D-Day trip with WWII area Leica

The Braves – Omaha beach

Last holidays, I organized a mini trip with my family to the Normandy landing beaches used by the allies during D-Day. This is a quite common thing for French people, but I never had the opportunity to bring my son there neither my wife who is quite reluctant with anything war related.

Omaha beach memorial

The D-Day beached area is actually quite wide and there are plenty of sites to see. We had a bit of limitations for various reasons and I wanted not to overwhelm everybody. Factor in that the weather is not great in Normandy in February, so I had to cut short on my bucket list.

The west side of Omaha beach

I thought it would be a good tour to include Omaha beach, one of the most well know areas. The beach is kilometres wide, and I was mostly looking to picture the new sculpture “The Braves” that was added to the old memorial some 10 years ago.

A bunker.

Of course we landed ( that’s an easy one ) on the wrong side of the beach, but I found the bunker above ( bucket list ticked).

Omaha beach National Guard Monument

My next stop was the American Cemetery of Normandy in Coleville sur mer. An understandably sad place.

American Cemetery of Normandy – 21mm View

There is a museum at the entrance which is very interesting, I have not visited the one in Arromanche which is supposed to be very good as well so I cannot compare.

American Cemetery of Normandy – 50mm View

Second tick box of my list. There are sadly many military cemeteries in Normandy, I remember being very impressed by the German one in La Cambe when I visited it as a teenager.

Remains of Arromanche artificial harbour

Third thing I really wanted to visit was the artificial Harbour of Arromanche. It is hard to fathom that nearly 80 years later the concrete cubes used to create a practicable arbour for the allies are still here ( not all of them of course). This is an testimony of the incredible D-Day adventure if needed.

A concrete element of the Harbour

One element of the Harbour that can be approached at low tide, so I planned my visit timely.

As I mentioned above, Arromanche sports a museum that reopened last year but was originally built in 1954.

The museum is well guarded

At that point we had to head back to our base in Deauville. That was quite a full day, a couple of things I wanted to see that I did not manage : some big batteries and bunkers before reaching Arromanche, the German cemetery mentioned before, Utah beach where you can find well preserved bunkers and some planes.

Bunker in Etretat

Just to be safe I also shot the above bunker in Etretat the day before, you can see the hollow needle.

I found mildly interesting and border bad taste to visit the sites with my WWII area Leica. The body dates from the late 40’s but the Summitar 50mmF2.0 is definitely contemporary to the war. So I carried the Leica IIIC, the Summitar and the Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mmF4.0, with the Sekonic light meter. I intended to shot this subject with the Agent Shadow film, which gives a kind of more vintage look, but actually I finished the roll before reaching Normandy and I switched to the TMAX 400, crisp as usual.

If you haven’t watched it, I recommend watching The Longest Day the 1962 epic about D-Day.

Geylang Lorong 3 on Film (or nearly)

The church

You can read the about the context of the post here A rainy walk in Geylang Lorong 3

I managed to go to that place on Saturday and back on Sunday and I managed to f*ck-up two rolls of film in two separate days.

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As I did not really knew the place I rode there Saturday for a scouting tour ahead of a potential further photo outing. I don’t like carrying a camera on the bike, but I still packed the Leica M6 with the Elmar 50mmF3.5 loaded with a half roll of Kentmere 400. I found the place quite easily and a group of urban sketchers where at work on the late morning sun. You can check there Facebook group there : https://www.facebook.com/usksg

Mike Fellow Hasselblad user

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As per my last post the area, without lacking of interest, looks more like a slum than a rural village. There is surely a certain esthetic to it, and a small sense of history in the houses hosting places of worship.

The essence of moving places

So why did the film turn that bad? I was a bit stressed with by the fact that this was the first time I processed the Kentmere 400 in Caffenol and I could not really find any indication of processing time. I decided to try the Delta Recipe with the usual timing but even before starting the processing something was smelling fishy: my Caffenol mix did not have the usual smell, but was smelling as plain coffee. I pursued in pouring the mix … et voila: a very undeveloped film. I am surprised that the scanner (Epson v800) can make images of it at all.

