Back to the monkey god temple

Quality Lion dance that afternoon

Birthdays have the habit of coming back every year, so for the third time I think I find myself at the TIONG BAHRU QI TIAN GONG temple in the area of Singapore called Tiong Bahru for the birthday of the temple. One of my friends reminded me of the event and I was super happy it was at a time where I could attend.

This is a Taoist temple, a popular faith in Singapore among the Chinese population. I still don’t know much about the Taoist faith and practice, so i won’t try to explain it here. The spirits and gods have  a great place in the faith and they are honored through offerings like Chinese Opera, joss paper bonfires, ..

The celebration involved lions dances, a dragon dance troop, musicians, as above and below. Singaporeans say that Taoist are noisy. I think I have some old shots of the gentleman below.

The person that looks to be the man in charge posing with the lions and some banners.

Meanwhile across the street, the porters of the gods sedan chairs are taking some rest.

I shot 2 rolls of Tri-x (one above, one below this paragraph), one roll or Provia 400H (in between) and hundreds of digital pictures using the magic combo, Leica M6 for film and the M262 for digital; for lenses I brought the 50 cron, mostly on the M6, the 35cron mostly the M262 then. I also brought along the 90mm Elmarit for a few digital portraits.

At that moment the gods starts to be carried in 3 sedan chairs to the place where the bonfire will be lit.

Below some of the carriers of the three sedan chairs.

I don’t know if they are really heavy but the guys are relaying each others regularly.

This write up is about the film shots and should be called “You are all my favorites”. It found very difficult to select between the shots. I have included the shots of the two Tri-x rolls, I will do another small article about the Provia roll which has its own story.

We now arrived at the field where the bonfire will be lit, a small crowed is gathered. Led the the Taoist priests.

One of the gods chair with the idol in the middle.

 

(You can read an oldest post here )

 

 

 

Advertisements

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.

 

Kebun Baru Birdsinging Club (The Hasselblad shots)

The Leica User Group Singapore (LUGS) organized an outing last week (7 April 2008) to the Kebun Baru Birdsinging Club.

 

The Hassie came to the party loaded with a roll of Cinestill 50D. Here is the result. The Kebun Baru Birdsinging Club is  place in Amg Mo Kio, central Singapore, where bird lovers have their pets compete. In both singing and look competition.

It is a beutiful places with both shadow areas with low hanging bird cages but also a wide open space with high poles were cages are hoisted by a pulley system.

(The above rectangular shot is due to an issue with the Hassie back frame spacing)

On competition days judges are walking between the birds and give notes.

Read more at https://kebunbarubirdsingingclub.weebly.com/about-us.html

Also a nice opportunity for people watching.

 

Curating my weekly roll of film

 

 

The uncle Tiong Bahru market

The title is a bit pedantic, but actually it came from something very down to earth. I recently reviewed 30 years on pictures for a small personal project and the experience was both fun and sad. The fun side came from the obvious pleasure of looking at them : the reason why we like photography. The sadness was brought in by the shots I did not take: these long lost friends I have no portraits off, this great week end, that awesome holidays; my first car, but also for the lack of quality of some shots, making them unusable for my project, and just plain depressing : how could have I done that?.

This lead me to reflect (quickly) on the quality of the many shots I take, and my overall photographic journey. A bit further in my thinking came the idea of sharing how I select my shots maybe for a rolls or two.

I just collected today a roll of Ilford Delta 100 from the lab, it was shot with the Leica IIIc and the Summaron 35mmF3.5, over two weeks of relatively no inspiration and crap weather. So maybe this roll is a bit more lame than usual, but let’s see.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

 

Japan Camera Hunter – JCH 400 FILM

During my trip to Melbourne where I discover the FilmNeverDie  shop, I bought a couple of rolls of their SHIROKURO but also one roll of JCH StreetPan 400 film (why only one?)! I am always looking forward to try new or uncommon films, this is part of the magic of chemistry of film photography, to make me expected something new and exciting that does not depend on my technical skills (if I have any) to happen on the roll.

You can find the announcement of the film and read more about it there.

This does not look to be  a re-branded film as the negs have the mention JCH.

This is not a technical review, I am by noway an expert, I understand that pan chromatic does not mean much other than a reproduction similar to human eye. Not sure what this means for black and white. This film is supposed to have a higher sensibility to red and a low grain.

I loaded the roll in the newly repaired Leica IIIc, and the following shots are done during Chinese new year in Singapore using a Summitar 50mmf2 lens. The Summitar is a bit back focusing so this is probably not a proper set-up to judge the quality of the film, but I have a soft spot for the IIIc.

Exposure is measured with a handheld Sekonic 308s lighmeter.

Peanut stall

This picture is shot under a red tent and gives for interesting palette of grey, probably due to the sensitivity to red.

There’s a cow behind the bins

For those who wonder, this was processed by the usual lab used by Ruby photo, no idea what chemical they use.

Cookie stall

Fellow film shooter, using a Canon 7s and Summar 50mm (but I saw he has more tricks in his bag)

The grain is actually quite controlled, and the sharpness, if you keep in mind this is shot with a vintage soft lens, is quite good. I am not a big fan of high grain film like the TriX (although I use it a lot), and always preferred the soft TMAX100 or Fuji Acros

Kueh shop

Actually the contrast is quite smooth, unlike the Rollei Retro 400s I used recently, so for higher contrast scenes it gives  nice gradation of grey.

The ladies selling newspaper on Keong Saik Road

Happy fellows

Night shot in Chinatown, a Bakua shop

Preparing for Chinese new year

Even this night shot with back-light could be salvaged and give a nice rendering.

All in all this is quite a satisfying experience, if I manage to get more rolls they’l deserve to be shot with a better camera like the M6 or the “never-fail” EOS 1N.

JCH has sold all his stock, so only retailers will have some rolls now, until more are produced. I don’t think anybody has some in Singapore but you can find a list of suppliers on the JCH web-site.

 

 

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

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.