5 weeks ! No much shooting this week. I still go out once a day to keep my sanity, but the repetition kills the creativity (if there was ever any).
The cocks and hens are also wandering in our park (fort Canning), but it seems as if they also feel that something is amiss and retreat in the trees (I learned a few years back in Eater Island that chickens like to fly and rest on trees, I am a city boy, I would have never guessed,…)
Marina Bay Sands viewed from the grounds or our condo displays its love for the country, but the 1 North Bridge Road building hides the middle pillar of MBS and the letter … guess.
We had a nice walk along the river Saturday when the light was going down and the sky and river were beautiful (if it was not for the crowd of joggers and cyclists on the walking path).
My wife noticed that the Fullerton hotel was for once only displaying the national flag, is it national pride or just the lack of foreign customers?
The last two shots in the CDB show how nice the light was on the office buildings and how a lens build around World War II can perform nowadays (even if back focusing).
The building replacing Golden Shoe
All shots with Leitz Summitar 50mm F2.0 on Leica M262.
This is a follow up of my first write up YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE (ABOUT THE VC COLOR SKOPAR 21MM F4) For those who don’t feel like digging back in the archives (pitty, there are a couple of nice shots there and probably my best piece of text in a while), this is about picking the Voigtlander Cosina Color Skopar 21mmF4 back from the dry box and putting it back to work.
Ice cream parlor near Singapore river
Very quickly, the 21mm had two terrible defects for me: the color fringing in digital and the difficulty to frame in general. I decided in June to invest into a proper viewfinder to try to overcome the second issue : I picked a 21-25 VC metal finder.
Walk down the bridge
The viewfinder did a really good job, it very bright and accurate, well built and on top of it it is super sexy (I have to post pictures of the Leica IIIc with it).
Keong Saik road corner with Teck Lim road
All pictures here are from a single roll of Kodak Portra 400 shot with Leica M4 and VC Color Skopar 21mm F4 with the now famous 21-25 VC metal finder. Even vertical framing is accurate now.
“MY CHINATOWN HOME” by Yip Yew Chong 30 SMITH STREET
Horizontal framing works as well. As I am a slow shooter these were probably taken over a few week ends in different areas of central Singapore.
The guitar hero
To shoot portraits the 21mm requires you to get very close to your subject, and still you will get some distracting details in your frame. Also you may get funky perspectives even if you frame correctly your subject (thanks to the perfect new viewfinder)
Tan Boon Liat Building – a commercial / industrial building
When yout wan to put a lot in the frame as the Tan Boon Liat Building, actually it goes in. Colors with the Portra are quite rich, and vignetting is limited.
The Monkey God temple in Tiong Bahru
Or when you are close to buildings and want to put them in the frame as above, this is a great ultra wide angle.
Don’t go away
I did not do many “street” shots on this roll, but the 21 gives an amazing dynamics to the shots like above.
Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple in Little India
I was very convinced by these first 2 or 3 rolls, and this has slightly changed my photographic practice recently. I use the M262 and M6 with the summicrons for holidays or events, the M4 and IIIc with older lenses for fun( or street, or burning film name it as you want) and recently the 21 is glued to them.
Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple in Little India
So expect more posts like this one, but as you know that I found love with the VC21 again, so i will have to find out new titles.
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 city of Kapurtalha is 70 km or 1 and half hour drive from Amritsar. Is used to be a princely state in British India, and its late Maharajah, Jagatjit Singh built a certain number of monuments in the 1930’s, making the city a “Little Paris”.
The Mosque was build by French architect M. Manteaux, who had also designed the Jagatjit Palace in the city. The intention of the Maharajah was to offer his Muslim subject the best place of worship in order to preserve balance between the cults.
The mosque’s architectural design is based on the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakesh ( Morocco ).
The building is beautiful outside and inside;and in very good condition, we were just surprised to it empty. The man in charge was very nice and happy to show us around.
The courtyard is of marble; the interior patterns were originally made by artists from Lahore.
Kapurthala, looks like a very nice city, probably of 200000 inhabitants, with a lot of other buildings of architectural interest. Among them the Jagatjit Palace (Palace of the Maharajah), inspired by Versailles and the Jagatjit Club. The palace is now a military school and unfortunately cannot be visited without a prior authorization that we did not get. But just looking around in the street around the mosque a lot of smaller buildings are worth a look.
