hugelens

New Media Workshop at SMU

2008-11-13T13:18:00.009+08:00

This is the second day of the new media workshop. It feels like I am back in school all over again. We are obliged to do a blog post with pictures and videos.
Three other ladies and I went on a real 'difficult' mission- take photos and videos. I captured some real interesting details of Chijmes.

We ended our 'venture' at Raffles City, wondering around aimlessly, until we saw....
The Christmas Tree!

Code Blue-Photography Exhibition

2008-04-11T01:04:00.005+08:00

On 31st Mar - 1 Apr, the Code Blue special event was held at Central Forum with displays such as fish tanks with a twist, educational panels and two photo exhibition. One is a showcase of photographs sponsored by WildSingaopore but edited and processed by me. The other is wholly my own darlings. I am glad that I am part of this team and had a great time taking and processing these photographs. Some of these photographs seen here are not shown during the exhibition. There were 28 photos of the "Trashing Collection Trip) at the Code Blue exhibition. Some of them are not here while I have added a few new ones here. There are more fun shoots available on my Facebook, if you are my friend you can take a look there.

Polariods are taken my Sor, only one by me because I realised I am not an octopus after the first shot.

To Be Exhibited

2007-11-21T08:37:00.000+08:00

Location: Central Library Entrance Lobby
Date: 1st-2nd week of Dec (exact date of my team's exhibition will be updated once it is up)Just look out for it, since everyone will be mugging there anyway.

Brokenness
.:Artist’s Statement:.

Singapore, in many aspects, is dependent on other countries, such as resources, standards and even perceptions. In this confined and limited room for display, the ideal and appreciation of Art are restricted by the limited exposure of the locals and their standard of what is ‘good art’. The quality of a work is usually but sadly attributed to the renown of the art school the artists attend. Thus, many artists though very talented are not recognized, and some give up the pursuit of their dreams. This series of photos is a personal take of the shared views of those in the struggle for artistic expression and recognition. The process leaves them despaired, desolate and shattered.

My series use the violin as the main subject to represent the Arts. The violin is an instrument that parents want their kids to learn at a very young age. It has notions of being exclusive, expensive and upper class. However, this blind pursuit has removed the essence of learning to play a good piece of music with the violin. The violin is seen to most Singaporean parents as a status symbol rather than a musical instrument. This series aims to change the perceptions of Singaporeans, through depicting the reality of a musician’s emotional struggle, one that is filled with passion but obstructed by several factors innate in our society.

Missing and Broken
In the beginning, some things are not in place, I just have to keep on searching.

A reverted Smile
A broken string and a broken smile, where am I heading?

A worn off bow
Hairs of a bow tear apart and break away; my heart is exhausted and my passion fades.

Shattered
The violin falls onto the ground. It is shattered.

Brokenness
It is shattered, it is desolated. I lose my fighting spirit to go on.

The End
Passion dies, marking the end of my little world - the world of my music.

Learning Process
Throughout this process, I learn to have balance of having deep meanings attached to my photographs and depicting something that others will be able to understand. I am more sensitive with capturing the forms and the play of lights, how it will affect the ‘temperature’ of the images and at the entire atmosphere of the images now. Also allowing my emotions speak by itself as I search for the element to portray these emotions. It is like some Art films, one lets his/her inner state of mind run wild and try to ‘catch it back’ or control the cognitive and let the rational works in displaying the subject matter to the general public. Hmmm yes, I think I do not really make any sense to you.

Self and Peer Assessment (*updated)

I felt that I nail it, the theme, the fine arts and the emotions for my final exhibited (going to be exhibited) photos, giving myself 100/100. Besides that, I felt that Paul and Mike also did well this time, 100/100. Paul captured the emotions with the play of colors, focusing on the contrasting red, white and black. Mike did a brilliant studio shot of a ballerina. I look the background Mike chose, the grays complements with the negative emotions of the ballerina at the same time portraying a classic look of ballet dancing. Meimei and Mark nailed the formalism of photography, however lack the ‘fine arts’ in the photographer, at least this is personal, because fine arts is really subjective. I thought Ivy has this really strong concept, but it wasn’t depicted that strongly from her photographs, I felt that ultimately the photographs need to speak more by itself. I felt that we would have done better with more daring distortions of our photographs, more cooperation in exploring the topic and playing with different techniques.

Final Exhbition (Phase Four)

2007-11-19T10:02:00.001+08:00

Death
Death of a musician's dreams and career as he is slowly forgotten

Death 2

The reverted smile

Short of one, rejected one
The missing string refers to the missing local talents, the broken string stance for one that is losing faith and passion.Sandwich
The external obstacles refrained the musician from moving forward

Final Exhibition (Phase three)

2007-11-17T11:33:00.000+08:00

Desolate
The sound of music dies as the strings lose their paths.

Discarded
There is no point in pursuing something, when the avenue to it is no longer of any use.

