SOFT LOCK-DOWN WEEK 6

Time of the week again!I think I just took the camera with me three times this week, and I did not made a single shot today.

Deserted Clark Quay

The weather is still indecisive but we have some nice moments, and some late afternoons with beautiful lights. I started the week with the old Summitar 50 that is on the M262 for a couple of weeks now.

Strange lights on this office building (or is it a hotel?)

Despite its back focusing issues, it performs quite well.

Hair Dressers are re-opening

… enough to capture the event of the week : the re-opening of hair dressers.

Clark quay still empty

Saturday, I decided for a change and picked from the magic box the 28mm Cron Asph v1. You can think how nice the old lenses are, and you can challenge me to tell objective differences between the two shots of Clark Quay, but the newer Leica lenses rock, they are the one who justify owning a digital M body. I always recommend to everybody who wants to go the digital M way to get at least one newer lens.

 

I have set the M body in auto aperture mode, but as much as it generally work, I always end up shooting at a too low speed. You will tell me this mode should be used with auto ISO, but yeah OK, it really needs some practice to be put to good work.

A human

Yes I managed to shoot a human, that was a while since last one.

An eateries at Chinatown MRT

I think it is always easy to take random pictures and rather difficult to shoot something that means something to you and on which you want to express something. I wanted to shown the blocked Chess game area where a lot of old folks gather usually.

The area is now locked as you can see. I hope you get the feeling

Finally a shot of Potato Head, in a very quiet Keong Siak Road as night was falling down,

A very quiet potato head

Good night, keep safe.

SOFT LOCK-DOWN WEEK 3 and 4

The soft lock down was extended two weeks ago until 1st of June, so all in all that will be 8 week of lock-down.

No swing!

Conditions are a bit more strict, but all in all I cannot complain. I can work from home, we have plenty of hardware here so we don’t fight over PCs, and we can within reason go out if we wear a mask.

Fort Canning at dusk

We are allowed to go out for shopping in the neighborhood or for exercise, which is flexible enough and can be used without abuse. We generally walk an hour at the end of the afternoon, go for our food shopping and go home.

Anderson bridge

The photographic practice is a collateral victim of the lock-down, I am quite busy with work, so I have no leisure to (re) invent a “shoot at home” activity, and while going out, there is not so much happening and we always roam the same aeras.

The Summitar Swirly Bokeh

I have stopped shooting film after the first week : I do not process at home so there is no incentive until the labs open again. I am carrying the Leica M262 Body (Coming to its 4th birthday soon)  and some vintage lenses : the Summaron 35mmF3.5 ltm on the first two shots and the Summitar 50mmF2 for the others.

Exercise by the Merlion

The Summitar is back focusing a bit, but its quite easy to adjust after a couple of shots. Wide open it gets this “swirly” Bokeh, which is funny.

 

The colors for both lenses are quite nice, but unfortunately the weather is also pretty nasty, it generally rains lightly when I can go out.

The philatelic museum

What to shoot to show the emptiness and halted activities? Not much really. Although activity is very quiet and the traffic is noticeably smaller, it is rare to be able to picture a usually busy street that is empty.

Singapore Management University

But surely there are a lot of signs like the public areas where seats are blocked as above.

Window shopping at Camera hospital (not for sale)

Or below, bar areas who are wrapped away.

orchard road

Chinatown

Empty parking places in the city center are definitely a sign that something is going on.

This seating area seems to be still functionning

 

 

Hairdresser

Hairdressers which were ordered to close two week ago, will now reopen before the rest of the businesses.

Circular road was pretty quiet today

 

Finally when reaching the river on the way back home today, there was a very nice light on the buildings of the city center.

Central

Court of justice

Once George Street

SOFT LOCK-DOWN WEEK 2

Yeah, we made it through another week. I my case work from home means being super busy, so I just have the time to go out shopping for food everyday and take a bit of fresh air and exercise a bit, generally I walk 3 to 6 km. Only today, Sunday, did I found the courage and energy to go fur a quick ride.

unattended bar

So this week I did not had much time for photography, Friday I did not even stepped out of the house. Saturday we had a long walk (for food) and I brought the camera along, under the disapproving eyes of the family.

