The Queen is dead (The film edition)

There are a few inconvenient living close to Buckingham palace, one good thing is that its easy to drop buy when something is happening, even an unfortunate event as the passing of queen Elizabeth II.

It was easy to go a couple of times over the fatal week end, shoot a bit of film, with the M6 and the Summicron 50v5.

Oh we are 20th of October 2022 today, so from now on I have to specify that my M6 is an original classic one with alloy body, not the new version with mate paint over brass body, as it seems these things matters to camera makers.

This is part of a roll of Ilford HP5, hand rolled from the 30 meters spool I bought nearly 2 years ago, processed at the usual Analogue Films Lab in Shoreditch.

The two days were quite different, the Friday being is, may I say, more interesting and laid-back, we could even see the King getting out of the palace. The area before the palace was easy to access, and I circled it a few times.

Saturday, the place was packed to the point of not being accessible (no interest if you ve been here the day before), and the crowd was mostly laying flowers in Green Park.

It was a heyday for photographers, even for smartphotographers from Asia.

Talking about the event with my wife we remembered that we witnessed the passing of King Baudouin of Belgium in 1993 while we were living there (sorry I don have any pictures) and the one of Lee Kwan Yew in Singapore in 2015 (you can find some of my pictures here), but don’t go imagining things.

The Philippino ladies kindly agreed to have their pix taken

Are you ok?

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Good bye Mister Lee – Day two

On the second day or the mourning, the body is mister Lee was visible in the Parliament house. A large crowd attended the transfer itself early in the morning. From then the body of mister Lee was visible for the public inside the parliament.

A large queue started to form and when I stepped outside of home and head to the river, by 3pm the queue was zig zagging along more than 6km to end up around Clark Quay.

People with flowers were trying to reach the start of the queue

The queue was turning along new bridge road up to Hong Lim park. Luckily there was shade for most of this stretch.

Not so lucky were the people still on the bridge.

The police organized the queue, but everybody was polite and patient it seemed. No the policeman is not pointing at me.

Some more far-sighted people have brought umbrellas and seats.

Staff from Song Fa Bak Kut Teh shop were distributing water to people in the queue passing by their shop.

I made it to Canvenagh bridge in 30 minutes, probably it will be 4 hours minimum for the people in the queue and from here a good one to two hours extra to get the parliament. I could not cross so I walked back along the queue.

Opposite the Fullerton hotel, some guys were distributing water.

Another refreshment point in front of Maybank

The queue passed with Marina Bay Sands in the background, the latest Icon of the capital city.

I really hope this woman did not have to go back all the way to Clarke Quay to queue. People I met at this point had no idea how far the start of the queue was.

Today’s walk from the back of the queue up to Cavenagh bridge, took me a good hour.

All pictures with Leica M4

Summilux 50mm1.4
Rollei RPX100 or Kodak Tri-x

The haze affair

Let’s make the harbor disappear

Under the conjugated effect of dry season and south west winds the annual forest fires in Sumatra have caused a major issue in Singapore this year. The pollution index rose to never seen before levels, some school sent kids back home and companies held meetings to see how to face the situation. Wearing face masks is recommended, but they came very difficult to find out and the highly efficient N95 3M masks were unobtainable at all the outlets I visited. Many pharmacists carry notices that “All face masked are out of stock, please check at a later date”. I met people who considered flying abroad for the safety of their children. Unexpectedly a crisis situation is happening under my very eyes. So what to do ? Wear a mask take a camera and shoot. The haze may not be very camera friendly by I hope I can convey a bit of what happened in these shots.  Saturday situation was slowly going back to normal, but at this time, the pollution index remains in the zone named “Unhealthy” by the authorities (back from “Hazardous” that’s quite a relief).

Singapore harbor disappearing in the haze

Marina Bay Sands disappearing in the haze

The flyer disappearing in the haze

MBFC disappearing in the haze

Hazy construction site

Masked – 1

Masked – 2

Masked – 3

Masked – 4

Masked – 5

Masked – 6

Masked – 7

Masked Selfie

 

All shots are done with the Nikon D700 and the old 35-70 F.3.5 “AI Pro” zoom, that I bought second hand back in 1992 with my F3. There are a couple of hip shots, I must say I quite enjoyed “going back to digital” after shooting one roll of film a week since the beginning of the year.