Thursday, June 28, 2007

Music Photography - The Rogue Traders


The Rogue Traders

This a set of 12 photographs, taken on 23 June Saturday night at The Rogues, along Market Street. The band is having a farewell party for their lead guitarist, Chris. Chris is leaving the band and will be travelling aound the world. Perhaps taking a break from work and music. I was fortunate to be invited to their party that night and to take pictures for them.

Hope you like the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. Pleasant viewing. Oh yes! IF you have comments, please do kindly leave them or write me a message in the Shoutmix tagboard. Thank you.

All photographs are taken with a Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4 lens, with SB-800 flashlight. All color photographs are converted to black & white in Photoshop.



Chris & Pamela

Chris & Simon

Chris on solo

Mark & Simon

Miles & Mark

Miles

Pamela

Renze

Sean in action

Party Time

Monday, June 25, 2007

World In Focus - The Ultimate Travel Photography Contests

National Geographic Traveler & Photo District News
present


World In Focus
The Ultimate Travel Photography Contests


For more information, please log on here.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Eye é City 2006 Public Exhibition & Book Launch

The 2006 event has finally culminated 100 best black & white photographs selected for this public exhibition. A book will be published on this collection. One of my photographs, Moving Out is selected. All are welcome to bring your family and friends for the month-long exhibition. Below is the Chinese version on the event.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Faces and Scenes Photographic Exhibition

Faces and Scenes
Photographic Exhibition

By Turkish EmbassySponsored by
Airport Hotel - Kelsterbach (Germany) and Turkish Airlines

Venue: Level 9 Promenade National Library
(National Library along Bras Basah Road)
Date: 16 June to 1 July 2007

Amateur photographers H.E. Mr A. Bulent Meric, Ambassador of Turkey to Singapore, Mr Ali Erbas, Attaché at the Embassy and award winning young photographer Mr Burak Yetiskin are presenting photography works about various faces and scenes from different cultures and lives.The photographers aim to reflect the vast impressions of human beings and places from various countries in South East Asia and other regions to the public viewers, to open a small window to the world, to reflect the beauty of people and places, their faces and scenes, to capture that scarce moment in time, reflecting an emotion or a theme from their individual perspectives.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Kate of Kale @ Baybeats 2005

Kate of Kale @ Baybeats 2005

I love punk rock and this is one of the local bands I like so much. An awesome band with powerful tunes and intense, emotive songs. Really gets you adrenalized!

This is Kate of Kale. Formed in Dec of 1999, Kate Of Kale has become one of the main-stays of the local music scene after playing numerous major shows including 2 Baybeats festival at The Esplanade in 2002 and in 2005. Built on friendship, hard work and passion for making music, the band has two CDs, 2 Malaysian tours and numerous compilation releases under their belt. Juggling work, school and national service, the band stepped into Snakeweed Acoustic Labs and recorded their latest full-length effort, This Hole We Call Our Heart.

The new record is available in stores, released by homegrown up and coming punk/hardcore label, Fixation Records. First Stance Records of Malaysia has also recently picked up the bands CD for distribution in Malaysia and put the guys on tour with Utarid (KL's most exciting screamo band). The boys are in the midst of recording their 3rd full length album, so keep a lookout at their website.

These are the photographs I took during their live performance at Baybeats 2005. They performed well and I really enjoyed it photographically & musically. Hope you enjoy viewing the pictures as much as I took them. For their live performance, you can check out their alternate website here.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Nikon D70s/18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor/70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED AF Zoom-Nikkor/Lexar Compact Flash Card

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Mr. Mohan R.

Mr. Mohan R.

27 May 2007 Sunday. Sunny weather and cloudy. 

I went to the National Stadium to do more photography. Out of my expectations, I was told by the security guard that there'll be an event held in the stadium and no photography is allowed today. To my great disappointment (I woke up early as I wanted to capture the first light at the stadium) I walked towards the East Entrance area outside the stadium, where strong sunlight is shining.

About an hour later,the sun was hidden behind dense clouds, so I waited for it to clear. Suddenly a man stopped right beside me. He's an old Indian man, on a bicycle, wearing LTA (Land Transport Authority) safety vest and helmet. He seems friendly to me. I said "Hi!" to him. He asked me a few questions about my profession and photography. He even wanted to pay me to take photographs of him. I told him that I'm doing it for leisure and hobby.I've always wanted to do environmental portraitures and so I took the rare opportunity and advantage to take a few portraitures of the old man. 

Thought it was my lousy day but it turned out to be a lucky one. Overall I took about 8 shots of the old man. I asked for the old man's name and contact number. He's known as Mr. Mohan R. Mid-60s, married with 2 children whom both are working in Australia. He wanted to send his kids pictures of him as family memorablilia and that was the reason why he approached me. 

Mr Mohan has been working at LTA as a site inspector for 5 years. Currently he's stationed at the construction site next to the National Stadium, for the new MRT station. He was doing his round when he bummed into me. Fortunately I took 2 cameras with me - a Holga 120GN and a Seagull-4A TLR. With street photography in mind, I wanna use Holga, but instead I used it on Mr Mohan. I got no regrets and I have confidence using a Holga for good portraitures with great results, even I do say so myself. 


All photographs were taken with a Holga 120GN on Kodak Ektachrome E100VS slide film. A manual external flashlight is used even under strong sunlight. The 2 main purposes are to freeze the subject in motion and to create catchlights on the subject's eyes.

Garung Guni Man (Prelude)

Garung Guni Man

Yes this is man I've photographed on the last New Year Eve (2006). The photographs you see here are taken much earlier. I think it was in late 2005, during a Street Photography outing organised by Circle of Light forum committee. A couple of friends and I approached this old man. Til this day, I still do not know his surname not to mention his full name. Well everyone has their own privacy rights, don't they?


Comparing these photographs and the latest ones, you can tell how hagged the old man has becoming. I still love all shots that I have taken of him. What's your point of view of this old garung guni man?


You can start writing your comments or point of views in the ShoutMix tag board on the right bottom column of my blog site. Looking forward to hear from you.


Seagull 205 RangeFinder on Ilford FP4 Plus. Scanned and toned in Adobe Photoshop, with minor Brightness and Contrast adjustments and minor dodging & burning.

Unchanged Melody - Garung Guni Man


Unchanged Melody - Garung Guni Man

This is a 70 years old garung guni man whom I've never get to know his name nor his surname. This was my third visit.

He's married with kids. How many? I dunno. I'm sure they are all grown-ups and married. The old man has been working here at Dickson Road (Little India area) for many years. I bought him coffee and we started to chat up. It's always the same old "kopi-tiam" topics i.e. work, health, people and the high-standard of living in Singapore, etc etc. The higher standard and fast living pace really affected him so much. Howsoever, he's able to cope by himself; buying and selling strap junk for a living. Well, of cuz, with some help from his son who happened to be around that day.

The old man's son is friendly and chatty. We talked about the old kampong days in Singapore. As we're talking, the old man takes a break with his cigarette and coffee. Shortly after, his son left. We chatted on for the next 30 minutes. Eventually I requested to take his photographs and he gladly agreed.

Upon taking his portraitures, it occurs to me that life is like a melody with many high and low notes/keys. To this old chap, his melody is unchanged after all these years at Dickson Road, where he's contented with what he got. Or does he?

Well, I guess it doesn't matter to him at all, even on the last day of 2006. The unchanged melody still plays on...