No sitting

Clark Quay was our first stop and a funny (funny as in strange, no as in Ha Ha) sight, no bars, no boose, no tourists, no waitresses : just joggers and cyclists.

The picture that does not work

Some pics do not work : I found the juxtaposition of Ice Cream and temperature check funny (funny ha ha) , but that is unreadable.

We continued to the Fullerton

The memorial to Joseph Konrad

Who remembers that the author of “Into Darkness” was once  a sailor heading to Singapore?

On Raffles place the sound of advertisements is still playing full blast for no crowd, except maybe this uncle.

The Providore is open as most food businesses trying to take their chance with take away food.

The Arcade passer by

The Quadrant, once hosted the Bank of China (Or a Bank of China of some kind)

Maxwell good market

Through Telok Ayer and Club Street we head to Maxell and then to Kon Siak road.

We said no sitting

Above the picture that works.

No fear of avian flue

Finally a real street shot from Orchard road today!

All pictures taken with the Leica M262 and the Summaron 35mmF3.5 LTM.

 

You can’t hurry love but you can try (More about the VC Color Skopar 21mm F4)

One George Street in Singapore CDB

This is a follow up of my first write up YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE (ABOUT THE VC COLOR SKOPAR 21MM F4) For those who don’t feel like digging back in the archives (pitty, there are a couple of nice shots there and probably my best piece of text in a while), this is about picking the Voigtlander Cosina Color Skopar 21mmF4 back from the dry box and putting it back to work.

Ice cream parlor near Singapore river

Very quickly, the 21mm had two terrible defects for me: the color fringing in digital and the difficulty to frame in general. I decided in June to invest into a proper viewfinder to try to overcome the second issue : I picked a 21-25 VC metal finder.

Walk down the bridge

The viewfinder did a really good job, it very bright and accurate, well built and on top of it it is super sexy (I have to post pictures of the Leica IIIc with it).

Keong Saik road corner with Teck Lim road

All pictures here are from a single roll of Kodak Portra 400 shot with Leica M4 and VC Color Skopar 21mm F4 with the now famous 21-25 VC metal finder. Even vertical framing is accurate now.

“MY CHINATOWN HOME” by  Yip Yew Chong 30 SMITH STREET

Horizontal framing works as well. As I am a slow shooter these were probably taken over a few week ends in different areas of central Singapore.

The guitar hero

To shoot portraits the 21mm requires you to get very close to your subject, and still you will get some distracting details in your frame. Also you may get funky perspectives even if you frame correctly your subject (thanks to the perfect new viewfinder)

Tan Boon Liat Building – a commercial / industrial building

When yout wan to put a lot in the frame as the Tan Boon Liat Building, actually it goes in. Colors with the Portra are quite rich, and vignetting is limited.

The Monkey God temple in Tiong Bahru

Or when you are close to buildings and want to put them in the frame as above, this is a great ultra wide angle.

Don’t go away

I did not do many “street” shots on this roll, but the 21 gives an amazing dynamics to the shots like above.

Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple in Little India

I was very convinced by these first 2 or 3 rolls, and this has slightly changed my photographic practice recently. I use the M262 and M6 with the summicrons for holidays or events, the M4 and IIIc with older lenses for fun( or street, or burning film name it as you want) and recently the 21 is glued to them.

Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple in Little India

So expect more posts like this one, but as you know that I found love with the VC21 again, so i will have to find out new titles.

The Singapura Club – Little India

 

 

FIRE WALKING CEREMONY – Another roll on Kodak TMZ3200

Devotees waiting outside the temple

You can read more about the Fire Walking Ceremony in my post from 2014 (here). In short it is a Indian festival honoring the Hindu goddess Sri Draupadi, who is the wife of the five Pandava brothers who walked on hot coals to prove her purity.

