to photograph. By the way, ICM stands for Intentional Camera Movement. It is an abstract style of shooting that has no rules – it all comes down to moving your camera over a long exposure to create an artistic or painting-like effect. I got interested and had my first attempt a couple of months ago. If you're keen to find out, I have written and posted a blog on my experience here.

Back on track, the weather on that Sunday morning was awesome with warm sunlight and there were many visitors, be it strolling in the garden, jogging, doing yoga, or with family and friends gathering for picnics or dining at the restaurants, the Garden is a favorite place for nature lovers to relax. Make the jump to read more.

On Reading... New Photos Update

I recently went through my photo archive and found unedited scanned photographs, which I made with different film cameras like Nikon FM10, a Seagull TLR, and a Rangefinder. Oh! And a swing lens panorama camera, Horizon Perfekt.

It dawned on me that I have not updated my website with many of these unedited photographs on this project, an ongoing project titled On Reading, for quite some time. Over the years, I had shot and accumulated many photographs of individuals immersed in the act of reading in a variety of settings.

So here are three photographs made with a Seagull-4A TLR camera. The film used was Kodak Tri-X 400. Self-developed in Kodak D76 and scanned on an Epson V700.

Do check out the rest of the street photographs on my website or simply click on the top image. Hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I love making them. Cheers!

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Sunday, October 23, 2022

ICM Nature In Bloom (A Triptych)

Enter to view each photo in full display size.

Street Photo – Straw Hats

Hi! Welcome to another new photography blog post. As you can see in the photo on top, three black men were spotted wearing straw hats. They got my attention and so I went up behind them and close enough to make this shot. The man in the center with the colored abstract shirt is the main attraction followed by the three straw hats.

I thought it would be better to show the photo in colors, but during the post-process in Photoshop, I converted it to black & white and the result is very satisfying. Check out the comparison below.

Photo info:
Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4.0

Focal Length @ 24.0mm | f/5.6 | 1/500 second | ISO 400 | Center Weight Metering

Which one do you prefer/like? Let me know in the comment section below.

OK, that's it for today. Take care and keep shooting. Cheers!

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Monday, October 17, 2022

Night Street – Ambiguous

Ambiguous
© May 2016 Martin Liew Photography

Just a quick short blog post here. Over the weekend, I was looking through the photo archive of my past street photographs when I came across this photo. In fact, I took a few shots of this night scene in one of the street alleys in Little India.

Lately. I'm into ICM a.k.a. Intentional Camera Movement photography and so when I saw this night image, I thought it would be interesting to post and share. Basically, I was shooting in Aperture Priority mode, using a Tamron 17-35mm lens set at 24mm focal length with the widest aperture at f/3.2. ISO was set at 1600 and with TTL metering, the shutter speed was given at 0.4 seconds. Hence, this resulted in the blurry motions of these street characters.

I was planning on applying ICM on night street photography and didn't know if it will work out or not. But now, I certainly know that I can shoot in Shutter Priority mode for more fun and creative effects. Hopefully, the results can create more aesthetic values.

Deepavali festival is just around the corner. Actually, it falls on 24 October next Monday. Therefore, there's enough time for me to explore the festive night streets in Little India, starting on Friday night. The place is set up with colorful lighting decors and will be filled with huge crowds. Until then, stay tuned to my blog for new updates.

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Street Photo That Makes You Smile

A little throwback here on my street photography. I took this snapshot on the last day of 2014 in Chinatown of this man, believed to be a tourist, who was pulling his face. Perhaps he was trying to swipe away the sweat on his face, or maybe he was trying to clear his eyes. Well, whatever it was. The Chinese lady in front of him turned around with an astonishing look as if she was shocked by what she saw, or perhaps more like a gaze in wonder with curiosity.