Hide
I need a rest right now

Brokenness
My violin is shattered, likewise my heart

- Commercial shoot
A Broken Promise
The string broke in protest as its beautiful sound is no longer appreciated by people

Fragmented
The violin falls onto the ground. I lose my fighting spirit. It is shattered, it is gone.

Fragmented 2
It is shattered, it is gone, it is forgotten.

Final Exhbition (Phase Two)

2007-11-17T11:27:00.000+08:00

This time round, I tried to exaggerate the emotion of being abandoned and fragmented emotions of an artist. I loosen the strings and 'dumped' at the corner of HDB void deck where is dirty. Create also the isolated and desolate atmosphere.

The light brown piece is call the bridge.

Final Exhbition (Phase One)

2007-11-17T11:19:00.000+08:00

Brokenness Series 1

In this series I explore how to evoke the feeling of being abandoned and also in the last picture, the vigorous movement of playing violin. My Reddy felt that we should be thinking of the emotion and then think about whats the first subject matter that comes to my mine. I still thought of violin actually, because this instrument itself is so fragile, brittle. The lifetime of each parts of the violin is also very different. For example the bridge (the wooden part that holds the strings) wore off faster depending on how vigorious one plays. The violin is so expensive, yet so easily broken, you need all the protective covers and polish to preserve its quality and shine.
Hmmm abit like SLR cameras =p

Matters regarding working with raw NEF files (NIKON)

2007-11-07T09:51:00.000+08:00

Dear All,

Some of you who are using Nikon cameras and using Photoshop CS2 or 3 to work with ur raw NEF files may be facing problem such as the Photoshop does not recognise the file format. That is because the Plugs-in not updated to read the NEF files. So follow this link, it has the updates for different cameras, I am using D50 and this plug-in works for me. Arg ..yes I almost fainted searching for these info.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3587

Here is the list for cameras compatible for this plug-in:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

Singapore Culture

2007-11-04T22:08:00.000+08:00

Singapore Culture

To me Singapore culture encompasses a couple of areas, linguistics, food, gesture, rituals and behaviors. I will like to introduce what I call the hybrid cultures. Hybrid cultures are norms or saying that are derived from the nature of multiracial Singapore and not originated from any race or religion per say. The hybrid cultures include norms, gestures and language that evolve through periods and different people.

Hybrid Culture

Food like Roti John and Rojak are not really originated from Malay or Indian food. Even Rojak itself, has a different between Indian and Chinese Rojak. Roti John was supposedly influence by the French baguette.

Next, Kiasu( afraid to lose) and Kiasi ( afraid of death) is not really a from China, as long as you are a Singaporean, people label you as that. What bothers me is that these behaviors seem to be overstated in Singapore context. When I was traveling, I have seen the same behavior among the Japanese, Koreans, Australians and Americans (especially Kiasu, when people will queue to enter a big sale in a departmental store). What makes ‘Kiasi and Kiasi’ is because we give it a ‘name’ while foreigners simply call it ‘wanting to be the first’. On a second thought, what make it a Singapore statement is really the publication of the magazine “ Mr Kiasu” some donkey years when I was still in elementary school.

The Singaporean Gesture

Gesture meaning, an action, a sign or signal, it could mean offensive to foreigners who may not comprehend the meanings attached to them. For example when someone says “Nah”, it means “here take it”. However, “na4” in Mandarin refers to “there” not “here”. What you can derived from here is we use ‘sound and tone’ to refer to something or say something instead of really spelling it out in full sentences.

In Singapore there is also this thing about minding your own business. You don’t really see people in each greeting each other “good morning” or “good afternoon”, except for what we practice in elementary, it seems like we have escape from the horror in elementary school and have decided to ditch the whole concept or politeness. Nowadays, in campus you just hear people go “hey…” or “hallow….”. I remember in one occasion, the SMART was pushing for the good service campaign and encourage the drivers to greet their passengers. When I board this bus, the driver started greeting every single passenger and bidding farewell to those who alighted the bus. Some commuters star at him weirdly, while only about 10% smile, greet or just nod the head. I am the 1% I greet and wave a ‘big goodbye’.

Linguistic – the post Singlish

I am sure everyone is going to talk about Singlish, but what I discovered is a whole new language, which I call ‘post Singlish’ or the new Singlish. They are not the normal ‘lor, lah, leh, hor, walau…’ These are the lingoes, which only people from the same generation will understand. Usually the pioneers are the secondary/ high school kids who invented these terms. I remember back in my school days we like to use ‘duh’ and ‘dieded’ a lot. ‘Duh’ means something like ‘of course... Then what do you think’ it is really that complex to explain this word. ‘Dieded’ same from the word ‘die’ and it just means ‘died really badly’, it usually don’t refer to someone really pass away, it is usually used in the context of one is in deep shit.

