The last roll of 2022

A Well travelled one.

Well actually this roll was shot between mid December and the first week of January. It travelled around a bit as it started from London (Spitalfields market on the first three shots)

Then came Xmas holidays and a trip to see the family in Cannes on the French Riviera, and the long awaited trip to Lapland (Guess which shot). I will try to talk about my (limited ) experience shooting in Lapland but maybe another time.

We were back from Lapland in Paris the 1st of Jan

Then finally back in London (one have to work)

Then back to Cannes and Nice again.

and finally back to London where I have to go to Brick lane to drop this roll.

Ok so these two months were not very good for my carbon footprint and I feel a bit ashamed, although some of the trips were done by train. This also mean this roll of Kodak TMY-400 travelled quite a bit and went through at least 6 scans, and is still faring pretty well. I still have a TMZ 3200 that I bought for Lapland and did not shot, so it will also have a bit of mileage and it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

All shots were done with a Leica M6 classic and a Summicron 50mm v5 or 35mmAsph v2.

Thanks for watching.

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STPI Open day and Takashi Murakami: From Superflat to Bubblewrap

This year the STPI in Singapore had its open day during the Takashi Murakami exhibition “From Superflat to Bubblewrap“, this was the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

No need I think to introduce the iconic Japanese artist who uses manga like practice to depict modern Japan. I only had B&W film that day so I did not took many pictures of the art works.

Open days at the STPI (Former Singapore Tyler Print Institute) are always enjoyable, if you have young children they can discover and experiment various print practices, that also work it seems for  teenagers and young adults alike.

For guys (or gals) with a camera, it is a nice opportunity to captures willing models engaged in not so common activities.

The STPI now positions itself as a gallery, aiming to promote the usage of print and paper mediums.

Artists shown in the gallery often have a collaboration with the print makers.

The smiling lady at the printing press has been working there for years, she is now an independent architect ; time flies.

All shots were done with the Leica M6 and Summicron 50mm on Kodak Tri X, at 400 ISO.  genarally shot between F2 and F4 and 1/60s ro 1/12s. The film was processed by Ruby photo (or rather their usual contractor) and scanned at home on Epson v800 with Silverfast.

I generally convert the images to grey-scale and remove dust spots in Adobe Elements and adjust the contract and brightness in Lightroom.

The workshop can also be a treasure where odd objects can be found and pictured for eternity.

One of the DIY items of the week end was an STPI apron.

You can see picture of the last workshop I went to 4 years ago STPI at that time pictures were shot with Canon EOS 1N and 1.8 Canon lens.

 

A not so good roll of FP4+

I am trying to stay true to my promise to de-clutter the film box in the fridge and shoot some 120 film that sometime is expired for more than two years.

The colorful Alkaff bridge on Singapore river

So I recently shot a not expired roll of Ilford FP4+ expiring in 2020 over a couple of Sundays walking around Singapore.

 

On this second shot, a happy groom on his stag day, it is obvious there are some white dots all over the picture.  After discussion in the Facebook group “Lets Shoot film SG”. It appears this may be a problem caused by the backing paper of the film after being taken in and out of the fridge. Frankly I am a slow shooter so I am guilty of taking from the fridge more than I can chew and putting it back afterwards, but I cannot remember having seen this problem before.

 

Pearl Bank Apartments

I kind of understand this is more common with Ilford which I rarely shoot, that is not encouraging me to do more (I still have a roll in the fridge, damn )

Pearl Bank Apartments entrance

Pearl Bank Apartments is an iconic housing block in Singapore cityscape, built in 1976, it what is referred as brutalist style (Although Landmark tower nearby is more pure brutalist), it has now been sold and is empty since the end of April 2019.

Pearl Bank Apartments the open side

It will be demolished and the plot redeveloped ; this is the traditional buildings life-cycle in Singapore.

The white dot issue is also quite prominent on this shot

No 5C

Singapore Bi centennial statue

Beware of falling branches – enter at your own risk

Friendly waiter

The friendly waiter was shot wide open at 1/60th handheld, explaining the slightly off focus.

All done with Hasselblad 500CM and Planar 80mmF2.8

ILFORD FP4+ as I said, developed by the usual lab

Scanned at home with Epson v800

 

 

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

A day at sea with a Toy Camera

Let’s have a small break from the pictures of Vietnam.

Last week end we had a company outing in Phuket, Thailand and I was asked what camera i will bring. I have a pretty bad record for this type of activities as I broke my D80 last time as well as a Fuji Instax. So this in mind, plus not wanting to have a proper camera in the middle when having some funny activities (some involving water and some even stronger beverages) I ended up picking up the Heineken Toy Camera. A plastic 35mm camera that was given free a couple of years back with the purchase of 15 bottles of Heineken.

I loaded the thing with some Ilford 400 PAN, which turned out to be as its worst but also when we went to a beach on an island with a roll of Rollei RPS 100ISO. The pictures below were taken from this film. I really really enjoyed it, specially the ones under the rain. Of did I mention the camera came with an under water case? I don’t really shoot with toy camera’s, only with battered old ones, but I like the dreamy effect of the plastic lens very much.

Long Boat ashore

Long Boat

Fishermen

Andaman See

Happy buch

Friends under the rain

Long Boat ashore

All Rollei RPX 100ISO , F9, 1/100th

Long Boat

Fishermen

Andaman See

Friends under the rain

Happy buch

The chestnuts stall – Le vendeur de marrons

Camera: Hasselblad 500CM, Planar 80mm F2.8
Film: Kodak Portra 400 NC
Scanning: EPSON V500, Lightroom 3, PSP Elements 4