Pond Musings

Portraits as Visual Drama November 2011

2011-11-18T08:12:00.001+08:00

Last weekend I taught Portraits as Visual Drama again for Objectifs. I can't really remember how many times I have taught this course now. But my last batch of students were pretty gungho and I thought it would be nice to share some of their images from the class.

Thanks to the models Adeline, Christina, Dominic and Zhi Hao. The projections were from an installation by Ric Aw.

Sven Ludolphi

Sean Yeo


Robert Volger

Robert Van Delden


Robert Baird

Marielle Veldhuis


Divya Raghuram


Clement Chia


Ben Lee

Continuing the photographic journey

2011-10-01T00:53:00.000+08:00

I guess that I have been on a break from blog posts. Most of my blog posts in my hectic days was about the journey of photography. I shared what I was going through and what I was thinking. I took a year off to travel last year and that I blogged on my Singapore to Europe blog. And then things went quite because my time was taken up by an illness in my family. I did a few posts about the frailty of life, but I did not do so much.

I am working on some personal photographic projects now. It is a bit hard to blog about it in the midst of the projects because it is all new to me and the process is hazy. It took me a while before I got some insight into photography and started blogging about it. So it will take a while before I figure out what I am doing with my new direction in photography.

But I am now exploring the Black Art of printing. Up until now, I have been able to make simple calibrations of my screen and make ball park prints of my images. A lot of my images ended up in digital format anyway and the printing was done by someone else if at all. For more high end prints for my exhibitions, I would get Chris Yap from Light Editions to make my prints for me. But I always had this feeling that my eye for output is still untrained. And I was always at the mercy of the people printing the images for me. Some like Chris were good, some from some commercial labs were bad. And I do not even know what it is that I do not know to make the printing better. I hope that in time when I start competing my projects, I will be able to exhibit my work. And in that sense, I realize that I need to take responsibility of the final prints. Even if I do end up sending my photos out to be printed by someone else, I had better know what it is that I need from the printer and how to express my needs. A new journey begins.

The best photographic printers, the machines, are made by Epson. Unfortunately, the documentation is sparse. And the interface between the computer and the printers are not always obvious. I mean, is my intent 'Colormetric' or 'Perceptual', I do not rightly know. And if all photographers vaguely know that we need to color manage our work flow, it is possible to 'manage' color twice and make a balls of the final results. Even the simple act of calibrating the monitor, is not simple. What color temperature should we aim for? What is the maximum lumen?

I have decided to blog about my journey into the Black art of printing. And because we all have different computers, screens, printers and paper preferences, my experience is unlikely to be template for all people printing. But hopefully the concepts will be useful and at least some of the specifics will be useful to some people.

Staring into the Abyss

2011-08-20T17:40:00.001+08:00

I must admit, I am confronting my mortality and I am afraid. This is not a morbid daydream of mine, but it is now in my everyday experience. My eighty year old father had a stroke last September and although he is recovering, he will not be the same man than before his stroke. And my mother, who is healthy for her age, has to be checked for cancer. But even more immediate is a friend of my age having stage 1 stomach cancer which he was lucky enough to find and remove. And a younger friend who has stage 4 cancer. By some miracle chemotherapy worked and she is well, thankfully. And also a photographer friend has had a tumor removed from her brain. No, I do not think I am being morbid, mortality is on my thoughts. To think that death is something that will only come to others is a denial. Somehow consciousness of my own mortality is something that I have to deal with.

Maybe thinking about death is also a luxury of my circumstances. I am financially stable and I do not have a family to bring up at the moment. In the midst of day to day struggles, mortality may not impinge on people's consciousness because they have more immediate issues on their minds, children to raise, rent to pay. I also have had friends who have told me there is a reason why people need religion. I understand that sentiment, life on earth, in spite of the advances of man, is still painful and brutal. Even the most fortunate people will have to deal with the end of their lives, there are no exceptions. But my rational mind simply cannot accept the promise of a heaven based on faith. I have no talks with God to soothe my troubled soul. The pillar of my life, my spiritual guide till now, my father has had a stroke. The stroke is on the right side of his brain and after being a meditation master and healer for many years, he is now unable to meditate. As happy as I am to still physically have my father, who is adorable at eighty and in his second childhood, I have lost my closest councilor. My father is facing his own predicament and now it is my turn to hold his hand and tell him that everything will be OK.

My immediate response to this trauma has been typical of myself. It is to work harder. I am no longer working for other people in photography. But I have a long list of personal photographic projects and I have launched myself into them. Desperately filling my mind with practical concerns instead of unavoidable existential ones. I think that I am clutching at life, at any sign that there is breath in my body and my heart is still pumping. Work is having to attend to practicalities, needing to get my camera kit in order, needing to negotiate the terms of my photographic engagements. It is about doing things that is within my power to do. But I am no longer young and naive. I have been fortunate to have my share of success. I was a popular wedding photographer and I have been published in International magazines. And as nice as all that is, it is true that a photographer is only as good as his last photograph. Success does not give one immortality. Recently I read that Nan Goldin used to take photographs of her friends in order to keep them alive, but it did not work. Money, success, pleasures of the flesh are but mere diversions from the finality of death. It is the nature of the world to move on, and as famous as anyone can be, they will at best be a footnote in some history book. But for most of us mere mortals, we will live on for awhile in the memories of friends and loved ones, also to disappear when they disappear in turn.

And is it depressing and black to consider these thoughts? Shakespeare was right when he said,

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."

On some level we are just acting our roles in life, filling the time between birth and death. But I think if we can cast aside the ego that tells us we are some divine being with the possibility of life eternal or that we are capable of greatness, then we can begin to truly appreciate life. The wonder of life is in each moment of our living.

What do I mean by that? For example, each weekend now I spend time taking my parents out for meals. And as much as eating is a mundane affair that we can go through as a functional necessity. But sharing meals with my parents are important to me. Sharing time with the couple that birthed me and brought me up. It is not a national event or a great scientific discovery, but each moment of sharing a meal is the definition of being human. It is a true sacred exchange between one generation and another.

I think that accepting the temporary nature of life, one begins to truly understand the meaning of 'Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is in the imagination, we have only the present'. When we stop living in the past or keep looking for a future happiness, we can concentrate on now. Each breath we take, each sip of coffee and each conversation we have becomes a true experience. And it is transitory. We cannot cling on to the memory of a love or live for a future love. In the midst of now, we simply are, and that is wonderful in itself.

And then I realize also that throwing myself at various projects was an act of blind panic. And while it can help me forget for a moment mortality, it does not help deal with the underlying fear. I have to stop the emotional hysteria and simply accept what life is. I have actually started on awareness meditation daily, but I am not the type of person to give my whole life over to meditation. At least not the type of meditation where I simply sit the whole day in meditation. But I have decided to live my life more deliberately and being more aware as I undertake my photographic projects and daily routines. I also begin to understand that it is not about my projects gaining validation by winning awards or be lauded by critics, it is about taking photographs that are meaningful to me, that increase my awareness of the world and my place in it. And I believe that living my life with focused awareness will make me more alive and give meaning to what I do. In some ways I am paraphrasing 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle. But it is only by being confronted with death and accepting the nature of life, then does living in now make sense to me. As long as one has the means to live, then fame, status and huge fortunes are ultimately meaningless.

I believe that life is temporary and that it will end. People have died before me and people will die after I have died. And all that is okay! It is good to simply live each moment, experience it for what it is and then let it go. All moments, good or bad, will pass. And now I am more accepting of all of my life, including its ultimate end. And I respect each moment of my life more than I used to.

Documenting the Man Theatre Festival

2011-07-25T19:27:00.000+08:00

I have spent much time taking publicity or production photographs for various performing arts groups in Singapore. And I am happy that there are other photographers stepping up to take on this work. But due to the tight budget of performing arts groups, documentation of the production process has rarely been done for productions. So I have started to step into the gap and document the process for performing arts groups. I started off this work with Singapore Dance Theatre which is the group I am most associated with. And when I saw the line up for Wild Rice's Man Theatre Festival, I offered to help document the production process. And my offer was accepted to cover the two productions that Wild Rice is preparing for the Festival, The Weight of Silk on Skin and Cooling Off Day. The first play is a Monologue written by Huzir Sulaiman, directed by Claire Wong and performed by none other than the artistic Director of Wild Rice, Ivan Heng. The other play is an ensemble piece by playwright Alfian Sa'at based on the recent landmark Singaporean elections. It boasts a cast of veteran actors like Neo Swee Lin and Peter Sau. It's director, Jo Kukathas also acts in the play.

Even though I have been around performing arts groups so much and so many of my friends are actors, dancers and musicians, I have not really been a witness to the birthing process of plays. I entered the rehearsal building of Wild Rice on Kerbau Road with two rehearsal rooms on the second floor. The first sight that greeted me when I reached the top of the flight of stairs is a table with neat stacks of plastic cups labelled with the names of actors and production crew. And the cups were color co-ordinated for the two productions, red for Cooling off Day and Blue for The Weight of Silk on Skin. An irony to use Red for a play titled 'Cooling' and blue for a play peppered with allusions to hot sex? But I digress. The neatly labelled cups hint at the professionalism of the company. Another hint was the neat list of personnel in each play found in each rehearsal room. Already, you can see that Wild Rice is a focused organization, but not overly so because it is also a creative place.

In the rehearsal room for Cooling off Day, is a chart with the names of characters from the play and next to those characters, the name or names of the actor who would play the character. The rehearsal started later than scheduled when I first arrived, with only the stage manager there. She happened to be a Lasalle graduate whose graduation portrait I had taken. Then old friends arrive, Peter Say, Kheng Hua and Swee Lin. New to me is the actor Najib and the director Jo. The rehearsals started with the actors standing in a group, playing the roles of Singaporeans talking about the elections. Some of them were for the PAP and some were against. The actors read the scripts like they were trying out new clothes, adjusting a line or delivery like one would adjust the sleeves of a new shirt. And the director Jo, coaxing a form out of this ensemble performance. She was clear that the characters had to be distinct from one another so that they would not become a monotonous delivery. And at the same time, both director and actors were aware that the delivery had to be authentic, believable. And I noticed Kheng Hua, shifting with nervous energy while waiting to deliver her lines, not because she was nervous but because this was a way for her to emotionally find resonance with her character.

The playwright Alfian came in half way and sat watching the rehearsal. It was obvious that he enjoyed seeing his characters coming to life. And he was also very much part of the theatrical birthing process, explaining the rationale behind parts of his script and clarifying the characters, many which were based on interviews with real people.