Cultural Cringe

Interestingly, when people ask, “What is Singapore culture?” more often than not, people said ‘Singlish’ and it is labeled as inferior because Singlish is not the correct English. However, there are those who are proud of this ‘language’, it is unique not everyone can understand it; it is like a secret when we speak that overseas. For those who think their culture as being inferior sometimes only realize the superiority when they travel overseas and experience a culture shock, then they will treasure the culture that is so closely attached to themselves, their attitudes and behaviors. I felt that this sense of cultural cringe evolves from the how people always feel that the grass is always greener at the other side. People are always not satisfied about what they have. Especially in this small young country, many are still in the process of breaking out from conventions and venturing out to achieve dreams, they feel restrained and limited in Singapore. They want more freedom of speech and more humanity rights. The recent section 377A explains it all, public voices are not silent anymore. They are active.

Assignment 6 - Commercial Photography -Interpretation of images

2007-10-19T20:27:00.000+08:00

Chosen Ad

Nagaraya Nuts
Advertising Agency: PC&V Communications, Philippines

Slogan: Time to go for zero trans fats and zero cholesterol. Nagaraya.

About our presentation:
My team explores on how the target audience will see the ads, in what it the ads effective in targeting their consumers using theories and models of communications and how we as students interpret the images from an outside perspective considering that we are not based in Philippines.

Models Used to Interpret
1. Elaboration Likelihood model explain why the ad uses humor, it is most suitable for products that require low involvement.

2. Peire’s Theory – iconic, indexical, and symbolic to infer meanings and messages
Symbolic:
Guests and baby - celebration of newborn (image)
Trans fat -bad for health (caption)
Iconic
People-Philipinoes
Indexical
Chair stuck to her butt -she is too fat
When ties in with the caption, it means that she should eat Nagaraya nuts

3. Tropes
Metonymy
Trans fats and cholesterols signify over weight
(Commonly associated)
Synecdoche
The woman’s butt is too big denotes her as being overall too fat and needs a solution
( butt refers to fat body and butt is part of the body)

4. Connotations and Denotations
In this ad, both connotations and denotations derived into the end message that the woman is too fat that she is stuck with the chair, thus she should go for lower fat intake, which is to eat Nagaraya nuts.

How Target Audience Decode the Message
First, the target audiences are really based in Philippines, those who are fat or think they are obese and als0o people who are obsess with the ideal image of slim. The used of Philippinoes in the ads is the right choice as audience could relate with the people in the print. It is also a realistic depiction of a gathering of a celebration of the new born. Audience can infer this from their cultural background as Philippines is known for their warm and celebration of festivals. Nothing absurd is inserted in the print, even when the chair is stuck; it is something that could really happen, not surrealistic e.g people flying in the sky. The use of ordinary people also allows audience to relate themselves as being in her shoes or even in that scene (especially with the availability of the white space in the front of the image).

Fat being not desired by people is an almost universal thing, in Philippines and in Singapore. The image of ideal beauty is so common that little kids could tell you who is fat and who is not. Trans fats and cholesterol whether one has taken chemistry or not know what when the level is too high, it is bad for health and it is commonly associated with fat people. These are the most common terms used in slimming products and fats free products.

Also mentioned in our presentation, the use of humor on this topic, could have two extreme effects, some may be offended and see it as a mockery to fat people, while others will accept it as just for laugh. This depends on how seriously people view adds, their psychological state, like self-esteem, self satisfaction and their cultural background.

References are also made to the everyday life, be it the audience or us. Fat people are pressured by society to lose weight and to fit in. The ad pokes fun at embarrassing situations E.g the fat lady in the chair, the fat guy falling asleep in front of the TV and the butt crack. People are pressure to be in ideal shape. Beautiful people also have a fear of growing out of shape and losing their beauty. Ad speaks to them because it’s catching their weak point.

Other supporting ads:
Advertising Agency: Salles Chemistri , Sao Paulo, Brazil
Slogan: Forget about it. Men's preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt

Peers' Work
I felt that many of the groups speak more about how they interpret the ads rather than how the targeted audience will interpret the ads. Really a lot of effort put in the theories portion. I am commenting on the below based on my memory because not everyone has put up their blog yet. I shall expand on this section once I check on others’ works.

Paul and Mei mei's ad was well chosen, although not many of us are familiar with gambling, but we are still able to infer the meanings from the ads, the use of polka cards and chips are something familiar to use as audiences of mass media, we see these in movies, the image of Les Vegas is also shaped by movies (for those who has never been there). I love what Paul and Mei mei code the “Death of the author and the birth of the reader”. Really when an author of a book finished his/her job, it is published and from that instances, the author will not have the ability to change anything in the book, the author is not there to explain to the reader exactly how he should read it.

For paintings, once the artist finished a painting, he died and the painting became famous and there is this ‘great rush’ to interpret his works, many interpretations but who knows which is the correct one, after all correct or not is not important, there should be freedom of how one should interpret the work based on one’s cultural experience. Paul and Meimei where did u get this code from? I thought Paul and Meimei did a great job, very detailed, analytical documentation of theories and how it is applied to human interpretation of images.

Gaze-Adding on to what Mr Reddy taught in class this week

Manet (1863) Luncheon on the Grass

Manet (1863) Olympia

Mike and Zhen Qin, I remember this presentation cos we have the print outs Haha. I am really interested in the topic of how to interpret the fashion magazine ads, especially the idea of GAZE.