Well, in fact, she was turning her head at the moment I released the shutter. And I believe something had caught her attention. Somehow, the direction of her gaze toward the man creates a sense of humor in this street photograph. Is this considered the Decisive Moment? Or maybe it was just pure luck I reckon. I didn't pay much attention to this street photo until now. It's been resting in my photo archive for almost 8 years before coming into the limelight.

So yeah, that's it for today's blog. I hope this photo makes you smile. By the way, I've posted some old street photos on my Instagram. Yeah, a throwback to my 2015 street photography with my former iPhone 6+ which I miss so dearly. So, make sure you visit my IG page, and don't forget to like and follow me on IG, subscribe to my blog for new updates, and visit my website for many more of my photography work.

Take care and have a great weekend! Cheers!

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View more of my photography work on my website.

Thursday, October 13, 2022

ICM Nature

Good morning! Hope you guys have a great week. Just a short blog today as I want to share a couple of my new ICM photos.

Last weekend, I visited a park in Toa Payoh where I wanted to continue doing ICM photography. Instead of the streets, I wanted to try some shots of greenery nature. Here are the 3 best ICM shots I made of these tall grasses. I was simply moving my camera and lens in an up-down motion to create this effect. I really like the results.

Next, I strolled along in the park to find other interesting subjects, and then I found these trees which I thought their position looks great in the viewfinder. And yes, they look awesome in this blurry effect. Really look like a painting. Wouldn't you agree?

I have plans to visit our Singapore Botanical Garden for more ICM nature photography. Until then, that's all for today's blog post. I hope you enjoy viewing my new work. Take care and have a nice day. Cheers!

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Sunday, October 9, 2022

Street Photo – LV Lady with the Broken Tattoo

Photo info:
Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4.0
f/5.6 1/40sec. ISO 400 Center Weight Metering
Post-processed in Photoshop

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View more of my photography work on my website.

Saturday, October 1, 2022

ICM Street Series Vol. 1

Good morning and welcome back to my blog. Last week, I shared my shooting experience with ICM a.k.a. Intentional Camera Movement, along with some street photos. I really got hooked up with this unique and creative technique. So, today I'm introducing a new photography series on ICM. Starting this October 2022, I will be showing the photos whenever I have a body of work. Initially, I wanted it to be a bi-monthly series. There are a couple of reasons. One reason is, as much as I like this shooting style I still like doing the usual street photography and posting new street photos on this blog site. Secondly, it will give me enough time (I hope) to juggle between normal street shooting and ICM. In this case, I will have to shoot as many ICM street photos as possible. Not going for quantities but more on the quality and aesthetics.

So I'll see how things go and adapt accordingly along the way whichever works out. OK without further ado, let's jump in to view the photos.

Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) Street Photography

In today's blog, I'd like to share and showcase my first attempt at Intentional Camera Movement a.k.a. ICM street photography. Without further ado, let's jump right in.

Street Photos – Wish You Were Here

Photo 1:

f/8.0 1/1600sec. ISO 400

Center Weight Metering

Photo 2:

f/8.0 1/1250sec. ISO 400

Center Weight Metering.

All photos are made with Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4.0 | Post-processed in Photoshop

Make the jump for a bigger view.

Random Street Phonographs

It's been a long time since I last took street photographs with a Smartphone. I used to enjoy taking pictures with my iPhone 6 Plus until it went dead in October 2021. The latest iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max with upgraded features has a super steep price tag. So, after using iOS for almost 6 years, I went back to an Android phone - the Realme C21 (RMX3201). The camera function is not as good as iPhone, of course, but good enough for normal photo-taking.

So, one afternoon I took a few impromptu photos at the nearby Community Club, and these are the two presentable ones to show here. The images are made with a downloaded camera app namely, Manual Camera: DSLR Camera Pro. All images are post-processed in Snapseed app. Yes, it is my all-time favorite mobile photo editing app.

OK, that's it for today's blog. Just want to make a quick blog post sharing some simple and random photos with you all. Take care and have a great week ahead. Cheers!