With so much experience in the room, each actor brought a wealth of life to their roles. The process of directing was not a dictatorship but more like a conductor coaxing the essence out of a well honed orchestra. And even though I knew how talented the people in the room are, I was still astounded by how versatile and malleable they were under the directions.

Entering the rehearsal room for The Weight of Silk on Skin was immediately more intense. A table of four production crew and Ivan sitting on the edge of a seat, running lines. I always wondered about that process of learning lines, almost to the point of dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's. And then it hits me that the effortless delivery of lines, complete with believable character, is akin to a ballerina who makes floating en pointe look effortless. Both are herculean tasks made to look simple. There was no need for anyone to create drama for my camera, this was an actual battle as visceral as any life and death struggle found on National Geographic.

When I later asked Ivan whether remembering lines has become harder or easier, he replies that it has never been easy for him but he has a physical memory of the play. He remembers blocking more easily which helps him remember his lines. And this explains why acting is not simply oration, but an act that requires the whole body.

Claire and HuzirHuzir, experienced professionals, discussed the play on myriad levels, asking questions that I would never have thought to ask. The script writer's intention brought to life by an actor and honed to a razor's edge by the director. And this was no easy script. Huzir is extremely intelligent, his script while on one level being a human drama, is equally full of detail on clothing, fabric production and social anthropology. A heady mix which a new actor would never be able to bring to life. Ivan though, even while struggling with some of the newer lines, was mesmerizing to watch. And Claire was able to keep up with the extent of Ivan's delivery and reshape it. The process was a drama as compelling as the play itself.

More than half way through

2011-05-25T18:46:00.002+08:00

Death is like that big elephant in the room we are all trying to ignore. I did not meet my maternal grandmother. I barely remember my paternal grandmother. I remember that I was very young when I paternal grandfather passed away, and I had no comprehension of life, let alone death. So I knew that something big happened at his funeral, but I did not know what. It was only my maternal grandfather, whom I had any interaction with. And I was a little sad when he passed away, but my life had barely begun. There was education ahead of me, a career and the rest of life. Mortality in a civilized country like Singapore, was just not something to dwell on for a young person. And it would seem that anyone who is alive, simply does not want to think about it. When I first started working as a photographer, I worked with the Tsao Foundation to document old folks. And in spite of the fact that old folks in Singapore are relatively well taken care off, and the staff found the images I took hopeful, some outside members of the public were repelled by the images. Was it because I shot in black and white, or is it simply because, healthy people do not want to contemplate the end? I can understand a general public not wanting to see murder victims or people with other terminal illnesses, but age is something we all do. The usage of my images was limited as it was thought that it would not help fund raising.

Well, perhaps while living, we should live for the moment, concentrate on now. But recently my father has suffered a stroke. How do I ignore that? Up until the stroke, everything was under control. After the stroke, his diabetes, high blood pressure, prostrate, sodium levels, all part of a fragile machinery, become issues. I must say that my dad has done pretty well health wise, but at eighty, I guess it was inevitable that his body starts to deteriorate. Now this was no longer my grandfather, this is my father, the foundation of my family. And even though this stroke was relatively minor and he is slowly recovering, this has shaken me. I have just read the book 'My stroke of Insight', where the author had a massive stroke on the left hemisphere of her brain. The left side is the logical side and the author had found in the right hemisphere an inner peace. Ironically for my father, a long time meditator and all round calm person, his minor stroke was in the right hemisphere. He is unable to meditate and he has become emotional. In this sense, the anchor of my family, has become unstuck, keeping calm in the family now requires large amounts of paddling. And in some small way, I have already lost my father. He is still here for sure, and his actions and his words still come through, but things will just never be the same again.

And if my eighty year old father suffering an illness is expected, then the real wake up call is that a couple of my friends have stomach cancer. Fortunately they have been able to treat their cancers, but this is no longer a distant possibility. I do remember hearing that a college friend of mine dying of a heart attack in her twenties. But this was an unfortunate congenital condition. It was an 'accident' in the sense that it was out of the norm. However, it is now obvious that death walks amongst us, amongst the people of my age group. We cannot take our health for granted. I went to have a check up on my eyes, finding that I had become long sighted and I got these headaches. I was worried of having a stroke, but I was told that it was normal for people past their forties to become long sighted. The truth is that the descent has begun. This not a morbid thought, it is not something to panic about, it is simply a fact. It is a fact that we are mortal.

Contemplating the end is a sobering thought. I guess worrying about how my life will unravel at the end can be the stuff of night mares, but that is a wasted effort. Knowing that I am mortal is actually a good thing. It makes me treasure life and it is making me think hard about my priorities. The important thing is not to let morbid fear paralyze me. I may or may not have a pleasant ending, worrying about it will not change it. But right here, right now, I have choices to be made. When we are young, we have an abundance of energy and no experience. We can try many things out, aim for the peaks of many distant mountains and afford to hit a few dead ends. At this point of time, I have to decide what is important. Why should I get out of bed in the morning, and just what mountain do I want to scale? Heck, is it even worth scaling a mountain?

In my own experience, just what is it that matters? Fame, like winning awards or having millions of social network likes, is fleeting. Pleasures of the flesh, intense as they can be, are transient. Past a certain level, money has diminishing returns. It really is not the end points that matter, the place where things can be tabulated. For a while now, the photographs that I have been taking are not as important as the process of taking them. Take for example, my overland journey in 2010. Having the photographs from the journey is nice, and I do want to exhibit them. But it was the journey, that counted. The act of going from country to country, meeting new people and experiencing new sights. It was for me a way to experience life fully. To keep engaged in being human and understand what other humans are experiencing. I am continuing my photography now, but it is not the photographs that are my aim, but the experiences and insights that I gain from the process of creating them. Why do I make some photographs, what is the process of making them, what does it mean? What can I share with other people with my photography? The same goes with my relationships. I am not interested in being with the in crowd. I do not want to be seen in a certain way. I am not looking for networking opportunities. I am looking for quality time with my friends and family, ways of sharing and making life richer by weaving bridges of understanding. I want to share the good and the bad.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that I realize that I have to live my life to the fullest so that I will have no regrets at the end. And living life to the full is not some big fancy thing, but it really is simply being engaged in the act of living. I want to keep pushing as much as I am able to, but it is more focussed. I am no longer blasting off like a shot gun, but I am a sniper, with a specific target. Mortality is not good or bad, it is a fact. We all just have to deal with it. I know that I am probably more than half way through.

Making a stand

2010-11-25T12:30:00.000+08:00

Those who know me or have read my bio somewhere would know that I consider myself an accidental photographer. I did not start with a burning desire to take photographs, I was just like the normal tourist photographer, taking photos on holidays for some memories. But my love of dance and that need to record my love of dance was the reason I became a better photographer. It was a pleasure, an act of love.

In my pursuit of a certain form of beauty in dance, I set up a studio, and ran a business for eight years till I finally put on my exhibition 'Dance Me Through the Dark'. I had to learn studio lighting and work on many dance projects to get to my goal. I shot for performing arts groups which is natural for what I wanted to do. But I also became a wedding photographer, a corporate photographer and even did some commercial jobs. And in running a business, I had to manage staff, promote myself, keep the office running. It was draining all round but it was a good learning experience that I do not regret doing. But the truth is that I did not enter photography to run a business. Photography, because of my love of dance, was an exploration of a personal passion. A very simple, naive ideal.

This year, I made a long term dream come through by traveling overland from Singapore to Europe. Due to various circumstances, I had to use air travel in certain parts of the journey, but this was still without a doubt a journey of a lifetime for me. And after years of putting energy into running a business and training myself, I was not just having a holiday, I was pondering what is the most important thing in life and what am I doing with the resources I have?

What the journey through so many countries taught me is that there is beauty and there is hope in the world. Even in the harsh country of Mongolia, that last winter suffered a winter so cold it wiped out one quarter of their livestock, the people persevered. And when I talked to the Mongolians, they were proud of their country, they loved it. When I told my guide that Mongolia is a harsh country, she said 'Yes, but it is beautiful'. And I met other people, other friends who through adversity still hope and still love. And the most important thing is that people stay true to themselves or what they are.

As much as I have grown in running a photography business, there is no love in it for me. I hope for nothing here. There is no love, fewer learning experiences and not enough money to tempt me into prostituting myself. It was clear that the past way of doing things was not something to return to. But knowing not to go back does not mean knowing how to go forward.

Although my goal for many years of capturing the beauty of dance had led me to produce work that I am proud of, I also learned new things in craft and had a deepening understanding of photography. I grew up. It was apparent after Dance Me Through the Dark, that there can be more depth in my personal work. The beauty of Dance is an ivory tower, worth ascending to, but cut off from the rest of the human experience. And damn it, what was once an adrenalin rush, had become an exercise. After achieving my goal, I was empty and lost in the wilderness. There is no other way to describe it.

And then one year in Tuscany, I took a workshop with Anders Peterson. He forced me to stop hiding behind my camera. He forced me to accept my own feelings of happiness, sadness, love, the animal instincts. Photography is secondary to living. It is like the ability to walk, useless unless there is a place one needs to walk to. And this meeting inspired me to try a revolution. To explore the fringes of society looking for a more raw, visceral experience. But after two years of searching for a way into this other world, I realised that this was unnatural for me. I simply do not belong in that world coming from a comfortable family background. And I simply do not have what it takes to become part of an alternative society. I got a wonderful hint from Anders about the possibilities of life and photography, but I still had to find my own path.

I think that I understood deep inside me what I needed to do. Actually Anders did say to me that my path could be a fusion of dance and raw experience. Before my long overland journey, I had already started a project called Night Song. I was trying to express the longings, moments of happiness and periods of sad loneliness while working with dancers. On this long journey I did a detour back to Tuscany and took a workshop with Arno Minkkinen and I did a series of images about the importance of dance and freedom to my life. And it worked. The slowly welling conviction in me became clear. I would use dance and photography to explore my own personal life. And I can also use dance and photography to explore other people's lives and experiences.

Which brings me to now. Now I am refreshed and I am once again excited to make images. And I believe that my new direction will not just help me grow as an image maker, but also as a human being. I am making a stand now, I am going to concentrate on personal work. I will not go back to corporate, wedding or family portraiture. It hinders me. I will still shoot for arts groups and artists though. They are like my family and they are also my collaborators in my personal work. But time is becoming precious to me and the most important thing in my life is to live my life fully.

Carpe Diem!