According to Newman (1990), looking is a language; it is a mode of telling and a source of pleasure. According to him, male gaze in western context is structured for the privilege of man and a means of relegating women to the status of an object or what we usually call objectification. The gaze of man on woman can be sometimes interpreted as visually molesting the woman and in print ads, they are decoded as woman being a servant and giver function, a pleasure and a partner. Objectification can be expanded to more arena really than just being under the gaze of man. According Baker’s (2005) analysis on ads being the purveyor of women sexuality, the definition of objectification is woman functions as to look attractive only. They could be posed in awkward position or just focusing on some parts of the body to the extent that it is striped off from the actual human form.

At the first glance on the ad they presented, people may immediately think that the woman is subservient to the man and dependent on him. From Goffman’s (1979) analysis it be inferred as that because of how she is seated, bending towards to the man. However, the gaze tells other wise. The gaze is looking directly at the camera, a strong and confirming look. From here, the man is the pleasure; there is a change in gender role here. This also reminds me of Manet’s Olympia (1863). In the painting the woman is staring confidently at the viewer, as if insulted or threatened by her look, there was an uproar against this painting at that time. Likewise in the Luncheon on the Glass (1863), Manet again challenge the idea of gaze, that man now becomes the subject of the woman’s gaze. The nudes in his painting seem to challenge the viewer, “Are you looking at me, I know you are looking at me.”

I thought if Mike and Zhen Qin read up on Manet, they would have draw lots of interesting insights from his master works. Erm…. and also I still don’t understand why you mentioned Siva Natarajar. In Hinduism, Siva is equated to destruction. Natarajar is an aspect of Siva; it is the Lord of dance and music. So Siva Natarajar embraces creation, destruction and preservation. The unique thing about it is that it seems to be always in movement. It is said the “the figure never really stand and sit, they stand and sit in movement,” TK Sabapathy (2006-2007). So I really find it hard to relate a religious sculpture to this fashion ad. =)

On Second Thought
Look at the paintings by Manet and look again at the ads above from my presentation, don't you think their image of beauty is the same? So why look at them as fat people? Answer: exactly! It is our cultural experiences, social norms and influences that internalised in us that fat is unpretty. ( Of course they are some exceptions, some may still think they are pretty).

(*updated)Self Assessment:
I am giving my group 100/100 because we need answer to what Mr Reddy is loooking for, applying the concepts of semiotics at the same time using other models and defining how the target audience will look at the ads and how effective they are. We also make use of examples of other ads to support the one we used. The issue we presented is soming familiar to the class, thus when we present the slides, they could understand and able to relate it to their own societal standards and environment.

Assignment 5

2007-10-16T01:58:00.000+08:00

Another series which was not presented in class, just wanna share these perspectives of mine =p

Expressionism - most Singaporeans live in HDB flats, it looks like everyone dwells on same stuff and do the same things everyday, but what is inside each cubicle is customized to that one person. The way he look out from his window, his habbit of hanging the laundry and how he look at the sky above him.

Realism - evening shot of the HDB flats in Sengkang

Formalism- To me I like the patten form by the architecture of the HDB flat, what is unique is how this struture overlapsed with the nice blue sky. I like the contrast between the dynamic sky and the static building structure. It reminded me of my 2nd assignment which I capture the architecture of a school.

Assignment 5- creep 2

2007-10-13T17:26:00.000+08:00

Creep as define as the feeling of being followed and monitored or Paparazzi. Also the form is focus on the cracked and dirty lines as creep also means deformation.
Creep as a form - is deformation, the fluid of paint seems to be melting off.

The creep of being captured and monitored. The illusion of what is facts and false as reported in the press is captured here, the triple visions. It is not really the wall and the photographer, it is a reflection on a van.

Realism, a building what seemed so enclosed is actually brightly colored and open!

More to come...

Assignment 5-Creep

2007-10-10T16:50:00.000+08:00

Creep is a very subjective and abstract word. In my series, I play around with how the ladder with two pails is creeping into the frame. More significantly I want to portray creep as a feeling of being rejected.

Location: Chinatown narrow alley
Formalism - focusing on the design and patten rather than what it is. Here there is a pair of rounded rectangular curves with verticle lines, contrasting with the soft and weak strings.

Expressionism 1

The class felt that it is too similar to the realism picture (last photo). Mr Reddy felt that he couldn't feel what I was really trying to portray.

Expressionism 2

After the class, I was actually feeling quite down about it, cos it was after so much hard work it seems to be down to nothing. Suddenly this pciture came to mind. I actually have a close-up picture of the pails. So I got down to work on it. The metal pail is used as a burner for joss paper during the hungry ghost festival, after that it is just left aside. Its pal is the red mop pail, after we clean the floor, it is just conveniently left to dry and out of our sight. It feels so sad to be 'rejected' and stripped off from its original purpose and use- creep craws all over one, when one feels he or she will be replaced soon.

