Wishing for the 75mm f/1.8 M. Zuiko

I happened to be in Kuala Lumpur when Olympus Malaysia and the PEN Lovers Facebook group organised a hands on lens and modelling session (hands on the lens, ahem, hands off the ahem, models). Lots of people from the blogosphere and social community to meet and shake some hands.

Robin Wong, Luke Ding, Ming Thien, Aizuddin Danian, Raja Indera Putera. The stalwarts of the PEN Lovers group, Koon Yik, Yeow Chin Liang, Mun Keat and many good friends.

And a second encounter with the fab lens. People read words and jump to judgements. Is it too long (in focal length)? Is it too expensive? Well, it’s not full frame so the bokeh blur is not as smooth as a full frame lens. And so on.

Spend some time with the lens and you won’t want to give it back.

Life with a prime

I didn’t use a prime (fixed focal length) lens until early year, as my general, everyday use lens. Digital saw me with a 3x zoom on the Nikon 775 compact cam and then a 10x zoom on the Olympus C-750uz ultra zoom, then the 5x zoom on the Kodak P880. When I went digital, I had the two kit lenses on my E-510 and the story continued.

This year, David Williams introduced me to the 20mm f/1.7 Lumix pancake (40mm in old coin, film parlance) and 45mm f/1.8 Zuiko Digital (90mm in old coin). And I fell for these lenses. I wanted a shallower depth of field like in the film days plus more chance to take shots in dimmer light levels.

I fit the 20mm a lot – it allows closer camera distance, in fact, it forces a closer camera distance. And I switch over to the 45mm when I want some distance from the subject, when I have the space to back away or when I want to frame a tighter portrait.

Beginners to photography often gasp and say “What can I do without a zoom? I can’t live without one. Walking backward and forward isn’t an option I want to take or I have”. To that, I have to reply – what is impossible or immutable is only a state of mind, not an actuality of circumstances.

The honest gaze of sincere friend Kuan – we’ve known each other since University and now we’re apart except for the annual visit but we still find lots in common

The cup of Malaysian coffee is very important – after all, it’s a coffee shop. I didn’t develop a taste of habit for any kind of coffee. We used to have those old carved wood stools and marble seats, it’s been plastic chairs and melamine tables for a long while now. You’ve got to give the coffee a good stir of course, with the overflow dripping down the sides of the cup, otherwise it’s not authentic. The mouth expression in anticipation of before the event or savouring the taste afterwards.

The mahjong boys are back in town. Mahjong can be a gambling addiction and also a generational family and community pastime. Players and onlookers gaze in concentration and exclamations of animation abound when some event happens. Notice the half tiled wall (to save costs) and the unburied wire running (used to be stapled onto bulky wood runners, the modernisation brought PVC conduits. But then again, you could just run it along the wall.

The stand fan provides a breeze and if you are attired in a singlet, well that’s tropicalised wear for you.

Life goes way too fast in the concrete city staffed by Twenty-Somethings. It’s all hustle and bustle and winning the rat race except there are huge number of rats in the race.

When you’ve had your day in the sun, what you yearn for a nice tasty bowl of Yong Tau Foo. The slower you stir, the slower time passes, or so it seems. You can almost see some glimpses of past splendour and activity in the ripples and the reflections.

We close with a note to people who make such food happen. The lady below is peeling mengkuang otherwise known as Yam Bean. It’s good eaten raw, crunchy like an apple except that it is a root, not a fruit. It’s also the sweet taste in poh piah and joo hoo char

And, at the end of the day, we need money to survive. To keep the fridge stocked and running.

In the photos above, we’re not talking about action shots, urgent 5 frame per second shooting. These subjects are evocative, story telling. Yes, some of these shots are indeed cropped and a zoom might avoid that. But a zoom would, for the same price be darker, bigger, more clumsy – with these primes, you can make like you’re fiddling with your camera instead of framing up a shot.

Memories of Dad

I’m here in Malaysia, where it all began so many years ago. And where I last saw Dad before his last rush to hospital. We’ve visited his resting place in Nilai a few times and it is peaceful there but that’s not what I preserve in my heart and my mind.
We used to go to Pudu wet market, we did.

Mum used to do all the heavy lifting – trudge into the wet places to buy chicken, eggs, meat and so on. The women of the household still do that. They used to wear local clogs and later on plastic washable sandals and they still do that.

Dad and I would wait in the cleaner areas and indulge in his passion for fruit – he was the gatherer of the fruits. I went to the place where we bought bananas and they still sell bananas there, but I don’t know the people, old or new.

It’s a darker corridor and there are side entrances

There were lots of things inside the dim market but as Mum did all the main shopping, I didn’t see the veil lifted. Shallots, spices and eggs.
There would be fish.
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And meatier stuff – curiosities like Pigs Ears.

If we stepped outside, we’d see all kinds of stuff on sale. Just because it’s a wet market doesn’t mean you only sell bloody meat or things that make you go Eeeuuww.