A quote from Paolo Roversi

2010-06-22T17:25:00.000+08:00

My studio is a rectangular room with a high ceiling, old wooden parquet flooring, and a large window facing north. It is like a tiny theatre with an empty stage, a space to be filled, a time yet to be invented, a proscenium where everything is possible, no trick disallowed, where neither seasons, nor days, not hours exist. Here all temporal boundaries dividing live and imitation, reality and fiction, dissolve. Like any art worthy of the name, the most brazen lie can evolve into surprising and seductive truth. The furnishings are modest: two stools, a carport, some chairs, two or three lights, and an old blanket, which is my favorite backdrop. It can be a wall, a road, a field, sky, night, fear, wind… a screen for dreams. The studio is not only in this room; it is anywhere I put my camera on my tripod and my tripod on the ground, liberating my heart and mind. The studio is far more than a workplace or a tool of my trade. It is above all a state of being and feeling. The studio is everywhere. It is the corner of my mind. I have a very mystic and spiritual approach to photography, which I can't explain, and I don't need to. I like to keep things unrevealed, I like sometimes to lose myself into the indefinite. That often happens to me along the path of beauty, without every truly understanding where to proceed, and the further I manage to see, the deeper the mystery becomes. Photography goes beyond the limits of reality and illusion. It brushes up against another life, another dimension, revealing not only what is there but was is no there. Every photograph is an encounter, an intimate, reciprocal confession. I like long exposures to allow the should all the time it needs to rise to the surface, and to let chance have its way. Always, photographs surprise me; they never turn out quite the way I imagine they might. Every photograph enters the world as a sign of hope. It is late, very late. Everyone has left, and a strange silence has descended. I wander aimlessly around the deserted studio trying to bring some order to ideas and objects, but the natural and permanent chaos exerts its power. I put on my jacket, turn out the light, and close the door. But where does the light go? Silence… Darkness is the light's silence.

Paolo Roversi

Variegated Realities

2010-02-19T23:15:00.003+08:00

A project by Students from Nanyang Technological University.
20-25 February 2010

http://afexhibitions.blogsome.com/2010/02/12/variegated-realities/

This exhibition is on on for 5 days! But it is worth seeing to see what thoughtful and engaging work is about. I think the photographers, who are young, can do with more living. But I like the honesty in their work.

There is an exhibition on at Orchard Central, which I think will appeal to the mass audience, but I found really boring. Pretty pictures, but forgettable.

Daniel Murtagh, photographer

2010-02-07T14:30:00.003+08:00

Daniel Murtagh, photographer

I Wish..

2010-02-05T12:37:00.002+08:00

Image by Saul Leiter

I got a thank you postcard and a gift of a Saul Leiter book in the post today. This is from Joyce Ho, a photographer with a love for plants. Last year, I had talked to her about some questions she had about work.

I do not know why, but young photographers have started to look to me for advice. And quite often, it is about how to survive as a photographer in Singapore. This bothers me, because I have not figured a way to survive in Singapore as a photographer unless you like commercial work, wedding or photojournalism. Oh yes, you can be an art photographer and teach too. But photography in Singapore is not for the faint-hearted. As easy as it is to buy a camera and call oneself a photographer, living off a camera is hard. Yes, it is possible if you really are truly the top of your field and can market yourself effectively. I know a few good photographers who are sinking in Singapore because they are not willing to market themselves or have not found someone to market themselves.

I was talking to my friend Chris Yap about that. He simply told me that if people wanted to earn a living from photography, then they are in it for the wrong reason. And it struck me, that it is not for me to get people to survive in this tough circumstance. The photographers that survive do it because they love it, the live photography, they breath photography. I have very little advice for working in Singapore, beyond polishing one's photography and effectively marketing yourself. In this age of photographic democracy, one needs to work like a dog to distinguish one's self. If the practices of a photographer is uneconomic, then the photographer will not remain a photographer for long. Just so you know, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Diane Arbus, all legendary names in photography were relatively poor in their lifetimes. There are a handful of commercial photographers like Avedon who made a decent living from their work, and some German school art photographers that command incredible amounts of money for their images. But it is like the lottery, we idolize the winner, but there are thousands and thousands of people who did not win the lottery.

The purpose of my photography is not to make money, it is because I have images in me that need to get out. I do not take pictures, pictures take me, I am like an instrument. But to enable for the images I make to come out, I find some way to survive. And it is not glamorous, and it is not easy. And always, it is an intensely personal journey, something that cannot be taught. So at the end of the day, all I can be is like an alcoholic, sharing his story with others in Alcoholics Anonymous. All there is is to affirm that photographers before me have walked this difficult route, my own route has been difficult, and it is on par if a new photographer has a difficult route. But the rewards, the sights that a photographer is privileged to see, is beyond the wealth that money can buy. And I find that if photography is used to make human bridges, the relationships made are more comfortable than any material comfort.

Photography is secondary to living

2010-02-02T17:36:00.000+08:00

Photography is secondary to living

This is an interview I had with the fotoflock web site.

After ten years

2010-01-22T18:13:00.004+08:00

I am still looking forward and that tends to make me dismiss all my work that has come before. But someone has asked me about my work and I had to look back at what I have done. And I guess that I am happy that I took these photos.

Photographic Exhibitions in Singapore in January

2010-01-16T20:29:00.005+08:00

There is a lot going on in terms of photographic exhibitions this month.

-----

To begin with there is a photography of German Dance Photography at the Goethe Institute.It is interesting how German photographer's work always looks more raw and technically simple, but actually is of the highest order.

Movements Frozen in Time. An Exhibition of Dance Images

Photo Exhibition
14.01.2010 - 27.02.2010
Monday-Friday 9am-6.30pm
Saturday 1pm-6pm
Goethe-Institut Singapore, Art Gallery
163 Penang Road #05-01
Winsland House II
Singapore 238463
Free admission
+65 67354555

-----

I have not seen this yet but I really want to before it ends. This is part of the M1 Fringe Festival.

Last Meals
by Jonathon Kambouris
07.01.2010 - 24.01. 2010
5.45am - 12.15am
Esplanade Tunnel

-----

This is a nice and fresh exhibition in a new exhibition space. Apparently this is an exhibition of six photographers who are showing their work for their first time. It includes award winning photographers Elaine Lim and John Heng. The other photographers are Fusheng, Genevieve Ding, Nicholas Foo and Wong King Leong.

I met the curator, Nicholas Foo, who is new to photography but very enthusiastic. He calls himself a noob and has his work on the wall too as the owners of the gallery asked him to put up his work. He tried shooting dinner for the photographers who were gallery sitting, Fusheng and King Leong. I passed him a paper napkin to soften his flash. Amusing yeah?

Anyway, I enjoyed it because the images were fresh and unpretentious. I hope to see more work from these photographers, including the noob curator!

my|4-walls: more than just a photo exhibition

17.01.2010 - 21.01.2010
Muse The Art Gallery

-----

Objetifs is having the regular student exhibition, BUD. Some of my students from the Portraits as Drama class have the photos up. Well done boys and girls.

BUD
14.01.2010-12.02.2010
Objeticfs Centre for Photography and Filmmaking

------

I guess that since I am plugging other people's exhibitions that I should plug my own. I have a mini exhibition of male nudes at a gay bar, Does Your Mother Know. It is 10 photos of dancer Robert Mills who was until recently dancing for Singapore Dance Theatre. The exhibition is on till after Chinese New Year.

Paolo Roversi

2010-01-11T18:06:00.003+08:00

I have been waiting for Paolo Roversi's web site to be up for a long time. And it finally is. Paolo just takes some of the most beautiful photographs.

Go to www.paoloroversi.com.

At this time

2010-01-08T20:33:00.005+08:00

I have not been blogging much in 2009. I would like to have done more and have more to share, but the last year was a year of pleasantly getting by. The biggest change came at the end of 2008 when I let go of most of my staff. 2009 just drifted by for me. I did continue shooting for performing arts groups and families. The highlight being the photography for the Genee International ballet competition. I also rented the studio out. That was a blast when the British Council staged An Interview with Adrienne in my studio. And I also rented the studio out to Steve McCurry to run his workshop during the month of photography. And I taught quite a lot in 2009. The highlight of the teaching was having a noise apprentice, Guo Jie. I saw something special in the way he sees things and I hope that I managed to help in connect that seeing with life more.

With the world financial crisis, the feet have been knocked out from under the photographic industry. This is not an independent thing, photography all over the world has been undergoing a democratic revolution, moving from the domain of specialised professionals to the ubiquity of everyone taking photos on their phone, the computer or their mp3 player. Being a professional photographer, with the exception of the top end commercial photographers, is an extremely difficult way to make money. I went back to being a freelancer for personal reasons, but if I had kept my company large in 2009, I would have been forced by circumstances to let my staff go, and the whole experience would have been much more painful. As illogical as it may sound, 2009, without a major plan, without large corporate shoots, was the best financial year for me. Lots of people look only at the potential earnings, but forget the overheads. Without large overheads, lower paying jobs, teaching and rental all add up. So I have found a way to survive in this environment. And I have freed myself up to pursue my own vision.

The greatest challenge before me is not a financial one but a personal one. I have been inspired by Anders Peterson to live life more, and not live life behind the camera. But my life is mundane, and the pictures are not that compelling. I do think though the photos that I have been taking with my iphone have their charm. The challenge for me has been how to live life better.

Although 2009 was not a hectic year, I still had too much to do. It was hard to find space to re-orientate myself. This year, 2010, I am making a personal dream come through. I am taking 8 months off and traveling overland to London. I am already sure that it will be a unique journey for me and it will be a wonderful experience. But I think the point of the trip is not to find new vistas, it is to find myself.

This is what I think that the world community has to do too in these extraordinary times. Instead of going back to the old paradigm of capitalist consumerism, which is leading us to an irreparable environmental crisis, the world needs to find in self again, in community and in simple pleasures of life. I hope we find ourselves, before we are lost for ever.

Between Heaven and Earth by Cristina Garcia Rodero

2009-12-25T21:16:00.003+08:00

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/between-heaven-and-earth

I cannot embed this video because it is too big. But it is beautiful.

Miru Kim's Underground art

2009-11-27T00:55:00.000+08:00

Demonstrations from Portraits as Visual Drama

2009-11-26T19:32:00.002+08:00

I teach a lighting course for Objectifs called 'Portraits as Visual Drama'. Here are a couple of demonstration shots from my last course. Yes, the fun crazy last course.

"Living with..." set up

2009-11-20T16:27:00.003+08:00

So we were at Vivocity last night setting up the "Living with..." exhibition. The exhibition looks good if I say so myself.

Living with...

2009-11-07T13:10:00.002+08:00

An Arts Against Aids Photographic exhibition
20-29 Nov 2009
Vivocity
South Avenue

This is a project that I have been working on for since the beginning of the year. And finally there will be an exhibition of photographs of people living with HIV. It has been an enriching experience. And I think that there is a nice range of photographs by eleven different photographers.