Post production: desaturation of background, emphasis on the redness to grab attention.

Realism- the back alley and how exactly the pails are placed.

I feel that after the revision I am giving myself 97/100 for the good perspective and concept.

Others' works
I like Jasmine's work, I think she nailed the concept pretty well, showing how the newspaper were splattered and focusing the newspaper being torned and wet by the paper and finally how she express it as stress, how it could be a creep feeling when someone is stress yet she can't help. There is a lot of emotional attachment, yet she is able to objectivity take the other two pictures without being too emotonal. I will give her 95/100

Next, Jillyn's work seems to impress the class but until I heard that she actually moved the snail, I felt that the whole concept just falls apart. Realism being constructed is not realism any more. It is just like a still-life painting, when the artist purposefully placed the objects in a manner he wants to. Her concept is the idea of snail creeping or rather that is the way I see it. No bad feelings please. There is a lack of deep thinking especially for the expressionism photo. Maybe is the different way we defined the terms.

Challenge
Being already 'trained' to look at things in different perspectives and having so much exposure to different literature and culture we are affected by these while taking pictures. We tend to include our interpretations. Photography means to frame something, is already not portraying the realistic and true value of an object/scene. However, what we can do is to try to treat it as objective as possible, imagine we are a journalist, we have to show public an unbias point of view.

This assignment is really looks easy but not easy Haha... till now I shall wait for the rest to upload their pictures before I can give more concrete comments.

Please do share with me your take on my revision work. Does it fit the theme and what I want to portray? Thanks =p

Assignment 5- Realism, Formalism and Expressionism

2007-10-07T18:18:00.000+08:00

Please tell me if these work,

I only have the formalism photos here...Haha I was so inspired by Mike's photo the other day, so when I spoted these red atas looking chairs along the shop houses at Chinatown, I just fell in love with them!

Assignment 4

2007-10-05T10:09:00.000+08:00

The day after an artist’s perspective
Location: Pagoda Street –Shop house
Time: about 5pm. The sky was dark and was drizzling.

It is simple, playing with the dynamism of different perspective and the illusion of time. I started the first picture with the color one. It inspired me to build on the whole montage. After the so called ideal picture was taken, when seen the next day, the rest of the shop houses become part of the past, sense of nostalgia.

I venture into a few techniques for this picture; I try to create this fish eye lens on top, while ending with a almost concaving effect as the building collapsed into the ground. The achieved that the alignment of people may seem distorted but the idea was to create something that none of the wide angle lens can achieve. My concern is not so much of the people, rather the building. The details and lines of the building are used as guide to link up the building.

Challenge
It is lucky that the sky was dark and I manage to get this looming effect and the sky was not overexposed. Challenge is to take photos in the rain. I overlapped the pictures to cut out those that capture the raindrops.

(*updated)Grade
Ok since I got quite good feedback from the class, I am giving myself 100 for creativity, 100 for concept idea of montage and 100 for skills and technique. As a new photography there is really room for improvement.

Final Verdict: 100/100 , because after reading comments from the class and assess that I nail this week's assignment of how a montage which be read and presented.

Day after day – cai pen store damn hot (Chinese mixed food store)

I want to add a little humor towards the picture using the title. The picture may look serious but actually not so. Day after the queue for the stall is always so long. It seems always the same in all hawker centre that what stalls always have the best business. However many of times, we pay little attention to the people eating there. The exchanged of gaze, the self-absorbed. The two seemed oblivion to the que behind them.

I shot many shoots from different views and focal length, playing around with the viewer’s eye. There is little fish eye lens effect

Response to beach photo

2007-10-03T15:24:00.000+08:00

Picture taken from Kaveh Photography, this guru takes great pictues. This is a good example of a beach shot, you can still have that silence feel to it, but you have more shades and dimension to the colors. Of course you can still change the subject matter, but this is the technique you can try =)

Assignment 4

2007-09-28T21:01:00.000+08:00

Grade:
95/100 after hearing what others say about my second series.

Assignment 4
Some thoughts…

My computer was giving me problems, have no either if it is the blogspot problem or internet connection, I couldn’t log in to my blogspot for the past few days, Mr Reddy forgive me =)
First of all, for the Kampong Glam series, it was inspired this picture from PhotoVideo (magazine), it shows a old shop house with a new architecture as the backdrop, so I decided to head down to Kampong Glam to get some real nice pictures. Unlike some of the others themes and concepts, mine change series is more about depicting a story about a change, rather than showing same subject matters in all the photos. I think so far from what I can remember Mike and I use this concept (using a series of photos to form a change) er.. am I right Mike?
Mr Reddy has his point about without my explanation, people probably won’t understand what I am trying to portray. And in the photo essay should allow room for the viewers to connect to our photos. Yet at the same time I should not tell the viewer uprightly what I am telling them. Hmm this sounds tricky doesn’t it? Well, this is really subjective.

Grading my works

Ok I guess I wanna give myself full marks for my story and concept, at least I have Mike to agree that he love how the story folds together with the tombstone photos. Maybe at 7/10 for how I link the story and making sense to the audience.

