PhotoModo

Time for a Change ... it's G7 time!

2006-11-05T20:05:00.000+08:00

It's been quite a while since I last posted, and look what I've got now .... a POWERSHOT G7! Handsome little package in a nifty black retro metal case--it's the digital I've been searching for in a long while. Lots of G-users are caviling about it, but to me it's a beautiful machine. (Except for the lack of a 28mm lens, I guess. Sigh.)

Time to put my A95 into semi-retirement! Something funny happened to it and it can't record images properly anymore. Hopefully the guys repairing it will solve the mystery for me.

Check back here once and while for new pics taken with the G7. I'm making use of this vacation to do some good old fashioned voyeurism :)

2004-12-09T09:10:00.000+08:00

The photographer was window-shopping ...

2004-12-09T09:08:00.000+08:00

In the train station at Dhoby Ghaut.

2004-12-09T09:04:00.000+08:00

From a bookshelf in Times, processed with Photoshop.

From MacRitchie

2004-12-05T10:17:00.000+08:00

Went with the girlfriend to MacRitchie reservoir a week ago and snapped happily away--without realizing that we were getting lost. Before long we found ourselves trudging through a jungle trail and ended up in a golf course. Of course, the trespassing proletariat were removed from the scene by a club-bearing member of the Establishment (whose tone wavered between that of an offended member of the bourgeosie and a well-meaning uncle) who warned us that we might get hit by balls if we proceeded any further.

Pian Tai Lao Shi Si Lie (The Perverse Teacher Series)

2004-11-17T01:02:00.000+08:00

The pictures from our dinner the other night are ready for your viewing pleasure! Just click on the picture above to visit PianTaiLaoShi (The Pervert Teacher), a new photoblog made especially for frittering away unteacherly, unproductive hours. I reckon the reason why I chose this name ought to be pretty obvious :)

The City

2004-11-09T15:20:00.000+08:00

An old picture I took with my SLR.

Featured Blog: Japan Window

2004-11-09T14:45:00.000+08:00

This blog begins in February, 2004, almost two years after moving to Japan with my wife and daughter in 2002. I'm just starting to grasp, let alone answer, the deeper questions about life and culture here.
---Andrew Gray, Japan Window Photo Blog

Because he brings to them a newcomer's sense of wonder and intrigue, Gray's photographs of Japan speak not so much of his perception of what this country is to him than a belief in its beauty and life. His images always have people in them, people performing certain rituals: children in their first day of school, youths in the garish costume of Japan's own counter culture, a housewife on a bicycle. What comes across through them is Gray's fascination with these signs of the culture, both action and costume, as well as the heartbeat of a whole society almost within reach of representation through these signs. And yet, as the photographer of these telling pictures recognizes, the truth is always enigmatic, always sliding out of reach.

Strange Fruit

2004-11-09T11:30:00.000+08:00

Shot taken in the Botanic Gardens.

Window Shopping

2004-11-09T11:28:00.000+08:00

Shot of store display at Raffles City

The Meaning of Loneliness

2004-11-09T11:27:00.000+08:00

A pair of old bicycles bear silent witness to a strange moon.

Train Station

2004-11-09T11:25:00.000+08:00

Snapshot of a corridor in a MRT station.

The Door

2004-11-06T23:14:00.000+08:00

The mall near my house is undergoing extensive renovations.

Pass Her By

2004-11-06T23:09:00.000+08:00

Shot of the scene in front of a local Guess store.

To Moonstone Residences

2004-11-06T23:05:00.000+08:00

Spur-of-the-moment shot of a sign I see everyday on my way to work.

Three Women

2004-11-06T22:16:00.000+08:00

Thanks frau igel and amanda for your generous comments, it's always nice to be appreciated :) And as requested, here are some pictures from the heart of flat-and-corridor-land.

Corridors

2004-11-05T05:06:00.000+08:00

Corridors in a flat.

2004-11-05T04:58:00.000+08:00

Scene at the Esplanade

2004-11-05T04:55:00.000+08:00

Ants frolicking in nectar.

2004-10-27T23:27:00.000+08:00

More clouds: silhouettes in the evening glow.

2004-10-27T23:14:00.000+08:00

Shot a bunch of clouds today. I love clouds!

2004-10-23T19:52:00.000+08:00

Another picture I took today, this time using the b&w mode.

2004-10-23T19:50:00.000+08:00

Shot lots of pictures of cats today; the one above is just one of them. It's cropped from the original--check out how sharp the details are. (Not sure whether the Hello program will reduce the quality of the picture too much though.)

Tilt & Swivel!

2004-10-18T23:50:00.000+08:00

Set up a new yahoo group today for the A95--let's hope this takes off! Visit Tilt & Swivel and join the party.

Surreal Pigeons

2004-10-18T21:40:00.000+08:00

My favourite subject: pigeons.

TV Experimentalism

2004-10-17T10:55:00.000+08:00

(The title was suggested by the girlfriend.) Shot of a tv commercial. Hey, a little experimentation never hurt anybody ...

Colour Pencil

2004-10-17T09:14:00.000+08:00

Shot of a local artist at the Insomniac event.

Under Pressure

2004-10-17T08:45:00.000+08:00

Shot of a pressure meter using the macro function.