I have to thank AFA for giving me this opportunity to work on this project. And I also need to thank the photographers that helped out with teaching and mentoring, Hui Fen, Hui May, Maye-e, Terence, Luke and Bryan.

The photographer demonstrates

2009-11-05T12:53:00.003+08:00

Caught in my demo mode. I was shooting for a new line of yoga wear named Om Republic. The model is Ginny Gan, a dancer from SDT.

Thanks Irvin for catching me unawares!

Todd Hido

2009-10-26T10:57:00.003+08:00

Landscapes, interiors and nudes. A walk through the mind of Todd Hido.

Naked without an iphone and other thoughts

2009-10-19T17:22:00.005+08:00

I have not been posting many new entries for about half a year now. This is because I am in transition. I downsized my photography business and became a freelancer. On the career front, I have been working for various arts groups and doing personal portraits and this has turned out well for me, meaning that I am finanacially viable. As for personal work, I have been trying to find a new direction. I want to find a project where I learn more about the lives of other people. To this end I have been working with various organisations to teach photography and also to meet different people whom may be interesting to photograph, but nothing has really come up yet. But I have been reading and learning a lot and the iphone has become a very interesting means of self expression.

After being a professional photographer for so many years, picture quality has always been an issue for me. I never thought that at 2 megapixel camera on the iphone would be a sufficient tool for me and the initially the images coming out of the iphone tended to be washed out. However, the program Camera Bag changed my entire viewpoint of the iphone camera. There are several filters in Camera Bag but the one that I like the best is called Helga, which replicates the effect of a Holga camera. The results from the Helga filter is a square image which vignetted and the contrast increased, the results are simply lovely. The usefulness of such a camera was still in question because I did not know how well the images printed. I printed some test images onto A4 paper and was blown away. I suspect that I can also print my iphone images onto A3 but for the type of work that I am shooting with the iphone, A4 is actually just what I want. Those people who are my friends on Facebook will know that I am obsessed with iphone photography, I have uploaded about 700 images there. On flickr, you can see a small selection of my iphone images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngiapheng/sets/72157622141813198/.

On a recent trip to Europe, even though I was carrying around the very competent Olympus E-P1 around with me, the raw mood produced by the iphone was what I wanted time and again. There were times where I wanted to take an image full of detail, under low light or needing a longer lens (the iphone is effectively a wide angle lens) where I took out the E-P1, but 95% of the time I was whipping out the iphone. In its basic control, its direct response to a scene, there was an immediacy, a freedom that let me take personal images as I was living life. I was not 'stopping' my journey to take the photograph, making an image with the iphone was part of the exploration, part of the journey.

Now I am back in Singapore and I am in reservists. And as I am not allowed to bring in a telephone with a camera to camp, I feel naked. There is something missing for me. Which brings be to the next point.

I have heard some people comment that photographers are not really 'there' in a situation, that instead of experiencing what is happening they are pre occupied with the photography. And there is truth in that. I mean, what are people doing touring 10 countries in seven days. How does a person interact with a country or a culture in this short space of time? In this situation, what is a photograph? Is it an experience or is it a trophy, a tick on some travel checklist? So there is obviously a case for photography becoming a barrier to a exprience. And the irony is that one can become more and more involved with the technicality of photography, the sharpness, the amount of detail, and in this become more and more detached from the situation, the experience. As Anders Peterson puts it, a photographer hides behind his camera.

I think that my experience with personal photography right now comes from a different place. There still is commercial work where the camera is a tool for creating images to a brief and in that sense is impersonal. But I am a visual person, that is how I primarily interact with the world. I am constantly looking at things, seeing shapes, color and light. The outside visual experience has an intense impact on my emotions and my emotions has a strong impact on how I interpret outside visual experience. I am intensely curious by everyman, the daily concerns, the daily communications, the joy and pain of living. As a human, part of a small group of life who has self-conciousness and cognisance of death, I try in my own way to reconcile life and death. I am interested in how others traverse this journey from cradle to grave, the lows of human depravity, the highs of human potential and the spectrum of experience in between. So for me, what I see is a constant search for evidence of the human experience. Photography is much more than a visual token for me. It is the way I interact and interpret the world. And writers do this with their writing, musicians do that with their music, artists do this with whatever medium they work in. The sum of an artists' work is not and should not be the craft in their art. An artists' work should be the sum of their thoughts, their lives and their expriences. Good craft enables them to express all that in their art work. And good art will not just prompt the audience to appreciate the craft, although there is a portion of that, it should be a life changing experience for the audience in some way. It is the sharing of human experience.

So other than my iphone pictures, I have not been taking many photographs. But this does not mean that it has been an empty time for me. I have been going for French classes, I have been meeting various people and I have been reading. Recently I have read the biography of Diane Arbus, 'Why God won't go away', 'Norwegian' Wood by Harukami, 'Outliers' by Malcom Gladwell and I am in the midst of 'The Stuff of Thought' by Steven Pinker. I have been visiting galleries and not only enjoying the artwork of great artists, but also learning about what motivated them and how they lived their lives. And at this point, living life is what is important. Personal photography is not an end in itself, it simply is part of my life.

Quotes from an exhibition

2009-10-03T05:31:00.001+08:00

I went to an exhibition at the Leopold museum and saw these wonderful quotes.

For him, there were no empty hours, no hours that were mere bridges spanning to richer ones ahead, and nothing that lay worthless along his path, nothing he could pass by as a stranger. All things had turned their countenances towards him, were there for his sake, and he was incapable of detaching their fate from his own.
And more than that, he had only sought himself in all things and in all things only found himself.

Richard Beer-Hofman, The Death of George, 1900.

I will never, and certainly never under this administration, participate in an official exhibit... I want to free myself. I want my freedom back from all these unedifying and ridiculous matters which only keep me from my work. I want to stand up against the cavalier way artistic matters are dealt with by the Ministry of Education in the Austrian state. Every opportunity is taken to discourage real art and real artists. Only the weak and the false get sponsored. We need a clearly defined separation. The state has no right to act like a patron of the arts when its hand-outs are paltry, nor does it have the right to dictate what gets exhibited and under what terms. Its only duty is to act as intermediary and commercial factor; otherwise it is to leave all matter concerning artistic initiatives completely to artists. The civil servant has no business in the art schools..."

Gustav Klimt commenting on how his paintings for a university hall were rejected in 1905

Meaning is found solely by him who seeks it.
Into one another flow dream and waking,
Truth and falsehood. Certainty is nowhere.
We know naugh o others, nor of ourselves.
We are forever at play - he who knows that is the wiser!

Arthur Schnitzler, "Paracelsus", 1898

The awareness of visions is not just a state of mind
in which one realizes and perceives things,
but a state of mind where conscience perceives itself.

Oskar Kokoschka, "On the Nature of Visions", lecture 1912

What is important

2009-09-27T06:34:00.005+08:00

I just finished reading the biography of Diane Arbus and her life is so fascinating and tragic. But it highlighted the truth of how difficult it is to have a career in photography, or arts in general. The biography revealed how difficult it is for even established photographers to make living. But what struck me was a statement she made to her students in the last class she taught, "Nobody is going to love your pictures like yourself".

This statement is so close to home for me. My dance photography has always been in an uneasy niche. It is too polished, too technical to be in the realm of art photography. It is too raw, too instinctual to be commercial. The pursuit of dance photography has been a solitary pursuit for me in Singapore, only appreciated by a small group of people who love dance themselves.

And now, as I search for new horizons in my work, I have been working on personal research. I have been trying to search for a greater insight into the life of everyman, to create the work that would demand the attention of other people. But in this pursuit, I have not been successful. It could be early days yet.

However, what appears to be an insignificant toy in photographic terms, the iphone camera, has been an obsession with me. The iphone does not take good photos in general, the exposure and contrast is off. But when images are filtered using the Helga filter in a program called camera bag, the iphone images mimic the effect of a Holga camera. And the images print very nicely onto an A4 piece of paper.

On a certain level, the images that I take on the iphone are eye-candy. With respect to the drama of human existence and its tragedies, the images are insignificant. But for me, the iphone has become a constant companion, a way for me to comprehend, interact and transact with the life I live. My iphone photos are a very personal vision of my life. And in as much as I am a human, an everyman, these iphonographs reveal my honest alchemy with the world in which I live. So I lead a relatively good life, at the present moment with personal strife or danger and relatively sedate, but it is my life. And I am absolutely enjoying the beauty, the humour, the textures of the things that I have been fortunate enough to come across. Like a friend told me recently, I do not need to be a drug addict to take good photographs... or in other words I do not need to lead a dysfunctional life to make art.

I do appreciate more and more the life I have and I live it more intensely. But I am beginning to realise that I cannot, should not and will not court the forbidden or the dangerous, just to take more impactful photographs. It would be well and good if I did live a life full of human drama, but to purposefully, unnaturally, add drama where there is none, would be deceitful and self-serving.

Even with its limited appeal, I am proud of my dance images. And even if some of the images that I now take on my iphone seems too pretty and superficial, I must protest that they are still the results of my relentless, dogged pursuit of life. And as I make no apologies for living my life well, I will also make no apologies for the overt prettiness of my images. For if you look at all of them, you will see that as a whole, I am constantly exploring what it means to be alive, what it means to grow old and die, what does it mean to remember living and what does it mean to forget.

So often photographers are under the illusion that they choose the images that they take, but the truth is that the images choose us. One photographer may love another photographers work, but each photographer will still have his or her own way of taking a photograph.

So to me, Diane Arbus was so right to say that "Nobody is going to love your pictures like yourself."

Analogue appeal in a digital age

2009-08-29T02:08:00.000+08:00

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Analogue appeal in a digital age

The rebirth of Polaroid film? I love dreamers.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand captures fragile Earth in wide-angle

2009-08-18T23:00:00.000+08:00

An essay on Participatory photography and its merits

2009-08-06T23:53:00.000+08:00

Participatory photography – Jack of all trades, master of none? « The Rights Exposure Project

An essay on the usage of images in Activism

2009-08-06T23:18:00.000+08:00

“We have no right to walk into another’s suffering” – Raghu Rai on Bhopal, the demise of the ‘Truth’, and the future of the photojournalistic aesthetic

Ballet Under The Stars

2009-07-13T10:55:00.003+08:00

I have shot a lot of publicity for Singapore Dance Theatre, but this is one image I am particularly happy with.

Michael Kenna Photography

2009-07-09T18:44:00.002+08:00

Michael Kenna Photography

I was at Riceball, the photographic book store, and I was introduced to Michael Kenna's work by Ling Zhong. It is not often nowadays that a photographer's work is strong enough to grab my attention so strongly, but Kenna's work did. And it had no death, no sex, it was just simply beautiful.