For my second series, I wanna give more thumbs up, 9/10 for overall concept, creativity and techniques. It was great fun playing with my duo tones photos and colored ones. One of my challenges is really the lightings and weather, how sometimes there is this great object to take, but the lighting is not great and the photos will appear blur, and by adjusting higher ISO will mean developing more noise in the photos. Another challenge is taking photos of old people or rather people as a whole, I think I should try to dress like tourist so they will be more willing to let me take photos =p.

One of the memorable happenings, was when I was trying to take a picture of this old man in wheel chair, half hidden behind a shop, he refused to let me take a photo of him, every time I try to snap, he will turn his head away, and when I finally managed to snap a picture, the picture wasn’t clear enough and I am left feeling damn guilty about it. Another one was the picture with the trishaw man, this nice Malay uncle suddenly appear while I was taking a picture of his lovely, instead of stopping me, he started to tell me how old his trishaw. I replied “Good, good the older the better!” So I told him this is for my school assignment and he happily posed for me. He is so proud of his trishaw!

Others’ works

I love Ivy’s work- I am giving her 10/10 for her concept and creativity, 7/10 for the techniques (aiya cos ur photos blur). I like how she linked the photos with a poem. This photos also speak out a lot to me, cos I use to do all the painting stuff back in my arty farty JC days and I am still painting now. Initially as a painter, we are bounded by rules of what is a good painting, nice rendering and blending etc, we have master still-life sketching and all that. We do that to pass our art exams because the definition of what is good art is ABC, so we better keep to that, not that we don’t anything creative, but we make sure in our conceptualizing works we show the markers we know how to paint and draw damn well. When we are not bounded by all these, we start to explore and try all sorts of things. The older generation you seen in Ivy’s works, there are bounded by the impressionist influences. The dabs of paint and bold stroke, become their signatures. They are accomplished artist. I think when my generation of artist grow old we will have our own signatures.

Michelle – I love her construction works, the old with rows of red chairs at the foreground. Nice composition!

Paul – I saw the ones exhibited in CNM office, I think Mr Reddy mix the old people and ur back alley series, I thought that was a great combination. Adding more humane and live to your series. HAha I noe Paul was struggling to not stay in his comfort zone, you have found a new style- Old people! They are great for B&W!

Yikang- I love the last 3 photos in the series, esp the last one. They have more depth and contrast than the previous photos. The 8R size one looks nicer, check our CNM office.

Suggestion to Class

I think it is time for CNM department to start a campaign to raise funds for our photo developing and cost of buying our mounting boards =p I was really wondering if there is chances that Mr Reddy could invite some guest lecturers like Russel Wong!

Assignment 3: Photo Essay 2

2007-09-22T15:36:00.000+08:00

I try out another approach to this assignment, since Mr Reddy said sometimes I think too much, there might be too many things going on. So I try to simple the picture focus and simple. But on another note maybe thinking too much is my style, Arh... kinda influence by my fine arts background back in my JC days.

The photos are suppose to be displayed horizontally, see the compiled version below, you will get the flow of the "change". The main theme is age and its roles. I don't wish to elaborate further, is for the viewer to infer and interpret them =)

(*Updated) Self assessment
I am giving myself 98/100 after I redo this assignment. I felt that this time I tried really hard to incorporate my 'deep' concept with being comprehensive enough for the public. This series is very clear now, black white older things people and objects, while the colored ones are more positive side of life with present setting, how roles are now attached to older buildings, tourist and students and that people now stay in HDBs.

Reflect and the past

Mosque and religion

Old man and his shop

Old man and his job1

Old man and his job2

Job2

Job1

His shop and his tourist

Mosque and excursion

Reflection and the present

Changing roles and images of buildings in Singapore - past to present

2007-09-17T19:31:00.000+08:00

Assignment 3: Photo-essay
Equipment: Nikon D50, lens 18-55mm, free hand, printing by Epson R800
Theme: Changing roles and images of buildings in Singapore
Locations: Kampong Glam, City Hall and Choa Chu Kang Cemetery

1. Traditions
A very old Oriental Chinese tombstone, represent the past and history. A tomb is a place for 'beings’ is live in just like HDBs, it preserve the memory from past to present. The lion as if guards the safety of the 'residents'.

2. Joss sticks
A trace of giving offerings to ancestors, this trace marks not only how old the tombstone could be but also the purpose of a tombstone.

3. Old taste
Food stalls that have been there for decades, the taste is probably the same. This building no longer plays a role a shelter for the people to live in; it is place where the modern people hunt for cheap and good food. The rustic look of the building is instantly disturbed by the bright red road signs, a sign of modern live industrialization.

4. The old give way to the new
A picture of a construction work at an old building along Kampong Glam, it is possibly changing its look or restoring the beauty of this old building. The construction tools are seen as the modern life destructors.

5. Spiral Staircases
The gates and pipes are restored but the unique feature of the spiral staircase is a national heritage.