The other place of interest of Kapurthala is the Rail Coach Factory, but also requires an authorization and our trip organizer was ignorant of it so we could not access it, in spite of the efforts of our guide, bit of disappointment on my side.
All shots with Leica M262 and summicron 28 (mostly) or 50.
For the last post of the year, I will show you pictures of a small walk I did at Dakota Crescent estate in Singapore.
Like Rochor Centre, Dakota is supposed to be demolished at the end of this year (so pretty soon). The estate belongs to the public housing administration (HDB), it was built in 1959 during the British area.
The blocks have some interesting feature, some inherited form modernist lines. The most well known feature is the “dove” play ground.
The estate is made of 17 blocks, some high rise, some lower rise, located closed between Old Airport Road and the Kaland river. Old airport road s the road that was leading to the airport that was used prior to the opening of Changi in the 1990’s I think.
As this time the buildings are more or less empty, ready to leave way for a new development (I ignore which). There will be more pictures of Dakota as I went there again last week. But that will be for 2017.
Color shots done with Leica M262 and Summaron 35mmF2.8; Back and white with leica M4 with Voightlander Color Skopar 21mmF4 or Summitar 50mmF2 on odak TMY 400 film.
Sydney Opera House is surely one of the most iconic buildings in par with the Eiffel Tower. For our first trip in Australia I select Sydney as our first landing point not to miss it.
If you stay close to Circular Quay the building is always in view.
I am not going to copy wikipedia but quickly the building was the work of danish architect Jørn Utzon and was opened in 1973.
If you walk around the Rocks market during the week end you can see some vintage shots of the construction which are quite interesting.
We took the tour to visit the building which I highly recommend, but be warned, I find it pricey at 34$ per adult.
On top of having a guide that tells you the story of the building and describe its architecture, you can see some of the show rooms and inner pieces or architecture.
Definitely one of the nicest views is from Harbor Bridge.
All shots with the Leica M262 and M6 for the Black and White picture.
I joined Bernard Goh’s Singapore Photo Walk outing of March with my son.
Rochor Centre is group of buildings built by the Housing and Development Board of Singapore. It was built and completed in 1977 and consists of 4 blocks painted in vivid colors yellow, green, red and blue.
This is an iconic building in the east side on Singapore center that can be seen by tourists going to Arab Street or Little India.
The buildings comprise habitations, shops and hawkers ( food stalls). On the ground floor you still can find some religious artefacts.
The center has started closing as later this year it will be torn down to give way to a motorway joining the north to the south of the island. A lot of the shops have already relocated, but some are still open. The habitations seems to still be occupied if I can judge by the drying laundry.
The void desk is a classical feature of the HDB blocks, an open area for inhabitants to congregate and do activities.
Our friend Long Siew Leng aka Jumping girl.
Pictures 1 and 2 : Hasselblad 500cm+80mmF2.8, Rollei CR 200 slide film
This is a lucky year for the Digna, not only did he get to shoot a roll of slides at Christmas but as I was recently on holidays back home I did 2 more rolls with it. 3 rolls in a year this is unseen for this little camera that I use on for holidays.
What I like the best is what I call the “Lomo effect”, the little distortion of the picture that make it a bit more interesting. So these are just holidays snaps, with this little extra.
Mihintale is a mountain peak near Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. It is believed by Sri Lankans to be the site of where Buddhism started in Sri Lanka.
It is now a pilgrimage site, and the site of several religious monuments and abandoned structures.
The old monk keeping the image room of the dagoba on top of Mihintale hill
On top of the hill is a large Dagoba that can be seen from afar. A the back is the image room with its statue of reclining Buddha. This old monk invited us to have a look, leave our appreciation on the visitors look and offering. One opportunity to take the Hassie out of the bag.
The Daboba and prayer flags
The Rock opposite
Opposite le Dagoba is another rock which top one can climb, the surrounding landscape is breath taking, with a lot of water expanses that were man made if I remember well. You can also see old brick Dabogas under the vegetation.
The Buddha statue
A large statue of the Buddha can also be found on one side of the hill.
The Daboga at half height
This smaller Daboga can be found at half the height or the hill. At its back is a monastery.
Japanese Pilgrim
On our way down we met a group of Japanese Pilgrims chanting their way up the peak to spend the night at the monastery (so were we told). Apparently they come once a year for this.
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