Gone City: Photography must die

2009-07-08T01:22:00.000+08:00

Gone City: Photography must die

The middle of this year

2009-07-07T23:28:00.004+08:00

Slimming down my company to just me and part-time staff last year was something that had to be done. Accepting that the type of corporate portraiture that I wanted to pursue as a career in Singapore was not viable was logical, but nonetheless disappointing.

So what has happened this year? I have continued to shoot for the performing arts and personal portraits. I have also been teaching more for Objectifs. And people, photographers and others, have been renting parts of my studio from me. There is much less structure in my life than the last three years, but it has turned out to be more financially viable. I don't think I could support a family on what I am earning, but it is better than being in the red like I was in the last three years. Just as well I don't have a family to support.

That being said, life has become much more interesting. I now have the time to study French. There was a British play and Steve McCurry's workshop in my studio. I have been able to meet up with friends more and watch more movies than I used to be able to. Things that I could not have done if I was running a business like I used to.

But what is moving me now is living life more. I am helping Action for Aids with a project to help people living with HIV to express their viewpoints with photography. I am also going teach photography at the Girl's home this coming Saturday. I have not been taking photographs in these projects, but I am getting to know people who lead different lives from mine. I hope that sharing what I know of photography, will enable some people to express themselves better and in that way I will learn more about the human condition in general. I hope to work with even more diverse people, and maybe somewhere along the line, I will find something and start shooting again. Well, shooting for myself anyway. I still shoot professionally. I just don't do corporate shoots so much.

My life is a lot less stressful than it used to be. My own ambitions are not so big, but I think my quality of life has improved tremendously. It is enriched by the new friends that I have made, and the new insights I have had into the human condition.

I got this off my friend, Sean Tobin's, facebook profile and like it a lot. I believe it is a bible quote.

"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing...."

The Online Photographer: The Worst Photograph Ever Made

2009-07-03T14:41:00.004+08:00

The Online Photographer: The Worst Photograph Ever Made

Jamie Livingston's Photo Of the Day

2009-07-03T14:36:00.000+08:00

Jamie Livingston's Photo Of the Day

The collected work of photographer and filmmaker Jamie Livingston has been posted online as a public exhibit titled "PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997, 6,697 Polaroids, dated in sequence." The photographer took a Polaroid picture virtually every day for eighteen years-using a Polaroid SX-70! A commemorative exhibit opened in 2007 at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College, where the project was initiated, and the collection can be viewed at the online tribute, "Some Photos of That Day" (link below). Note: In his final days, the photographer was married despite his failing health. The final month of images is haunting, yet achingly beautiful.

Art Against Aids 2009 - Living with HIV

2009-06-28T23:47:00.003+08:00

I am helping Action For Aids run a photographic workshop for people living with Aids. There are two parts to this workshop, the first part is a basic photographic workshop. This video is a sample of the images submitted by the participants.

We are now embarking on the second phase in which the participants will be working on personal projects to show life from their perspective. We just had a session where the participants put forward their project ideas and it sounds very exciting. I think we are all looking forward to the results of the personal project.

We are looking for an exhibition venue for this project in November.

Clay Enos doing street portraits

2009-06-28T02:35:00.001+08:00

I don't like the framing of his portraits, but I love the energy of what he is doing.

Kodak ending KODACHROME run after 74 years, still can't get that Paul Simon song out of its head

2009-06-23T00:03:00.000+08:00

Kodak ending KODACHROME run after 74 years, still can't get that Paul Simon song out of its head

Life goes on, but something in me cries.

Olympus E-P1 Hands-on Preview: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

2009-06-16T23:59:00.004+08:00

Olympus E-P1 Hands-on Preview: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

I do not usually get turned on by equipment nowadays, but this must be the most sexy piece of equipment I have seen in a long time.

Ralph Gibson

2009-06-08T17:36:00.001+08:00

Albert Watson interview

2009-06-08T16:41:00.002+08:00

Paolo Roversi

2009-06-08T16:39:00.002+08:00

A very short video of Paolo Roversi talking.

BBC - Viewfinder: Iconic moments

2009-06-04T00:00:00.000+08:00

BBC - Viewfinder: Iconic moments

The picture editor of BBC News web site, Phil Coomes, has a blog on iconic images from the world of photojournalism. In this entry, he talks about the Farm Security Agency which had photographic greats Walker Evans and Dorethea Lange.

Portraits as Visual Drama

2009-06-02T01:06:00.011+08:00

I had a really good class of students in the Portraits as Visual Drama course I just finished teaching. I am so in two minds about continuing this course. I think that people enjoy the course, but it is hard to find knowledgeble assistants to help run this course.

Anyway, I liked to share some of the student work.

Brandon D'Cruz

Brandon D'Cruz

Carolyn Hall

Carolyn Hall

Tan Cheng Yee

Jean Loo

Jean Loo

Jean Loo

Kong Sing Teck

Mark Foo

Mark Foo

Rob Spence

Rob Spence

Rob Spence

Vivien Tan

Vivien Tan

Zurina Bryant

Zurina Bryant

Zurina Bryant

The irony of the Gay and Lesbian conspiracy theory

2009-05-15T00:52:00.007+08:00

The irony of some Christians claiming that the gays and lesbians have a hidden agenda to promote gay and lesbianism. As if it were that easy. I interact with gays quite often and I am still heterosexual. That being said, I have a lot of Christian friends and some have tried their darnest to convert me, and I am more atheist than ever.

But more to the point, we who are of Chinese, Indian and Malay descent, what are the beliefs of our forefathers? Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and other religions like that. Where did Christianity originate from, Israel? How did this 'foreign' religion spread across the world? If the early missionaries simply preached the word of God, they would have probably been ignored or worse, physically abused. So what happened? The missionaries opened schools, to teach English, mathematics and Science. Yes, this transfer of knowledge is good. But they ran the schools and they preached, they cajoled, they evangelised the word of God. They offered us much needed knowledge, but they were not neutral on their beliefs, far from it.

The fundamentalists Christians believe that the earth is only 6000 years old. We had farming civilisations in India and China 10000 years ago. In the old testament, the believers had to make sacrifices to their God for salvation. In the new testament, Jesus formed a new covenant and he was the way, the only way, to heaven. Well, our poor forefathers, who in their belief of Confucius, or Shiva or some other God, are doomed to hell. If there is a Christian hell, and we end up there, we have several civilisations worth of company, including Buddha, Confucius, Mencius and many Hindu saints whom I am afraid I cannot name.

The conversion of Chinese, Indian and Malays and other people like Native American Indians, has caused much personal grief within families. I have seen a lot of friction caused by the younger people converting to Christianity. And in the religious intolerance of the converted, that they are not even willing to respect their own parents' belief that is sad. For a religion professing love, this intolerance to the parents' beliefs and rituals is frankly disrespect for the elders. What some new converts to Christianity fail to see in their fervor, is that parents with their age old belief in Taoism or Buddhism, raised them and gave them life. In many cases they gave them their education. And in these schools, the evangelicals converted them. Is there no graciousness in the new faith for the parents and elders of their society? The very parents who struggled so that they may live. For a time I was Christian. In my house I said grace and Thanked God for my food. My father was more amused than angry, he told me to thank him because he paid for the food on the table.

And how did these conversions happen? It was an un-hidden, blatant agenda, to convert the youth in educational institutions. And no, it was not neutral. There was no let us consider the major religions and you can decide. It has been in my experience, listen to the 'truth', 'you are a sinner and have to be saved, do you want to rot in hell?'

So to accuse the gays and lesbians of having a hidden agenda is truly hypocrisy of the highest level. There are a few neutral lines on gay and lesbian sex in CSE and so there is a conspiracy? Although I have been hit upon by gays before, I have never heard them tell me that I am sinner for remaining heterosexual. I have never had gays tell me that they have the one and only truth and it is gay. I have not heard of gays and lesbians being intolerant of heterosexuals! I have not seen the gay and lesbian community build a mega church or evangelise their beliefs on banners. Yes, there are gay bars and spas, but they do not bar straight people.

To profess to be a religion of love and to promote such hate. The real irony, is as unnatural as it may seem to conservative Christians, it is the gays and lesbians who are making love.

Month Of Photography Asia

2009-05-11T01:10:00.001+08:00

Month Of Photography Asia

Month of photography is back. Look up the exhibitions and activities at their web site. And yes, Steve McCurry is conducting a workshop in The Pond.

President Bartlet takes on Dr. Jacobs

2009-05-10T13:46:00.000+08:00

catherinelim.sg » Fallout of the Aware saga: A letter to concerned parents

2009-05-08T02:23:00.000+08:00

catherinelim.sg » Fallout of the Aware saga: A letter to concerned parents

Catherine Lim writes an open letter to concerned parents. She says what I would like to say but she is much more eloquent than I am. The responses to her open letter are also interesting reads. I think that homosexuality is not something that will be easily resolved in Singapore. But at least people are now openly talking about their views. This is one good outcome of the AWARE saga.

God vs. Science - TIME

2009-05-06T01:43:00.000+08:00

God vs. Science - TIME

I must admit that I agree with Richard Dawkins on his views. So what surprises me are scientists who still believe in a religion. I think that Francis Collins, puts a good case for one to be an agnostic, to conclude that there may be a god. But I think Collins still fails to convince me why one religion should be favoured above the others.

This article makes and interesting read. And I also like the engagement in discussion and conversation. I think both men put their view points across forcefully, but do not use underhanded methods. There is not hostile takeover of another's organisation. There is no holy war. I think both men's ideals do not rest on the subjugation of other people like some more fundamentalists religious people.

I hope that both atheists and religious people continue to question with integrity and humanism.

10 Tips for Dramatically Improving Your Videojournalism Stories - The Digital Journalist

2009-05-05T23:41:00.000+08:00

10 Tips for Dramatically Improving Your Videojournalism Stories - The Digital Journalist

Not that I want to be a video journalist. But these are good tips for any story telling project.

A victory is not the winning of the war

2009-05-04T01:51:00.003+08:00

I am glad that AWARE has voted out the fanatical Christians. This was NOT a victory for pro gay and pro lesbian lobbies. This was a time when moderate Christians, Muslims, heterosexuals, homosexuals came together as a civil society and said 'no' to power play by a minority group.

However, you can see that Josie Lau, in her belief that homosexuality is a deviant act, is unrepentant over her actions. I think that in the short run, the victory of removing Josie Lau and the Christian exco from AWARE is necessary. But the real work is yet to be done. For Singapore to truly move forward, people of different faiths and beliefs need to start engaging each other in a civic debate. We do not just need to discuss sex, homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research and other controversies in GP class. We need to discuss at every age and in every strata.