"Super Stretch"

2004-10-13T23:53:00.000+08:00

Trampled underfoot everyday, this old picture has almost become a part of the ground. Found on my usual route to work.

Reflection

2004-10-12T21:02:00.000+08:00

A headless mannequin in one of the shops in Far East contemplates its own reflection.

Scene by the window

2004-10-12T20:57:00.000+08:00

Snapshot taken using ISO 400. I've heard plenty of reviews that criticize the higher ISOs for their graininess, so I wanted to see if they could be put to productive effect instead. Graininess to one set of eyes is grit to another.

Just Point and Shoot!

2004-10-12T20:19:00.000+08:00

Image from Dr. Martin's article

Dr. Martin Williams has written a pretty useful article on the use of the compact camera. Nowadays everyone seems to either have a SLR or a nifty digital, so it's nice to re-discover the simple beauty of the humble compact. Plus, many of Dr. Williams's tips can easily be applied to our digicams.

2004-10-11T22:00:00.000+08:00

Evening at Clarke Quay.

Review: A Polaroid A Day, Everyday

2004-10-11T20:58:00.000+08:00

Polaroids are sort of miraculous, and in this age of multiple everything it is nice to know that, unlike a digital photograph or a regular print from a negative, each individual polaroid is a singular, discreet object. Like a painting. It can be reproduced but the reproduction is a pale imitation. Even if it sucks it suck uniquely. ---Christopher Stangland

Utterly dependent on their formal characteristics (colour and composition, as opposed to an arresting subject), Christopher Stangland's Polaroids are a test of their viewer's cultural competence: have you learnt to decipher their cool mystery--to look beyond the apparent pointlessness and rest your eye (it is pointless to try too hard, one's eye must see immediately and completely and with ease) appreciatively on their surface?

On one picture we see first of all a contrast: the bright colours--orange, white, red, flesh--against the dour concrete. Another contrast, this time generic: unlike a usual photograph, the only possible subject of this picture (the picture in the picture) is thrown off-center, and is included only fortuitously within the frame. And finally: the thoughtless interestion of rectangles and lines. All this must be seen, captured by the eye, in a second. Think, and you lose it--the beauty of a photographed instant.

For it is the photographer who has made the moment beautiful. A piece of reality, cut up by the lens of the camera, placed before the eye of the viewer for a certain worship to take place. A means by which wonder may be returned to the world of the real.

Of course, the real is still pointless. There will be no one who pursues the picture we see in Stangland's Polaroid. Neither the concrete ground nor the picture nor the fragmented body in that picture stand any chance of that. It is the Polaroid that has meaning, value. Hence we arrive at Stangland's pronouncement: that "each individual polaroid is a singular, discreet object". For him, the photograph is no longer treasured as a means by which reality is rendered in excellent detail, or represented arrestingly. The photograph is an object worthy of contemplation, in itself.

Christopher Stangland's project is to author a serendipitous autobiography: each day, no matter the quality of the picture taken, he has and will post a Polaroid online. By means of this prodigious discipline, he has created for himself a regular schedule for the appropriation of wonder from an otherwise dour existence.

2004-10-11T19:56:00.000+08:00

The tree below my house.

The Work of Mourning

2004-10-10T20:40:00.000+08:00

Last year we went to see a film about him. What did he allow us to see, that we had not guessed at before? Very little, save this: an immense evasiveness. (I remember how one question about his wife and he was flatly rejected.) Or, to be more precise: a terrible resignation to the fate of never being asked the questions he had an interest in answering. Some reviewers thought that the film did not do--in a word--justice to the man. But perhaps we should place hope in other places.

What he said of Louis Marin could easily apply to himself:

"Who could ever speak of the work of Louis Marin?"

The picture I have chosen to mark his passing shows him indistinctly not because of anything he is, but because this is how I seem to know him: from the side, clearly there but not completely recognized.

Photocommento!

2004-10-10T08:32:00.000+08:00

Just created a little title image for my comments page, let's see if it works.

Edible Woman

2004-10-07T22:13:00.000+08:00

Here's one last picture for the day ... one of my personal favourites. Taken one storey above the Gelare stall at Plaza Singapura.

Go Photo!

2004-10-07T20:07:00.000+08:00

The name of the game for the A95 is simply this: customization. As far as I know, it's one of the few cameras in its price range that offers its user the option of full manual controls over aperture and shutter speed. Besides the real photo-substance, the A95 also lets you do some pretty things like add eye-candy to your start-up screen. The software bundled with the camera gives you some pictures, but I suggest you make your own. The one you see here is the one I currently use.

Test Shot 2: Night Scene

2004-10-07T19:17:00.000+08:00

Hey, it works! I'm already feeling the effects of a new addiction ... so here's another picture, just for the fun of it. Took it at the path that connects City Hall to Marina on a nice Friday night (or was it Saturday?)

Test Shot

2004-10-07T19:15:00.000+08:00

Here's my first test shot ... just downloaded the Hello program and using it for the first time to upload pictures. I'm keeping me mighty Viking fingers crossed.

A Brand New Blog Dedicated to my Brand New Canon A95!

2004-10-07T18:57:00.000+08:00

Testing, testing, testing ... please watch this space for a whole lot of random stuff connected to my A95.