6. Intertwined
The wires are intertwined over and over again as years pass by. The paints and different wires used at different decades represent the changing environment. The background shows vaguely the ‘invasion’ of new high rise buildings behind the older shop houses.

7. New art
Graffiti is like the new art on the old pillars of the shop houses. Shop houses become a waste of the past that people today conveniently use it as they like.

8. Mosque- the place for worship
Religion now matter how different the environment is changing, it will not change. It is still respected and influential

9. Mosque – the place of interest
Here the mosque is not just a place for prayers and religious rituals but a place of interest for school children to visit as excursions. This is national education!

10. His territory
The old Mercedes, the old man the old shop sign, a depiction of the past, taken in the present day. Photographer tries to capture the essence of old. Something that is seen so dirty and everyday-life is now a beauty in photography.

11. Photographer and environment
This work is a juxtaposition of old and new, real and surreal. Seen here is a reflection from the rear of a car of the landscape of the street, which nice morning shine. The internal design of the car merged into the reflections of the shop houses. The middle portion shows the actual image of the street in front of the vehicle. The photographer immersed in the beauty of the past and the present day atmosphere.

12. At the end of your day
Things come and go, but traditions and values are deep rooted. The role of tombstone is still the same for centuries. The only change is where one stays.

2007-09-09T00:18:00.000+08:00

So finally I showed the class these 5 photos , the first two are my top picks...
I love this pic for the rich and vibrant colors, the details and the depth of field. Image summary: Hands free, ISO:200, Depth of field: F/5.3 , Explosure time: 1/1250 sec, Metering Mode : Spot, No flash. I giving this a 95/100

Raddish, is pure and alive! Hands free, ISO 200, F/5.6, Explosure: 1/125sec, Metering Mode: Spot, No flash. Grade: 95 again for making a seemly motionless object looks lively.
I love the rich green and lights falling onto the surface! Brh showing more vege.
silence of stopping at the moment, questioning the viewer " have you stop to look at the flyers?" Such an artistic piece, I really mean it.
I love this piece too! A very simple picture, focusing on something people may not take notice of. I purposely not focus on the birds behind as there is a piece of glass, and it may spoil the whole photo. By bluring it, it allows the viewer to actually enter the picture and take a closer look at the birds.

For this session I love the one with 3 birds on the wire (Oops I forgot the name), Mike's and Paul's. I like the 3 birds cos of the building at the side, she was able to capture tt details with the golden shade of sunlight, Miks's stary night lookalike photo, man when do people really wish to stay near industrial area? Paul's orange and white wall pic, although it may not fit this week's team, it is a nice 'travel and living photo' something rich in culture.

Assignment 2: Contrast, Depth, Patterns, Presence

2007-09-01T18:22:00.000+08:00

This week the task is to achieve- Contrast (clean whites and colours), depth (should create an illusion of 3d space), presence (should draw viewer into picture space). I love to play with depth of field. I would like to say I am still an infant in photography, not professional. I spent most of my life using compact film and digital camera.

I love food and architecture. I ventured to Little India and SAM Singapore Art Museum. When we talk about little India, how can you resist the spices and great curry! SAM is a great place to be when you wanna get away from the noisy street and immersed in beautiful(subjective) or magnificent pieces of art. In fact you can feel a pin drop.

We were suppose to document all the image details e.g shutter speed, depth of field, aperture etc. I guess I will do it after my final verdict is made (for the ones to be submitted)
own made fish-eye lens =)

Pretty cool - new Laselle SIA (near little India). You guys should take a look and will be ashame of NUS design.

walking into the space...

Interior - juxtaposition of the nature of the (soft)blue sky and the hard metallic building. Can you tell which is the reflection and which is the actual structure?
Interesting patterns formed by two blocks of the school and reflections on the glass.
Reflection of sky on building....I love the zig-zag design and the contrast between the black and the gray metallic pillars

Pattern found on a elephant statue in Little India, show strong contrast with the play of light.

Depth of field 3.5, Onion rings anyone?

I love this picture because it kinda reminded us, how many occasions do we stop and take note of the notices? Also the silence in the small street as represented by the walls with torned papers, contrasts with the noisy street at the background.

Red contrast will the pale or amos monochromatic background. I kinda find this interesting when I took this pic, see the background there are Chinese words while the foreground is a poster in Tamil. This is racial- harmony!

Panning technique (a movement of a film or video camera)

Food! Contrast, details and depth of field. All found along little India.

Framing, notice how an ordinary street may look different from another perspective?

Dinner time ....Muthu's Curry restaurnt. I think Muthu is clever man, he started from a not so appealing little store to now 5-star Indian restaurant. The fish head curry is superd!

I reached SAM! Obviously I didn't take this photo. I admit.

Assignment 1: Discussions, Comments and Explorations- Flux Series

2007-09-01T11:47:00.000+08:00

It seems Mr Reddy thought I was making up a story about my art work. I seriously didn’t, I planned my work. It is evident in my documentation of the process below. I am now held in a dilemma, which art work should I use? Mr Reddy gave me the comments that he like the one with the white hand image, but it just look nice, while he likes the idea for the ‘3 hands colored art’ so I have to combine both concept. The problem is that if I use a negative film effect, the movement of the hand will not be as apparent as the reflective effect and if I use the reflective effect, the hands will be too obvious.