Devotees waiting outside the temple

Devotees go through a purification period and on the day of the festival they walk from Little India where they get blessing and protective amulets to the SRI MARIAMMAN TEMPLE in Chinatown where they walk through the coals of the fire pit. After this they go at the back of the temple where they discard they protection and offer to the god the beads necklace they wear since the beginning of the cleansing period.

Devotee entering the temple

This is the 3rd time I am going to the festival. As I mentioned in my last post, total respect to the devotees. I went in the evening as usual with my friend Matte Lim.

Devotee entering the temple

This is my second or third roll of this film. The first attempt was so so. This is supposedly a new film, replacing the old TMZ 3200 discontinued in 2012. I think the film works well for scenes with good contrast and some lighted parts ; if your scene is grayish you wont get much on the picture.

Devotee entering the temple

It was night when I attend the fire-walk festival but both places where I was had some heavy lights on parts of the scene.

Devotee entering the temple

The M6 is great for focusing in the night, even with my ageing eyes, also the metering is quite ok. 

The fire pit (Heavy back-light fooled the meter)

Most shots are done with 50mm Cron (v 5), maybe some with the 35mm Cron (Asph v2), as I swapped the lens between teh M6 and M262 at some point.

Devotee removing his beads necklace

Offering the beads necklace

Processing was done by the usual lab and scanning at home with the Epson v800 , scanning is easy.

 

I like the grain, which is quite limited and pleasant imo (but my wife does not).

The 3 next pictures are my favorites.

Bye Bye Dakota

For the last post of the year, I will show you pictures of a small walk I did at Dakota Crescent estate in Singapore.

Like Rochor Centre, Dakota is supposed to be demolished at the end of this year (so pretty soon). The estate belongs to the public housing administration (HDB), it was built in 1959 during the British area.

The blocks have some interesting feature, some inherited form modernist lines. The most well known feature is the “dove” play ground.

The estate is made of 17 blocks, some high rise, some lower rise, located closed between Old Airport Road and the Kaland river. Old airport road s the road that was leading to the airport that was used prior to the opening of Changi in the 1990’s I think.

As this time the buildings are more or less empty, ready to leave way for a new development (I ignore which). There will be more pictures of Dakota as I  went there again last week. But that will be for 2017.

Color shots done with Leica M262 and Summaron 35mmF2.8; Back and white with leica M4 with Voightlander Color Skopar 21mmF4 or Summitar 50mmF2 on odak TMY 400 film.

 

Singapore Photo Walk – March 2016 – Rochor Center

I joined Bernard Goh’s Singapore Photo Walk outing of March with my son.

Rochor Centre is group of buildings built by the Housing and Development Board of Singapore. It was built and completed in 1977 and consists of 4 blocks painted in vivid colors yellow, green, red and blue.

This is an iconic building in the east side on Singapore center that can be seen by tourists going to Arab Street or Little India.

The buildings comprise habitations, shops and hawkers ( food stalls). On the ground floor you still can find some religious artefacts.

The center has started closing as later this year it will be torn down to give way to a motorway joining the north to the south of the island. A lot of the shops have already relocated, but some are still open. The habitations seems to still be occupied if I can judge by the drying laundry.

The void desk is a classical feature of the HDB blocks, an open area for inhabitants to congregate and do activities.

Our friend Long Siew Leng aka Jumping girl.

Pictures 1 and 2 : Hasselblad 500cm+80mmF2.8, Rollei CR 200 slide film

Pictures 3,4,and 5 : Leica M6, summaron 28mm2.8, Kodak Portra 400

Pictures 6 : Hasselblad 500cm+80mmF2.8, Rollei RPX 100 film

 

Singapore Photo Walk – Jan 2015 – Pulau Ubin (2 on 2)

So the slides are back from the lab finally. This is only the second roll of Digibase 200ISO, this time with the Leica M4 and the Summilux 50mm F1.4.

I like the results a bit more than the first roll. Some of the shots really have this vintage look and feel.

Bumboat driver waiting on Changi village quay.

One of the bumboats doing the crossing to Pulau Ubin.