I have to talk about the elephant in the room that no one has the guts to talk about. People tell each other that they respect each other's viewpoints, but everyone's religious book is the infallabe, divine truth. Religions are mutually exclusive! And the truth is that to follow the holy books of one religion completely, is to destroy all non-believers.

The ten commandments from the book of Exodus:

11 Observe what I command you today. See, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

12 Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you.

13 You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles

14 (for you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God).

15 You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone among them will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice.

16 And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods.

17 You shall not make cast idols.

18 You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.

19 All that first opens the womb is mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep.

20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.

No one shall appear before me empty-handed.

21 For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in ploughing time and in harvest time you shall rest.

22 You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year.

23 Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.

24 For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.

25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning.

26 The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.

You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

27 The Lord said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.

The irony is that it is secular law, that keeps the peace here. Otherwise we would have an intractable war like the one in the middle-east.

I do not have the answers. But I hope that more people will weigh the price of their beliefs in this day and age. And then decide how to conduct themselves in a multi-racial, multi-religious society. Do we want to give up our peace and economic success for religious and/or racial conflict? Do we want what is happening in Southern Thailand between Muslims and Buddhists? Do we want the bloody civil war that has so scarred Ireland?

People hold their unshakable faith. I hope that the secular government can hold the peace in our country.

Addiction

2009-04-30T01:20:00.003+08:00

Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever substance you are addicted to - alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person - you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate relatioships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. The bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you. Every addition does that. Every addiction reaches a point where it does not work for you anymore, and then you feel the pain more intensely than ever.

- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Help AWARE protect its good work

2009-04-29T15:42:00.000+08:00

Scans see 'gay brain differences'

2009-04-25T00:20:00.002+08:00

BBC NEWS | Health | Scans see 'gay brain differences'

This article in the BBC came out in June. It is an article that details research showing that there are differences in the brains of gay people and heterosexuals. I did not blog about this earlier partly because I am heterosexual and I do not want to appear confrontational to my Christian friends. But the recent hostile take-over of AWARE (a secular feminist organisation in Singapore), by a group of homophobic Christians has prompted me to highlight this article.

Dr Qazi Rahman, a lecturer in cognitive biology at Queen Mary, University of London, said that he believed that these brain differences were laid down early in foetal development.

"As far as I'm concerned there is no argument any more - if you are gay, you are born gay," he said.

I feel that if people were born with their sexual orientation, they should not be discriminated against. If gays and lesbians treat their partners well, then they probably make better couples than heterosexual couples in which one or both partners are philanderers. Sexual orientation is NOT an issue. Basic human decency is the main issue.

I am sure that some Christians, in their belief that their bible is completely infallible will contest this somehow. Just like when they contested that the earth revolves around the sun during the time of Galileo. And just like some Christians who believe that the earth is 6000 years old and disagree with evolution.

I have to speak up and speak out, when fundamentalist Christians take public action over beliefs that run counter to scientific thought. For if we are going to throw away science for writings that were done way before advent of scientific research, then we are turning back the clock to the dark ages.

DEPARTURES - the movie

2009-04-22T23:57:00.000+08:00

DEPARTURES - the movie

I had no idea what to expect from this movie except that I had heard that it was a good movie. I must say that I was really touched. I fear death and I suspect a lot of other people do. But this movie made me think more about not what happens to us when we die, but what do we leave behind. How we conduct ourselves while still alive will reverberate in the lives of the people we will leave behind. How do parents who abandon their young children make amends? How does a parent accept a son who choses to be a woman? Why is death 'dirty' when we will all die one day?

I cried at different points of the movie, reminding myself that I must not forget to appreciate and thank my parents before it is too late. I also reminded myself to keep my life simple and truthful, so that I will leave as little negative energy as possible. And hopefully I will leave a smile for the people whom I will leave behind.

There is so much for the living to learn from death. It is inevitable. It knows no politics, no religion, no race, no age, no wealth.

This is a movie worth sharing.

Scotland police force includes Jedi Knights

2009-04-20T02:30:00.000+08:00

Scotland police force includes Jedi Knights

How a religion starts. :)

A theatrical time

2009-04-10T15:20:00.003+08:00

It is strange how it never rains but it pours. There is a lot of theater in my life recently.

Shot publicity for Ballet Under the Stars for Singapore Dance Theatre
Took production shots of Invisiblity for Lasalle
Watched Destiny of Flower in the mirror (Very theatrical, but too conceptual for me)
Shot publicity for Rashmon for Theatre Practise
Took production shots of 3 Fat Virgins unassembled for Lasalle
Took prodcution shots of Stand still for Lasalle
Watched The Importance of Being Earnest by Wild Rice (Very funny, but not sold on the all male cast)
Will be watching Romeo by Fuiyama Anette tonight.
Will be watching 3 Fat Virgins unassembled tomorrow afternoon.
Will be taking production shots of If There are Seasons next week
Will be taking Percolation for Lasalle next week
Will be taking 69 Degrees Celcius next week

After next week, things slow down but they don't go away. But it is nice to be around such bursts of creativity.

The Arts Festival will start in May and I will be attending some performances then too.

Ansel Adams on visualisation

2009-03-28T01:47:00.002+08:00

The Key to a Photograph from Ansel Adams from SilberStudios.Tv on Vimeo.

I just watched the PBS documentary on Ansel Adams and then came across this clip as well. I think it is worth sharing. It is the important to realise that image making is as much about the inner landscape of the photographer as it is about the outer landscape being photographed.

The Genesis Foundation

2009-03-25T00:46:00.004+08:00

I recently spent two weeks in India. In the second week I was in Kolkata attending a workshop on working with NGOs. The workshop was jointly organised by Changing Ideas and The Toscana Photographic Workshops.

The workshop was taught by Jonathan Torgovnik (photo journalist), Alice Wynne Wilson (Communications director of Action Aid) and Cheryl Newmann (Photography Director of the Telegraph Magazine).

There were 15 photographers in total attending the course. Some of us were assigned to a small charity like mine, Genesis. For some larger charities, like the Calcutta Samaritans, two photographers were assigned to the organisation. There was only one Indian on the course and to help us around Calcutta, each photographer was accompanied by a boy who had been through Future Hope, a home for street children, run by Tim Grandage.

I was assigned the charity, Genesis, which is a drug rehabilitation centre run by ex-addicts. It was started by Tanmoy Bose six years ago with a male rehabilitation centre. Then two years ago they started a women's facility and now they have started a children's facility. The rehabilitation programme is based on the orignial 12 step alcoholics anonymous programme.

We decided to work on a photographic essay exploring addiction and rehabilitation. I was taken to see drug addicts, street children and the various facilities of The Genesis Foundation. The closest I have come to drugs is space cake in Amsterdam, so this was a truly eye-opening experience for me. I learnt from not only what I saw but also from the ex-addicts I met.

I learnt that addiction knows no class boundaries. Street children living rough to well-educated people from respectable backgrounds can get addicted. But the drugs brings the addicts together eventually. And the addicts, especially those who inject heroin, are supsceptable to diseases like aids. And street children, who start off by sniffing cheaply available glue can graduate to brown sugar (Indian heroin), in a year.

I also found that many of the addicts were not so different from normal people I meet, facing their own problems. We all have addictions, and the line between a substance addict and a normal person is very fine.

Although the experience I had with Genesis was life changing, the organisation of the workshop by Changing Ideas could have been better. The research and the organisation of the workshop was not well done. Various people had their own issues. On my part, I could only start on my project two days late because Genesis was away on a beach holiday. Other photographers started work on Monday and had five shooting days, I had three. I have been to many workshops organised by the Toscana Photographic Workshops, and they were much more organised than this. I think that all the participants agreed that this was a great idea for a workshop, but the actual implementation was not well considered.

On the bright side, I think I did manage to capture some compelling images for Genesis. I would like to thank Tanmoy Bose, his wife Mridula Bose, Simon Beddo and Hubert Routh for making me welcome in their organisation. I would also like to thank my future hope guide, Sonu Kumar. He is going to become a great chef one day.

Of to India

2009-03-07T23:39:00.002+08:00

Not that I have been blogging that much. But I am off to India for two weeks this morning. I will be in Chennai for a week and the Kolkota for a week. In Kolkota I will be attending a workshop for photographers who want to work with NGOs. It is called the Changing Ideas workshop.

I don't know if I will be blogging. So it may be quiet.

50 photoblogs by smashing magazine

2009-02-24T00:40:00.001+08:00

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/14/50-wonderful-inspiring-photoblogs/

I don't know where I am going to find the time to look at so much gorgeous photography. Know yourselves out! Or is it knock your eyes out???

Relative Tones and the Digital Advantage

2009-02-21T20:51:00.001+08:00

LW0490 - Relative Tones and the Digital Advantage.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)
I think too many people think that black and white photos are simply removing colour from an image. This is a podcast from Brookes Jensen of Lenswork which describes the importance of tonality in Black and white imagery. Something I think we have to understand if we want to communicate better in monochrome.

Call to Prayer

2009-02-16T02:24:00.003+08:00

I did this video montage for T.H.E. dance company's Old Sounds production. But this did not make it into the performance. I guess it is time to show it.

This surprising year

2009-02-16T00:55:00.003+08:00

Even though my personal path in photography has changed and deciding to let go of my staff and become freelance was a result of that, I was disappointed inside. I had believed that if I did something well and with integrity, then people would pay me a decent remuneration for my services. In Singapore, at least, this is not the case. Even though the photography had succeeded, the business had not. And being human, that hurt somewhere. So with this and the bad flu that quite a few people had, it made the end of 2008 a little depressing for me.

I was expecting 2009 to start low key. It would be a time for me to lick my wounds. But January was packed with work. Most of it was just simple family portraits and portraits for different artists and arts groups. But it was fun working with other creative people. And then the surprise dawned on me, without the overheads, I was actually earning money. And I was having fun while earning money. The other thing is that other photographers also started to rent the studio and equipment and my old tenant Wesley is coming back to rent office space. Without the constraints of running a corporate business, my resources are going to be better utilised.

And it did not stop there. I was given the job to shoot some dancers for this year's Arts Festival poster. And I will be shooting for an International dance festival in September this year. I am getting commercial rates for these two jobs. I have been berated by an art buyer at Batey for only being good at shooting dance. But my love for dance and my pursuit of dance photography is getting me properly paid work.

