Thaipusam 2019 – A roll of Ilford Delta 3200

Nearly one year ago, in January, I went to Tank road in the middle of the night to shoot a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 at the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple for the Thaipusam ceremony.

The orchestra

Thaipusam is a Tamil Hindu ceremony where devotees walk from Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple in Little India to the temple in Tank road.

The priests

It is interesting to shoot the ceremony at both temples ; at Little India where they start the pilgrimage or here where they finish it.

I favor the little India location early in the morning ; it is already very busy, but manageable. But for a couple of years I go to Tank Road in the evening before ; it is general quiet, the action (if I can say so) is more subdued. Pilgrims flow through the temple, receive blessings and walk out.

At the back of the temple is a resting aera and pilgrim receive tea and nibbles.

A Chinese Hindu devotee

This year I tried a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 with the Leica M6 and the Summicron 50mm version 5. The result is quite nice, the M6 does a good job once again, the light meter is working very well once again.

Giving offerings

I rarely shot the Ilford 3200, but must say the result is quite good. The grain is nice but controlled, the contrast is good. As I said somewhere else I think high ISO film give good results if you scene has a minimum of contrast.

Collecting ashes

These were shot around 11pm, on the first evening, it is very quite just when the priest open the inner sanctum of the temple. Alternatively, you can come around on the next day and take pictures from pilgrims disassembling their Kavadis.

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The inside on the temple of the day itself is over crowed and their is no shortcut, you have to follow the devotees from Penang road, I am not sure how long it will take. Surely a great experience, but you will need a good couple of hours.

The friendly volunteer

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Get ready I have 2 or 3 rolls of TRIX that I shoot the next day.

Walking out of the temple

Get ready, this year the Thaipusam procession is expected to start from SSPT on 07/02/2020 from 11.30pm.

 

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McPherson “Lego”buildings

This is a set of pictures of the colorful public housing blocs situated on Circuit Road in Singapore.

Circuit road is accessible via Mc Pherson MRT, and is located in the east part of town, 20 minutes ride from Orchard Road.

This estate dates back from the early 1970’s and has recently received a face-lift, becoming the Lego or Mondrian estate. Apparently the “upgrade” as we say here was not only cosmetical as the area used to be a bit shabby from what I gathered.

The outing was organized by Low Che Eng from the “Lets Shoot Film SG” Facebook group. We were nearly  a dozen freaks walking around the estate, with cameras ranging from various Leicas and medium formats to a view camera (Chamonix ?).

I carried around the Hasselblad 500CM  and 80mmF2.8 loaded with a slightly expired roll of Portra 160vc (nearly two years I think) shot at 200iso and the Leica IIIc with the Voigtländer 21mmF4 loaded with a roll of Rollei retro 80s.

The film was processed at the usual lab and scanned at home with the Epson v800.

I did a bit of post processing in light room but even without it the film turned out quite well.

 

Finally meet a resident, this gentleman used to a be a guitarist at the raffles hotel back in the days where hotels had musicians and is  now keeping fit in his old age. This is the last shot of the roll hence the slight issue on the top of the frame.

The hassie keep on having problems shooting 12 complete frames, but this time I got lucky.

 

The year of the piggy

What took me so long to write the next post? Frankly no idea. I probably said that I have a few other projects, like running a half marathon in June and also keeping an eye on the counter of the bike so I beat my mileage of last year. Plus a couple of family,  friends and (yes) work related things adding up.

Nonetheless I keep shooting, so here are the digital shots of the week end before Chinese new year. These are shots with the now familiar Leica M262 and the not so faithful Summilux 50mmv2.

The Summilux is back focusing a bit but I think I manage to compensate for it now.

Traditional CNY outing is in Chinatown, where you can find a lot of stall selling food.

And  a lot of people hanging around, shopping or not.

Amazing enough this year is the year of the Pig again, meaning I arrived  in Singapore 12 years ago and completed the cycle of the Chinese zodiac.

The 50mm is a bit tight sometimes as below; I must say I am a recent convert to the 35 focal length.

Below one of the many murals in town inspired by local life as it was a few decades back.