Arriving at Pulau Ubin

The three next shots are from the Wei Tuo Fa Gong Temple

It really feels like being on holidays in Thailand or Cambodiia.

Inside shot with subdued light.

Pulau Ubin is very green

Back at the quay there is always an uncle waiting to make the crossing.

I quite like the following shot of our driver:

Fire Walking Ceremony – Sri Mariamman Temple – Singapore

Fire walking is a South Indian festival honoring the Hindu goddess Sri Draupadi, who is the wife of the five Pandava brothers who walked on hot coals to prove her purity.

This is the first time I can go to this ceremony. Total respect for the amount of faith, the sense of community and probably the amount of pain going on there.

The devotees arrive from Little India, a couple of km away in groups, some chanting, some with music, some singing and dancing.

They then arrive a few hundred meters from the Sri Maramiam temple and wait in a staging area.  All of this is very well organized; groups are allowed to pass from one area to the next by the organizers in order to organized the crowed. Some devotees told me they were expecting 5000 people.

I have seem this man many times in Thaipusam in the past years, seeing these people years after years in the viewfinder is one of the attractions I find in photographing these events.

I asked one of the Hindu man in the public how do the devotees group themselves; he told me they are friends and make a kind of team that make each of them stronger and helps them going through the ritual. Like a sport team he told me, doing this on your own would be much more difficult.

I did not really thought I could enter the temple, but as I was close to the entrance, one of the organizer asked me if I wanted get inside. I removed my shoes and they even gave me a plastic bag to carry them and I was moved inside the temple. Actually there is a special track for visitors and a different one for devotees.

The track goes along the fire pit, and although we are asked not to stay there too long I could witness two men doing the ritual.

This one above, was walking very casually (so to speak).

This one was more in running mode, you will notice the flower petals he through in the air before starting.

Walking out of the main temple area, people are waiting and resting and going through other stations, I must admit I am ignorant of what the whole pilgrimage consist of after the fire walking itself.

Outside people are resting.

The ground of the temple is covered in yellow power, probably not saffron more likely curcuma, clearly these feet have been walking through fire.

I saw a few times some ethnic Chinese Hindu in Singapore, here is one who was looking to be quite in pain,

I hope you enjoyed this post.

For my Hindu friends if you find a picture of yourself and you are not happy with that, let me know and I will remove it from this album, if you like them, let me know I’ll be enchanted. I am never sure if my schedule allowed but I would really enjoy meeting one of the groups and following you over an extended period of time to produce a photo-book of some sort.

Needless to say that these picture for my own interest in photography and the pleasure of sharing. They are a not for commercial use.

On a side note: I am a donkey sometime; when I pass at the temple on the afternoon I see this older gentleman of a photographer that I meet every year at Thaipusam. Not only did I not take his portrait but I did not ask for his contact. He carries a Nikon F5, if somebody knows him let me know.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikkor 85mm F1.8D, only the first one is done with the 17-35F2.8AFS

How the Leica III let me down on the green corridor

All was looking well when I was walking away from the Bukit Timah railway station, but the Leica had a surprise in stock. This time it is a white band on the right side of the frame. Posts suggest this is an issue with the curtain or with some light seal at the front of the camera where the slow speed dial is. Well I think I have to send the little fellow to be serviced sometime soon. Anyway here are a few more shots of the walk.

Singapore is quite a compact city/country so even the green corridor is crossed by several roads, I should rather say highways, which make the walk a bit noisy, but nonetheless enjoyable.

This is a typical colonial Black and White house, legacy of the british times; I cannot say for sure but I think this should not be far from Wessex Village,

Interesting things can be seen along the corridor, a mosque, a temple or shrine, a mechanics where I used the drink selling machine, a couple of shacks like this one. and in some places old folks sitting in the shade with their belongings close, discussing among peers.

This is the final sign: No it says. At te back you can see the cranes of the harbour.

Camera; Leica IIIC

Lens: Industar 22, 50mmF3.5

Film: Kodak Tri-x