More Chinese New Year spirit and a bit more

The love of the two oranges

These two auspicious oranges offered during CNY period, here at the entrance of a restaurant in Clarke Quay. As often I make associations in my mind which are quite irrelevant, why think of Serguey Prokovief Opera The Love for Three Oranges where actually I just have two? Maybe the essence of photography : showing what’s not there.

Posing for CNY the Buddha Tooth Relic temple

I started this roll in Chinatown a while back, and as we were during CNY period, people came around the Buddha Tooth Relic temple to take selfies.

A Bak Kwa shop

CNY is also about food, and the Bak Kwa (sliced barbequed port meat) shops are busy. There are queues outside some of the most famous who generally have sold all their goods by lunch time on week ends.

Traditional Cosplay

I was very happy / lucky a couple of weeks later when coming back to Chinatown I saw this group of youngsters dressing up in traditional Chinese costumes, for a fun photo shoot.

Urban sketchers at work in the shade

Caution fierce look

This is a roll of Rollei retro 80s, shot with the Leica M6 and the Summaron 35mmF3.5 ltm lens.

The lady with a fan

The lady in the shadows

The film was processed in Caffenol CM recipe at 28 degrees for 5minutes. Some shots are great, but the ones with big dark areas like above are showing some marks in the dark parts. Fingers marks? Fogging ? Effect of the expired film? I don’t really know. The effect is even more noticeable below:

Japanese restaurannt

It is not super easy to shoot indoor with 100 ISO setting and a 3.5 lens. I quite like the result, regardless of the marks.

Play

A big thank you to Louis Vuitton for this fashionistas playground giving opportunities for a few candid shots. Once again it was 7pm the light of the day was fading so the shots are taken at 1/60 or 1/40 and F3.5

More playground

A few random shots to finish

A pile of bar stools, the blacks and the contrast are really specific to the Rollei 80s, so I am happy this can be rendered in Caffenol.

Some sculpture in a back alley, I think it’s the entrance of a club or a bar.

A bit if tragedy to finish this is the place where 5 party goes met their fate when driving into coffee in the late night hours a couple of weeks back. You can still see the burned façade of the building. A few days (maybe 1 or two weeks) after the incidents, offerings were placed for the deceased.

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CNY 2021 ON KODAK EKTAR

The Buddhist lodge on Kim Yam Road

So when I brought my last roll of Portra to the lab the uncle coaxed me into buying some Ektar 100, not wanting to look mean I bought not a roll but a box of 5 rolls. I must say this is a decent deal as it comes with five coupons of one dollar to be rebated of their processing. If I remember correctly this is 52 dollars for the 5 rolls and they do processing + super decent scanning at 11 dollars (Singapore Dollars).

Monkey God Temple in Tiong Bahru

I shot Ektar before, but mostly in 35mm, I must say it pays credit to the claim that it is the finest grain film. So I loaded the good old Hassie 500 CM with my first roll and hit the road to give it a try.

Chinese Lantern Tiong Bahru

12 shots on a 120 roll is not much, but walking through overshot areas on a Sunday afternoon, it can be quite a challenge to finish a full roll.

The ex-Majestic Hotel, now the Straight Clan asscoation

We walked from home to Tiong Bahru, then headed to Chinatown. The Straight Clan is where the Majestic hotel used to be. I spent 5 weeks in this hotel in 2006 and have some interesting shots from the construction site period, when it was converted. Maybe I’ll share this some time.

Buddha tooth relic temple

We moved to the Buddha tooth relic temple where I notice the Buddhist flags which where not there last week ( you can check the post) and I though it was a nice opportunity for color sampling and smooth grain demonstration.

A peanuts stand in Chintaown

In Chinatown every year temporary stands selling goods for the occasion the Chinese New Year appear and disappear in a mater of a few weeks. Generally they close late on the eve of the New Year day. This year everybody was masked, there were less stands as the people coming from other countries could not enter Singapore. If you want to ne picky, the focus is on the cage bars, not the seller.

