I know I am late, weather is not so great, it starts to be a bit boring shooting constantly the same thing and I am ashamed to say am a bit busy at mom.
Local seafood restaurant with Buddha Tooth relic temple in the background
Anyway, I this is week 12 and I am at roll8, so not too far from my usual 1 roll a week. So a couple of weeks back I loaded the good old M6 again, with a roll of manually rolled HP5+. Just 24 shots.
Street action in front of the etna
The Teas Chapter shop was already there when I first visit Singapore in 2006. I particularly like the contract of this shot and the shades of the bamboo leaves.
This stroll in Chinatown was during the end of Chinese new year period of Chinese new year, and a few autels where set-up like this one.
or this one
In Chinatown the uncles are still playing chess
Meanwhile on Orchard Road
Maids in uniformStunning picture of a teddy bearThe lady with the running nose
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 shadeCaution 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 fanThe 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.
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.
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.
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.
Life goes on in Chinatown (Vertical)
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)
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.
Stroll around Waterloo street in Singapore before the Chinese New Year. I asked this gentleman for the picture. I focused on his hand and his ring, not a to good oof effect. But I did not know how long I could wait before shooting.
A tour downtown for the first day in the year in the rabbit. I carried the Tamron 28-75 F2.8 which is supposed to be a walkaround lens, right? I hate this lens, well ok, not hate but it seems I never have very good shots with it, and i never come to the point where is is sharp enough. Well here is a sharp shot. So keep, sell? Time will tell.
Here comes Chinese New Year, the town is decorated, Chinatown streets are buzzing.
A quick Friday evening stroll with the D700 and the old Tamron 28mm F2.5 manual focus lens. I could not resist to shoot the pink lights in the fake trees along south bridge road. Here comes my Chinese new year bokeh.
Incidentally I have upgraded to Lightroom 3.3 this week because it support more lenses for the correction option; I was looking for the Nikkor 24mm F2.8D.
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