Bis repetita Sunday : I went with the Leica M262 (hence the first post) and the Hassie 500. The weather was very bad, but I made a roll of Ilford HP5+ which I though could have been half decent

Lord Ganesha’s shrine (Hasselblad 500 CM)

I mixed the Delta recipe when I reached home and that one smelled fine. So I definitely mixed something incorrectly Saturday. Alas having a problem loading the film on my plastic spool, I split the spool in the dark bag and decided to pull it out and clean it, but in the movement I also pulled the film out of the bag. By the time I could put it back, the roll as been exposed to light and only 3 shots are exploitable.

The roll was mostly of frontal shots of the houses that I found geometrically interesting, this one shows the light leaks.

A village street under the rain.

Lessons learned: once again if is smells fishy it surely is, less haste, nothing is worth than the pictures you will never see.

Nevermind, I still have faith in Caffenol and home processing.

A rainy walk in Geylang Lorong 3

It has been quite commotion recently in Singapore, when the news hit the headlines that the area of Geylang called Lorong 3 will have to be handed back to the state by their owners.

Like in UK, there are many schemes of property ownership in Singapore: you can own the land of your property of just have a lease for a certain time (generally 99 or 999 years). In that case the owners of the properties had a 60 years deals and they have been informed for a while. Most of the houses are sublet to foreign workers, and some also house some places or worship.

This is not a walk down memory lane with charming old houses presenting architectural interest, home of families and smiling old folks. This is rather a set of shabby terraced housed built in 1960, in various states of dereliction. Of course the areas as a historical and Social interest and is worth documenting.

You can read more on the news here https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/housing/most-residents-of-terrace-units-in-geylang-lor-3-have-found-new-homes-ahead-of-dec

I am not a specialist of these types of subject, so feel free to correct me if I did any incorrections.

All shots with Leica M262 and Summicron 28mm Asph v1, I also have film shots for another post.

The Hakka Cemetery

I wanted to visit this place for a very long time : a cemetery enclosed in a housing block is the west of Singapore city center.

Hakka, are a Chinese population originating from the eastern part of Hunan, you can read more on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people. They form about 8% of the Chinese population of Singapore.

The cemetery is home to about 3000 graves, below which urns of ashes are buried. Unlucky for me the place was closed when I reached there after a 40 minutes bus ride. I could still make a few shots, but there seems to be some very interesting views to catch so I will try to go back at a better time.

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  Tiong Bahru Qi Tian Gong Temple

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  The old station

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  Hock Teck See Temple

The Ying Fo Fui Kun cemetery as it is known, is part of a heritage trail that looks promising, I will dig into that in the near future. You can find further reading here https://lionraw.com/2014/03/18/the-hakka-cemetery/

Today’s pictures where taken on Ilford Pan F 50ISO film with the Hasselblad 500cm and 80mm F2.8. They were processed soon after in Caffenol using the batch I prepared last week, then scanned with the Epson v800. I had 3 shots left when leaving the cemetery, so I head back in town. I made a first stop at Tiong Bahru at QiTian Gong temple. It s the 100’s birthday of the temple this year and it has been renovated, but due to the Covid there are no celebrations this year. You can find pictures of past ceremonies there :

Tiong Bahru Qi Tian Gong Temple

or

Tiong Bahru Qi Tian Gong Temple

After this I head to the old railway station which is under work (no idea what is suppose to happen to it in the future) and finally to the small Hock Teck See Temple, a small Taoist temple surrounded by construction sites.

I hope you enjoyed the reading …

St Matthew’s Church – Neil Road

Small walk to Neil Road a few weeks back  to check the intriguing architecture of the old abandoned St Matthews Church.

Most of the information here is taken from Remember Singapore  a great site about things of the past in Singapore.

The original church was built in the 1890’s as a place of worship for the British sailors.

It operated though all the first half of the 20th Century, including the Japanese occupation during WWII.

 

In the late fifties, St Matthew’s embarked on a re-building plan of its main church building.

Designed with a distinctive Modern style, the new double-storey building consisted of a prayer hall on top of a large function room. It also possessed an unique vertically protruding roof that looked like a ship’s prow, and a tall concrete bell tower that was erected beside the main chapel.

The bell was removed sometime in the 2000’s.