Welcome to the year of the Ox

Exiting Chinatown, I took this shot of the Ox silk paper statue. This is not the best angle as it is quite busy with the traffic lights posts and cars. The best angle is diametrically opposite I think. But you can see here how nice and bright the colors are.

Substation on Armenian street

Nice mural on Substation, an art center on Armenian Street, close to the Peranakan museum. Substation used to host gigs and has a broad program, with what seems to be a focus on the street / youth culture.

Rendez-Vous Hotel

The last shot in order to finish the roll : a mundane view of the Rendez-Vous Hotel at the bottom of Orchard Road. Totally uninteresting but very nice blues.

I you missed the links in the text you can check the post CNY 2021 in Chinatown with the Hassie 500CM to compare similar shots with Portra 160.

All shots: Hasselblad 500 CM with standard 80mmF2.8
Kodak Ektar 100 shot at 100
Processing and Scanning : Whampoa Color

KosmoFoto Mono

Passing my favorite photo shop the other day (Ruby Ye in Excelsior Plaza basement), I noticed a stack of an unknown (to me) boxes of film. I was told it is Kosmo Foto Mono. I heard of the brand before but never tried it. So I could not resist, parted from 14 SGD and walked home.

Next day was an unformal outing of the HUGS (Hasselblad User Group Singapore) and I brought both the Hassie (see last post) and the Leica M6 loaded with the said Kosmo Foto Mono and mounted with the 50mm Summilux v2 (My first ever Leica Lens). We met in Chinatown, to capture the Chinese New Year atmosphere.

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The Urban Sketchers

That day was also the outing of the Urban Sketchers group, which gave us (me) plenty of pictures opportunity, I like shooting random strangers, but strangers in action is even better.

The Mono is a 100 ISO film, the weather that morning was quite ok for outdoor shots with normal speed and aperture. Except the below, inside the Chinatown complete, probably full open and 1/60 sec.

When I reached home after lunch the tricky question came : how do I process this film? Querying the Caffenol Facebook group I learned that this is some rebranded Kentmere 100, so I looked up processing time. But when I removed the label to take a nice scan of it for my collection I noticed the canister actually says Fomo.

Who to believe? Anyway checking the Massive Development Chart I noticed both the Kentmere 100 and the Foma 100 have the same development time for the same Caffenol formula. My vitamin C stock is a bit depleted but I still could find enough to process one roll with the following formula:

500 ml water. 27g Washing Soda, 8 g Vitamin C , 20g Netscafe classic

My room temperature here in Singapore is 28 Deg, so I scaled the time and processed for 6 minutes, with agitation the first 20 seconds then 3 inversions every minute.
Using Ilford method to rinse, Ilford rapid fixer and dishwashing soap in the last rinse batch.

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Life goes on in Chinatown (Vertical)

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Life goes on in Chinatown (Horizontal)

The negative is a bit over but the scams are looking good. There is a certain softness to them which is quite pleasant. 14$ is a bit expensive for a standard 100 ISO film, but I quite like the results so I may give it another try (oh yes maybe I have to finish by 100ft roll of Ilford Delta first, I probably have the equivalent of 12 rolls left in there)

The HUGS gang that day.

CNY 2021 in Chinatown with the Hassie 500CM

Saturday morning a small outing was organized by one of my friends and we met in Chinatown to capture the atmosphere of this every special Chinese New Year.

The God of fortune

I brought the Hasselblad 500CM with the standard lens (The only one I have), loaded with my last roll of Portra 160.

The Buddha tooth relic temple

The film was processed and scanned in Whampoa Color. And I am quite happy with the results once again. I think from the roll are missing picture of the bottom of my bag and a redundant picture of the Sri Mariamman Temple.

The Buddha tooth relic temple

Shooting with the Hassie is very slow, and I brought multiple films but could only shot one.

Difficult crossing

One of the many murals describing last time Singapore (Here a Chinese Opera)

The usual decorations depicting the zodiac signs hanging on South Bridge road

Chinese lanterns in from the hindu temple of South Bridge road

Singapore racial harmony (official term) finds a perfect example with the display of Chinese lanterns in front of this Hindu temple and the sign above the entrance wishing to all a Happy and prosperous Lunar New Year.

Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore

I waited 15 good minutes to take this shot to finally get a mopped in the middle and miss the top of the roof.

A group of Urban Sketchers drawing Chinatown as we shoot it

Chinatown complex hawker center

Chinese New Year 2021 is upon us

Covid or not, Chinese New Year 2021 is upon us : a lot less feisty than usual, with masks and social distancing, here we go again.

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Chinese New year is upon us

CNY 2021 will be on Friday, 12 February, but for a couple of weeks now, some stalls have open in Chinatown, and people start to go do their shopping. Yes there are less stalls than usual, and Chinatown has lost quite a few businesses these last months. Also there will be no Lion dance this year

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You will see more of it surely, Chinatown is always happening and picturesque. Above some shots of an aquarellist, and in the top middle an art exhibition part of SPIF (Singapore Photography International Festival).

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A walk in Bishan Park before the end of the year

Shots were done on Kodak 160 slightly expired, shot with a Leica IIIc and Elmar 50mmF3.5. Filem was processed and scanned at Whampoa photo. Whampoa does an excellent job as usual, but the pictures seems a bit underexposed, maybe the roll was a bit more expired that I thought.

On a more technical note, I always wonder why people use 50mm finders for the Barnack Leicas, as its suppose to be what the viewfinder window is doing. But actually I found when shooting this roll that the I missed a few shots because of framing. In the absence of framing lines using the border of the viewfinder is quite uneasy.

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.

 

Around Chinatown for Chinese new year – Singapore

So the last week-end before the start of the year of the goat I went with the family in Chinatown. I brought the Leica IIIc and a couple of lenses actually 3.

Most of the shots below are done with the infamous back focusing Jupiter 8, 50mm f2.

Quite fun anyway.

Chinatown is very busy around this time. People shop for food, decoration, or just stroll around.

These two guys selling chestnuts are here all year round

But other stalls are just temporary,

Just selling nuts

or fruits in the side of the street

Some of the sellers are coming from China just for the event, or so have I been told.

Sausages and cured meat stall.

This was the first time I use Kentmere 100 ISO film; reasonably cheap, I understand it is manufactured by Ilford now. As I rarely use Ilford product (except fro Pan 50 and Pan 400) I cannot really tel how it compares to FP4 for instance. Nothing to rave about, I’ll probably finish my stock and go back to Tmax or Rollei RPX 100.

What’s in a walkaround camera?

Marina Bay Sands with flowers

So as promised, after the first, here is the scond film of the year. Sunday, the sky was a bit overcast but the weather overall nice. I was a bit ashamed of my low level of film photography since the beginning of the year, so I took advantage of the kind weather and go for a walk with a film camera.

I start by a look in the fridge to see which film there is, outdoor bit of sun let’s go for color, and the winner is a roll of Fuji Sensia 100 slides. Now let’s pick a camera; well I haven’t tried the 17-35mmF2.8 AFS on any film camera, so let’s try first with the Nikon F4s. It is not a light weight set-up as the combo weight about 3KG.

First problem, I haven’t used the F4 for so long (6 to 8 month maybe) that the batteries (6 x Duracell Alkaline AA) are flat and one had a small leak.) Lesson to remember: take the batteries off the camera before storing it back into the big Tupperware where it belongs. Fresh batteries in, turn the engine on: no luck. Remove the batteries clean the contact; iterate the operation 2 or 3 time and the beast finally turns on.

Now try to remember how to open the back and once done insert the film.

All set, ok not quite, I removed the Crumpler camo strap from the F4 to put it on the D700, so I have to grab the other plain Crumpler strap and put it on, carefully because I don’t want the damn thing to drop. I love the Crumpler straps, they feels good for a heavy combo, but it’s a pain to wrap around your wrists like we like to do from time to time.

First film of the year here we go 30 odd frames around the marina and a couple in Toa Payoh HDB.