Ok, so I venture to my second round of exploration. Now I crop the picture to magnify the reflections of the drips of paint (which Paul commented that it is brilliant). By cropping the image, the hands will not be so apparent and the swirling effect is also clearer. So my fellow friends please give me your comments as to which image below is better. Your comments are priceless!

And yes we are suppose to give ourselves a grade. I am giving myself 90/1oo because I thought I did quite a good job for both picture that I show to the class. I played around with the transparency of the objects, while some people may have omited (thought that was one of criteria?). Also I thought it was quite a discovery for me to achieve the flux(movement) method. In terms of composition I try to keep it simple, with a strong focus on the colors and keeping the hands white (for one) so as not to draw the attention away. Using black to bring out the colors even richer. Subject method, cleverly used things that really portray my personality and stages of my life (this is one of the criteria!) The effects of flux blends well with the dabs of paint.

Short of 10 marks are for the improvement I have make to achieve what Mr Reddy commented. Tough job, but I hope that I have achieved that for the lastest 2 pic (above).

2007-08-27T11:53:00.000+08:00

Assignment 1:
You’ll make your first photogram using flat bed scanner instead of photosensitive paper. The theory is similar. By placing objects directly on the scanner bed in an interesting composition you can create an image without a camera.

Image should tells us something about yourselves.

Note to anyone viewing this:
*All images are copyrighted by 'hugelens.blogspot.com'
*Permission has to be granted before any use of the images from this blog.
*Artist's creative works have to be recognised!
_______________________________________
I started by exploring on the different medium that I could use, drips of glass paint, wax and hand drawn sketches.

Here you see the wax, which I dripped on a transparency and scanned it over a positve film. Color turns out dull.

The color is more rich with a black grd, using the reflective screen. However, we could see the inside of the scanner, still it looks quite interesting with the different layers and transparency of the wax.

A more transparent medium is used here. Below is a closed up view of the dabs of glass paint on transpanrency.
The glass paint glowed as I scanned it through the negative film.

Next, I play around with my sketches to create a story telling photography. The ballerina is a representation of little Jialin, who has wild dreams and always trying express myself through forms and gesture.

Human form falls into a deep deep well like structure, a depiction of stress and disappointment I face during one of my turning point. I am sure many of us have experienced this, the transitions from child to youth, from teenage to adulhood and taking up different responsibilities as we grow older.

Flowers represent happiness and memorable moments.

Frustrated and strangled by illness, I was very sick for a period of time and felt that I was left behind when everyone was moving forward.

Overlaying the images with the glass paint over the megative film.

Testing out eal objects and exploring the details that light is able to capture here. e.g The bleu translucent pen is in orange, when scanned.

Changing it to positive film.

Exploring with me hands :.
The refelctive shine on the paint and on my nails give a good contrast with the darker backgrd.

Exploring with flux/movement:.
The verticle lines are created by moving my hands vigorously as the scanner scanned through the items. The glass paints are stationary. The depiction of movements show that as things around me change and move rapidly, I try my best to keep up and at the same time, immersed myself within this flux.

Using positive film.

Combination ok sketches, depicting the different stages of my life. shown here, the different arrangement and color tones.

This is my favourite, using my hands to depict flux, also if you are able to look closely, my finger nails also acts as one of the translucent objects, the tiny 'veins' like lines could be seen. The colorful dabs shows the positive side of me. This pic also depict me as someone passionate, with the rising 'flame' producing the boiling bubbles of rainbow.

This image and the one below, make use of other material tools to create the movement. Playing with the transparency of the object.

Using my sketches I have drawn and moving that across the scanner.

Close up view of using beaded necklace and moving it across the scanner, below is the zoom out view.

Previously, the sketch wasn't clear when I did it over the negative film, when I scanned it on a normal screen, the result is much better! Show clearly a 'U' shape decending of the falling human (from the right). This pic could be read from two perspective, one is a decending one is an ascending (from left). This is done, deliberately to place the viewer on an umcomfotable stage of deciding which view to choose. Inspired by Manet's playing with perspective in most of his paintings, e.g A Bar at the Folies-Bergère

Start of new semester

2007-08-18T17:24:00.000+08:00

Welcome! All readers!

I almost wanna turn this into a food blog after I designed this, still trying to edit the alignment, but can't seem to work. Anyway here is one blog delicated to Mr Reddy's Digital Photography class. In weeks to come, I will be entertaining you guys will photographs, hopefully nice ones and you will appreciate. Feel free to give me comments bad or good or just tips to photography skills or bargains to nice snapping gadgets.

Although this may or may not be relevant to my assignments, but I love food and love to blog about them too. You may just find a couple of food blogs, if I have the time. Suggestions of good dinning places are welcomed!