I guess that listening to most people's advice, I have tried to make a successful 'business'. I have tried to grow my studio big so that I can do corporate work. And although this has helped me grow technically as a photographer, it was not a financial success, it has hampered me in growing my own personal vision. The whole irony is that now I am shooting what I want and am pursuing my own personal research in photography, I am indulging myself, and it is making much better financial sense than the wedding or corporate work ever did.

I begin to realise that people who tell me to be practical are simply followers who are at the mercy of the rich captains of industry. I say, follow your dreams, and find a practical way of making them come true. By doing what you truly love, you will expand your boundaries and eventually people will acknowledge your unique abilities. Don't follow the crowd, lead.

The Rice Project

2009-02-15T13:28:00.003+08:00

Some Singaporean photographers and video makers have gotten together to deliver rice to people affected by the Tsunami in Sri Lanka. There is an exhibition now on at Vivocity,

The Rice Project Photo Exhibition

Venue: Vivo City (South Avenue & South Court)

Date: 13 Feb (Fri) - 22 Feb (sun) 2009

Opening Hours: 10AM to 10PM daily

I think this is a lovely project and it helps make us all human again. Go down and take a look at the photographs and videos and be moved.

You can also find out more at http://thericeproject.com/index.php

Keith Carter on Equipment

2009-01-20T00:14:00.003+08:00

I think the equipment you use has a real, visible influence on the character of your photography. You're going to work differently, and make different kinds of pictures, if you have set up a view camera on a tripod than if you're Lee Friedlander with a handheld 35mm rangefinder. But fundamentally, vision is not about which camera or how many megapixels you have, its about what you find important. It's all about Ideas.

Taken from an interview with Keith Carter n the January 2009 issue of American Photo.

Frozen Angels and the thoughts it provoked

2009-01-12T01:17:00.004+08:00

I went to watch a play called Frozen Angels by the Necessary Stage. It was a play exploring people's lives and the impact of medical technology, stem cell research in particular. In one story a couple lives for 200 years with the new technology. And although the wife fondly remembers the first meeting and is still in love, she is tired after living 200 years.

This illusion of control we are taught. If there is a good government, if we have the knowledge, if we work together... if there is a will there is a way. Look at the middle east, after centuries, the Jews and Muslims killing one another. Look at the way cholera is killing people in Zimbabwe. Look at people dying of lung cancer in Singapore.

It is true that centuries of civilization search of knowledge, has improved our lives on this earth. It is less brutal than it used to be, we have more tools to help us tame our surroundings. But we still have global warming. The bees are having a major epidemic. Pelicans are dying on the shores of America. But the power we have gained is not wisely wielded. Whether it is caused by global warming or not, the hurricanes devastating America, the drought in Australia, the depletion of fish stock, are all much bigger than we are.

I used to think that together, we the citizens of the world, can work it out. Surely, we can fight for our own survival, the survival of the very planet that sustains us. But the idiosyncrasies of the imperfect human mind. We cannot even understand what is good for us. We hold onto to our habits, our prejudices, our bad frames of reference, even though it is killing us. Just like people who know that smoking will kill them, but they keep on smoking. If you can comprehend the scale of that intellectual flaw, you can see how flawed the human brain is.

And in all this, the idea that if we have all the knowledge we need, then we can change things for the better. We will never have all the knowledge that we need, or be able to process it in a way that lets us act wisely... act in self preservation.

Human vanity. As Shakespeare wrote,

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I begin to realise how futile our struggles are, how forgotten we will all be. People in the future will see photographs of our time, but they will not be able to comprehend what we are. I am at a lost as to what one should do in this insane world we live in. I am not even sure if one should try to be sane in this world, but I think the most important thing right now is for me to make peace with living. We are all but ants on this planet, which is only a spec in the universe. I used to think that if we do good and were reasonable, that things would turn out well. Nope, there is no logic to life. Deal with it.

Poolga. iPhone and iPod Touch wallpapers for the rest of us.

2009-01-08T01:34:00.001+08:00

Poolga. iPhone and iPod Touch wallpapers for the rest of us.

I just have to share this. This is a web site for iPhone wallpaper. But the talent of the contributors is simply AMAZING!!!!!

A short love story

2009-01-01T15:43:00.000+08:00

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

And sometimes, I still dream.

The Pond web site updated for 2009

2008-12-29T16:00:00.002+08:00

I have update The Pond web site. It's focus is now on my personal work. Take a look at let me know what you think. I have decided to use flash for the galleries. There seems to be some issues displaying things at times. Any feedback on problems would be great.

Happy New Year to all!

Santa Claus hit by UFO

2008-12-26T17:02:00.001+08:00

A Christmas Laugh. I still find it funny that the red suit is a Coca-cola creation and everyone things it is soooooo Santa.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2008-12-22T01:32:00.001+08:00

A long time away, a short time to a change in my life

2008-12-18T22:46:00.007+08:00

I apologise for the long time away from posting. Life just got in the way. I had reservists for two and a half weeks. It was a tough time for me this year and at the end I caught this tenacious flu which has got me coughing for the last three weeks. And after army, I taught an intensive four day workshop called Portraits as Visual Drama. Here is a picture of me, my students and assistants at Night and Day where we spent a day doing location shoots.

I did not shoot much. But the equipment for the course was on loan from Cathay and they had a medium format leaf system there too. I took a picture of one of the models, Shu An, and worked on it on post. And I gave a demonstration with a dance Zhi Hao. So I guess this is visual drama a la Heng!

Life never happens as you expect it. I have been struggling to find work in the last two years and it was one of the factors that caused me to change my photographic direction next year. And in this period, when things should be winding down, I am up to my receding hairline in work! It is like a spiteful ex parading herself in front of me, but once I have made a decision to move, move I will. I may return, but the journey will not stop because of some work now. In the upcoming financial recession, I doubt that I will have so much work.

I am not sure for now how much I will post. I have fought a good fight for close to a decade now. Even though I am happy with the photographic journey, the running of the business in Singapore has drained me. I just want to get a couple of months sleep and do some blading at east coast. But I will be back to share my new journey once my body and soul have been recharged.

This is an interesting site for Documentary photography

2008-11-23T09:44:00.000+08:00

Socialdoucmentary.net

Kristen Ashburn's photos of AIDs

2008-11-01T23:01:00.000+08:00

Camera Obscura and the Canon G10

2008-10-30T00:37:00.004+08:00

I just got my hands on a Canon G10 yesterday. I took it to the Camera Obscura concert tonight and lots of people took photographs. So I decided to try out the G10. I shot these photos using the G10 @ iso 400 in raw. I processed the fles in DPP, (photoshop is not able to process the G10 raw files yet.) The 100% crops shot that the images are not as good as DSLR, but for a compact, it rocks.

The thing about life, Death

2008-10-28T02:15:00.000+08:00

As I write this, and as you read it, we are on a one-way journey between birth and death. When we are young, we have plenty of energy, but not enough knowledge or influence to do very much with it. When we are close to the end of our lives, we may not have the energy or will to do much more than enjoy the winter of our lives, if we are lucky to be healthy then.

At this juncture of my life, I having been pursuing photography seriously for over a decade. I can take photographs and run a photography business. But I am also aware that my energy levels are ebbing, and although I do not have any major illnesses, there are parts of my body that are deteriorating. And so I am aware of my mortality. I have not been convinced of any religious description of the after life. What I think is the most important is the here and now, the time that is left on this earth.

I am lucky that I have no regrets for the life that I have lived so far. It has been a full one. And because it has been a full one, I want to continue to learn more about life, to find ways to interact with other people. Taking photographs for people and artists, I have had some wonderful experiences. And yet, I think there is much more of life to explore. And as much as I love photography and photographs of beauty, photography is not life. I still love the idea that 'Life is a journey, not a destination.' I am not a 'dance' or 'portrait' photographer. I am a human being.

I have had concerned friends telling me that I can do this or that to make my photography business better. But the thing is, I am not interested in a better business, I am interested in a better life. And there are photographers who also are pointing out ways to use more interesting photographic techniques. But I feel that I have pursued technique for long enough now. Now I need to say something, or do something more with my photography.

In 2009, in the new year, I start a new journey. A more personal pursuit, a more relevant understanding of the pain, beauty, hope and despair of living. And before I die, I want to say that I have truly lived.

2008-10-28T00:43:00.000+08:00

See latest stories on Yahoo! News

Alisa Resnik

2008-10-27T17:40:00.000+08:00

I met Alisa Resnik in Tuscany this year. It amazes me that she has been shooting for less than a year. And yet there is so much maturity in her work.

Portfolio review in the Singapore International Photography Festival

2008-10-10T14:08:00.003+08:00

The inaugural Singapore International Photography Festival is on. It is a huge photography festival with lots of engaging photography on display. Most of the work falls into the category of art and/or conceptual photography. I think the scale and the type of work on display really challenges the relatively 'commercial' photography favoured in Singapore.

I took the opportunity to get my portfolio reviewed by curators and gallery owners from all over the world. And I think it has confirmed what I feel about my work right now. I presented two portfolios. One of my dance photographs and the other of my Tuscan portraits.

I think that the general consensus is that I can take a photograph. My work, even my Tuscan portraits are too commercial. There is not enough of my personality in my work. I also explained my idea of stopping my corporate photography at the end of the year and focusing on finding a more personal subject and most of the reviewers thought that it was a good idea. One thing though, a couple of the reviewers found nothing wrong with the 'beauty' of my dance photographs. They told me not to abandon beauty simply because other people do not like it.

I think that it is clear for me that my way forward is to leave the past behind, at least for now. I need to rediscover myself and my rationale for making images. And with the world economy in recession for the forseeable future, I know that putting my time and effort into personal development will bring me much more than trying to develop business.

Once again, I find myself at the beginning of a large and uncertain adventure. And like all big adventures, the risk are great and so are the rewards. But as I think that life is a journey, not a destination, simply taking the journey is reward in itself.

Dance Stages - An exhibition of Dance photographs

2008-10-09T01:41:00.003+08:00

I never expected that I would be having three exhibitions this year. Actually three solo exhibitions in Singapore this year and images in two American exhibitions. But there is an exhibition of photographs from dance performances that I have shot. It is called Dance Stages and it will be at

DATE 9 Oct - 19 Oct 08
VENUE MRT link from Esplanade to Cityhall

There is no official opening, but if you are in the area, please drop by and check it out. There are 83 images. I seem to be doing relatively big exhibitions recently. Most of the work is what I get paid to shoot by various arts organisations and is not commonly seen.

James Nachtwey on XDR-TB

2008-10-04T02:58:00.002+08:00

I think this couple of decades of unbridled greed has caused us to forget more and more about the people who are not so privileged. I look up to James Nachtwey for continuing to bring important stories to light. Watch the video, sign the petition at XDRTB.org.