 

Also, after the war, St Matthew’s Church carried out plans to, expand its premises, including the construction of a vicarage and a kindergarten was also built in the early fifties.

The new kindergarten was designed in simple Art Deco-style; it had a sloping roof laid with terracotta Marseilles tiles and timber windows with louvers.

 

 

Color pictures Leica M262 ; B&W pictures Leica M4 with Kotak TMAX 100.

Wide angle Summicron 28mmF2 Asph ; normal lens Summicron 50mm F2 type V

A Landmark on the go – Lavender Food Square – Singapore

The famous Lavender Food square is now closed and demolition work has began. It will be replaced by a 30 levels commercial and habitation building. At the moment it is the opportunity for street artists to show their talent.

Camera: Agfa Isolette III (85mm F3.5)
FilmKodak Portra 400NC

A few weeks before I happen to be there already; at the right place a the right moment. I just pass by the Lavender food square when the demolition work started, but I was still able to walk through.

This was my first Roll with CineStill 800. It’s not bad, I think I like it. But a bit expensive for casual shooting though. Also the AF of the Nikon F4s seems to be broken so I had to use a manual focus lens which defeats the purpose of having such a huge camera.

A last customer for the Mixed vegetable rice

The olf famous fish ball noodles shop.

The film was shot at 640ISO and processed at 800; colors are a bit funny as it is a tugsten film, but it has its charm.

For those who are interested I bough the film in the Lomo Shop in Chinatown (16 dollars yuck!)

CameraNikon F4s

LensNikkor 50mmF1.4 AIS

Film CineStill 800T

A tour at Wessex Village – Singapore

A few weeks back an Art Walk was organized in  Wessex Village here in Singapore.  Wessex Village  is an area of  old colonial style apartment blocks. Originally they were used to house British soldiers, but a few years back they have been offered as residential and studio space for artists.

The buildings are apartment blocks with an external design similar to Singapore black and white colonial houses. The blocks have name of cities, regions or countries. I suppose they are name of regiments or cantonment cities of the British army.

Aden

Aden is one of these magic names that sparks ideas of exoticism and 19th century adventurers to my mind.

Noé was posing for this Japanese painter whose apartment / workshop we visited.

Aden – Arabie

A very easy homage to Paul Nizan book “Aden Arabie“.

What do we seek when we travel? Do we need to go to Aden to seek the truth about where we live? Aden is here anyway.

More down to earth you can imagine this is the score of a soccer match !

Marne

This was the week before the International Commie Camera Day, so I took the Kiev IV loaded with an Ilford PAN 400ASA with the Jupiter 8 50mmF2 and Jupiter 12 35mmF2.8. As you can see on my post about the Kiev I had to tape the body to avoid light leaks; got a couple funny looks.

Mons

I love the black and white of this set of pictures; particularly the black of the tire on this one.

Camera: Kiev IV
Lens: Jupiter 8- 50mmf2
Film: Ilford Pan 400 ASA
Digifilm:Epson V500+Lightroom

Bukit Brown Cemetery – Singapore

Bukit Brown Cemetery - Singapore

Yesterday, we finally went to the Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery, here in Singapore. A motorway will be built through it so a lot of tombs will be destroyed. This is causing quite a stir here as a lot of the founders of Singapore are buried in this place. It’s easy to get a cab and go there in 20 minutes from the city center. The place is buried in a forest, we even spotted a monkey.

My son Noé, now 9, shot this with his brand new Nikon coolpix 7100; as you can see on the left hand side I brought the hassie and shot 3 rolls : one Ektar, one Portra and one Elitechrome, results next week. Ah yeah I also brought the new(second hand) Olympus mju1 to finish the test film. (Noé managed to broke the old one, and I found one for 60Eur by compete chance shouting at me from the shop “buy me, buy me”).

On the Coolpix 7100: I chose this camera for my son because it has a viewfinder and offers a certain (very high) number of controls. I hesitated a long time with the Canon G12, the G12 seems better build in my opinion but finally I prefer the images produced by the Nikon. We did not use it a lot, but we are not disappointed with it so far. I would only say that that the viewfinder is not great and may not get so much use in the end of the day. Kids also have a tendency to play with controls and forget to reset them to a reasonable default so it’s better checking the settings before using the camera.