The Truth About Sarah Palin : Rolling Stone

2008-10-03T01:43:00.000+08:00

The Truth About Sarah Palin : Rolling Stone

Astounding.

Douglas Rushkoff » Financial Melt Up

2008-10-01T12:38:00.000+08:00

Douglas Rushkoff » Financial Melt Up

I never understood how people made money from money. I like this article by Douglas Rushkoff that explains how this huge financial bubble has come about. And it is a way for making the rich richer by foisting debt onto the poor. And to me this is reflected in the way businesses are run as well. In our parents generation, they made decent money if they were a professional. But nowadays, the wages of people like doctors, lawyers and engineers are not that good. It is the owners of hospitals, law firms and industries that make money. Basically, people are not just trying to make a decent margin from their work anymore, they are trying to wring whatever assets they have dry. And what this does is it makes a handful of people rich while the rest of normal people are slogging to pay of debt which they cannot actually pay off.

I think it is time to scale down. Focus on local economy and one another. I hope that all those people who are losing their jobs in those large financial institutions find a way to run smaller businesses that give a good service to their community, instead of going back to jobs that will help the stupendously rich richer. And it will be more environmentally friendly.

But I guess that I am an idealist. It is in our human nature to have greed and to be in a state of denial over things that are wrong. And this nature will continue to cause chaos in our lives.

A fork in the road, the path ahead

2008-10-01T01:14:00.003+08:00

Since my year in London Contemporary Dance School, I have been trying to live my life to the full. And photography has been my area of interest even though dance has been my first love. Since accidentally becoming a photographer in 1999, I have been pursuing the craft of photography. I have spent many hours shooting, experimenting and learning about photography in the studio and with lights. I was very inspired by the work of Paul Elledge when I saw his slide show at The Santa Fe workshops. I have since then taken his workshop in Tuscany and interned for him for 3 months in Chicago.

Up until last year, my photographic practise has been driven by my dance photographs. Images in which I try to capture the essence and beauty of dancers and their physique. To that end, I have experimented with lighting, materials and long exposures. And to do such work, I needed a team of people to support me. And to pay for that team of people, I set The Pond up as a corporate portrait studio. In the current Singaporean situation, having a team of people means my overheads are high, and there is not that much work at the level I want to work at. At least in corporate portraiture. There is more money in commercial photography, but I have no interest in that at all. So I have just managed to balance my photographic business with my dance photographs. And if I promote myself and chase work, I am able to keep The Pond afloat. The thing is, running the business takes a lot of time and my personal work has stagnated after the Dance Me Through The Dark project.

And then I had my epiphany in Tuscany last year, in a workshop lead by Anders Peterson. His form of photography is called personal research and to him, living his life and engaging with different communities of people was his priority. Photography became secondary, a part of the process and not the end goal. In that week, I had three extraordinary encounters with people I photographed. They shared things with me that makes the photography unimportant. The photography was simply the icing on the cake of living life. And it was there and then I realised that the next frontier of my photography was no longer technical or craft, it was to engage in living more. On another level, my studio has become superfluous.

So I have an idea of what I need to do with my life and all I need is a camera. All the lighting equipment is not necessary. But the studio has been my baby for eight years, it is difficult just to abandon it. So I tried to make the business work better, and to get my assistants to be associate photographers so that more work came into the studio and free up more days of the week for me to pursue my personal work. And then I came back from Tuscany this year, and with the avalanche of work and things to do, I realised that as long as I ran The Pond, it would consume all my time. So I came to the fork in the road, do I run a business or do I pursue a new frontier in my photography?

I have decided to keep exploring. I am sad to say that I will be letting my staff go at the end of the year and become a freelance photographer. Although the photographic team that I put together does not make the best business sense in Singapore, photographically, the work has been good. With the 'team', I have managed to get work into the Photo District News annual and the Communication Arts annual. The 'team' enabled me to work on an international level. Thank you Abby, Shin and Anvin. And Darren the intern as well. I may have had better profits with fewer staff, but I doubt that I could have had the same quality of work.

And so in the new year, a new path awaits me. I will not be able to handle higher end work, but I will still do studio portraits and simple outdoor shoots. I will also teach but I may not be able to continue teaching studio lighting without my assistants. But for the main part, I will be pursuing my personal work. I have already made some plans but I won't say anything until I have actually done some work.

I must say that the death of Paul Newman reminds me of my mortality and how precious time is. And the present financial crisis indicates to me that unfettered capitalism is not the only path and is not necessarily good for the world. I don't want to bend over back to be a service to the corporate business machinery. I don't need to make loads of money and so I rather work for arts groups, charities and individuals. It is more important now for me to be part of the community that I live in, than to be a rat in the rat race.

The path ahead is to live more, live better.

Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does

2008-09-26T15:18:00.000+08:00

Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does

This is an interesting article that makes depressing reading for me. This shows that people do not study facts well and make decisions based on those facts. I always thought that a way to get the world into a better shape is to give a liberal education and get people to evaluate facts for themselves. I guess that this does not apply.

Some guy sneaking a preview of Photoshop CS4

2008-09-26T00:15:00.002+08:00

blogSAFOTO » Blog Archive » • Instituto Cultural De Mexico

2008-09-25T23:25:00.000+08:00

blogSAFOTO » Blog Archive » • Instituto Cultural De Mexico

It seems so distant and far away. I guess it is! But it is nice to know that I have a few photographs in Fotosemtiembre USA. Thanks to the curator Michael Mehl for giving me this opportunity. I wish I had the time to go visit this.

A quote from Kuldelka

2008-09-24T01:46:00.002+08:00

I attempt to find an approach that suits the essence of each project. I do not like to repeat myself. Repetition is not interesting after you take an idea as far as you can, and get what you want to get. Otherwise repetition leads to getting stuck in your habits, which soon becomes rules. You get locked up in the rules and you cannot get out. So what can you do? One way is to destroy them.

Joseph Kuldelka in an Aperture interview

At this point in time, Kuldelka's words resonate with me. Next year, my photographic journey starts anew.

Is the rich-hued Kodachrome era fading to black? - Yahoo! News

2008-09-23T10:24:00.000+08:00

Is the rich-hued Kodachrome era fading to black? - Yahoo! News

Recently, in the photographic industry, lots of things are being laid to rest. Times change. I guess we have to be humble, because we will go too some day.

Waves

2008-09-20T01:03:00.001+08:00

Trying to capture what cannot be stopped. Gentle, unrelenting.

When right is wrong

2008-09-18T01:05:00.008+08:00

One of my course mates on the Antonin Kratochvil course, Herman, asked me why he could not get a good histogram when he had a Kratochvil style dramatic image. And the truth is a good histogram is for a typical, general image. An image shot in sunlight with a good range of brightness values. Take this example of a holiday photograph of a man in Marrakesh.

This is the histogram for the above portrait. It shows a 'good' histogram. One that shows a right exposure and a nice range of brightness values. And this image is pleasant.

Now in this portrait of Masimo, another student at TPW, I have a relatively nice histogram at capture as well. And the image is in colour.

The colour portrait of Masimo is ok but I want a dramatic image! I turn the image into black and white and darken everything considerably.

And now look at the histogram of the black and white image, it does not have a 'right' histogram. In fact the histogram is heavy in the dark areas, but the image provides the mood that I want.

So right is not right. For the drama that I envision, the histogram is 'wrong'. I remember last year in Andreas Bitesnich's class, he said that the histograms for his images were wrong, but if the image looks great, he does not care.

However, I would not recommend shooting a dramatic vision in camera. There will be very little detail and a lot of noise in the shadow area. I would recommend shooting an image to get a decent histogram and then create the look in raw processing. If you want to know why I recommend getting the 'right' exposure at capture, refer to this article on the luminous landscape web site.

While on the topic of when 'right' is wrong, should an image be sharp? In this series of captures for a portrait, in the first two images I have an eye that is sharp and of a tattoo that is sharp. But in the end it is the blurred image at the bottom that is my favorite. It gives me a dreamy quality that conveys my emotions much better than the sharp images.

So in my mind, what is 'right' for general images, can be wrong for evocative images, images that go beyond the literal representation of what we see.

I have been meaning to blog about this since Herman asked me the question in Italy, but I have been so swamped since I returned to Singapore, that this has been my first chance.

Canon PowerShot G10: 15MP & 28mm wide: Digital Photography Review

2008-09-17T17:59:00.001+08:00

Canon PowerShot G10: 15MP & 28mm wide: Digital Photography Review

AAAAaaaaaaa...........!!!!!!!

Canon EOS 5D Mark II: 21MP and HD movies: Digital Photography Review

2008-09-17T17:49:00.001+08:00

Canon EOS 5D Mark II: 21MP and HD movies: Digital Photography Review

OMG!

Web

2008-09-07T16:59:00.003+08:00

I have not been doing any personal dance photography of late. Just bogged down with work and other projects. But a dancer is leaving Singapore and so we had a session.

Travel Photography Workshops by Felix Hug

2008-08-29T03:09:00.003+08:00

I'd like to put up a plug for my friend Felix Hug, an award winning photographer who is teaching courses in travel photography. He really has a wonderful eye. You can also see more about him at http://www.eyesonasia.net/

National Geographic Editor on the power of Photography

2008-08-22T23:30:00.000+08:00

Dance Me Through The Dark - The Book is finally out

2008-08-22T01:02:00.002+08:00

It has been a long wait since February when the Dance Me Through The Dark Book was supposed to be launched. Unfortunately, the print quality was not up to scratch. Since I had to reprint the book, I decided to redesign the book as well and incorporate images from the actual exhibition. I think that it has been worth the wait and the print this time round is much better. I apologise for the long wait. For those who ordered the book during the exhibition, my office manager will be contacting you soon!

The book is still retailing at Singapore $100.

I will be putting up the book for sale on the Dance Me Through The Dark web site soon. But I have been swamped with work. But right now, the book is available at Books Actually, 2902 Gallery, Objectifs and Singapore Dance Theatre. As other shops start to sell the book, I will list them out.

If you want to purchase the book directly, you can email enquiry[at]thepond.com.sg.

Brooks Jensen on Just the Right Amount of Ego to be an artist

2008-08-21T02:05:00.001+08:00

LW0455 - Just the Right Amount of Ego.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

Japanese Film Festival 2008 | 22 - 31 August | Gallery Theatre National Museum of Singapore

2008-08-19T16:12:00.000+08:00

Japanese Film Festival 2008 | 22 - 31 August | Gallery Theatre National Museum of Singapore

Just a plug for the Japanese film festival. My attention was brought to this festival because there is also a film, Sakuran, directed by Japanese photographer, Mika Ninagawa.