Flowers in garlands

As we walked back to the fringe, we would pass this Taoist worship ornaments shop

The shops by the road that sell fish are still there

Then Mum would still not have turned up. We would wait some more and see peddlars with fake Rolex watches (Dad always wanted a real one but settled for two Tissot in his life, he was realistic – his had a family to feed and two sons to send oversas to Uni on government officer salary). He would reward my patience with two types of Chinese pancakes – the thick and the thin types.
And sometimes, sometimes, I would catch a glimpse of something potentially scary and intriguing. The slaughter of a big lizard, turtle – often in a manner that might bring the RSPCA. Those days are gone of course, all you can see are frogs

The market is still full of wide eyed kids

and their Dad

And people who take might have the advantage of wide eyed adults

And that, is what memories of Dad and our time together is.

Thanks Robin Wong, Luke Ding, Yeow Chin Liang and all the gang for hosting the walk. And a hello to Mithun

What is it?

We sometimes come across beginners to photography who don’t “get it” as often as we come across newbies who take to photography like ducks to water.

1. What makes a person not get it?
2. What does not getting it mean? How does one tell? Obviously, the person who doesn’t get it is the one who can’t tell….
3. How does one help someone see the light?
4. Can you not get it and still enjoy photography?

Ming Thein on PetaPixel wrote an insightful article on Common Photographic Mistakes. For beginners he cites:

• The missing subject
• Poor perspective use
• Being stuck in the wrong gear

But why do they do that? We know that’s what they do but why do some people do that? It is sometimes difficult for a veteran to time shift back to the days when the camera was new and experience was low.

The Missing Subject

If the subject is missing, the following could be the reasons:

• The mind might already have taken the subject as a “given” – i.e. the photographer has already sighted, understood the subject but is unaware that the guest viewers have no pre-bonding and association with the subject. For example the subject could be so small in the scene and indistinguishable from the background that everyone else can see this issue except the photographer.
• The photographer is not comfortable with camera settings and thus there is so much focus on settings and the camera, that the subject becomes completely secondary.
• The photographer is trying to juxtapose elements of the scene – that tree, that road, that leading line or pattern that the subject is visually forgotten.

Bottom line: Understand what the subject is, understand that often (guidelines are made to be broken) there is really only one primary subject and everything else is story  telling and decoration (which are not unimportant, but they enhance the subject, they do not replace it).

Poor Perspective Use

Perspective with regard to the subject requires that the photographer first identify what the primary subject is and be aware that taking a photo of the subject means actually visualising what aspects of the subject – top, bottom, left side, right side, behind, overview, close-in the photographer needs to story tell.
Or rather, the difference between a photo that says “this is a picture of a man cleaning his glasses” and a photo that says “this is celebrity A cleaning his glasses in a thoughtful way as he muses on whether he should take the high road or low road” is based on story telling and perspective is part of the story telling.
You have to discover perspective. You have to move your feet with perspective and bend your knees and your waist and you neck up or down, side to side. Even if you have a zoom.
It’s way to easy for any photographer, beginner or veteran, to point the camera at the subject, optionally adjust the zoom and think “yup, that’s the shot, let’s do this”.
Way too often, we miss a much more awesome shot by just adjusting our position.
Cropping after the fact is sometimes the only technique we have to get the look that we want, but that’s an afterthought, and getting it right upstream often yields a technically higher quality image and potentially a visually more appealing angle.

Being stuck in the wrong gear

The camera not giving us the image when we click is the most common and annoying primary issue with all photographers – newbie or veteran. Why can’t all this high tech get into our head and just “make it so” like Jean Luc Picard would enunciate?
Actually, with the passing of each year, the tech is getting there. If you are not convinced, get your hands on a match needle film SLR of the yesteryear, shoot some shots in the city of people walking around pointing into the shadow in one shot, subsequently into the bright sun in another. Use a zoom lens with variable max aperture and it complicates it even more. Use transparency film with the classic lack of tolerance of exposure stuff ups, use manual focus lenses.
Then come up and use a modern DSLR camera with automatic smart scene detection, autofocus and do the same gig and see what happens to the number of relevantly exposed, correctly focussed shots.
It’s already there.
However, it isn’t what we expect still, because we raise our expectations every year. And we expect to shoot the human form against the sun and expect the camera to know whether we want a black silhouette or commendable flesh tones. – like as-if.
And if you came in from an auto everything camera phone or point and shoot compact, you expect the more expensive, purpose built camera to be whatever you were using, just more better.
Really to be successful in re-creating a dish you bought take away from an excellent food outlet, you can’t say to your food replicator “make it so"  - even in the notionally Utopian Star Trek, the food replicators need to be programmed to produce specific food. The same with setting up the camera to take a shot.

1. You must visualise the shot
2. You must de-construct the shot into the controllable elements
3. You must figure out what techniques and settings in camera, in the lens choice and potentially in post processing, to re-construct the shot.

Food for thought.

Exposure, the Metering Pattern and the Histogram

What is correct exposure?

What criteria do you use to assess correct exposure? Is it reading the histogram? Is it setting the camera to P A S and flipping to M to “match needle”? Is it buying this pro looking external exposure meter, then transferring the settings to the camera on M? Is it the way the photo “comes out?

There is no correct exposure. There is contextually suitable or relevant exposure. That means if you are wanting the face just right, it is. If you want the sky, it is. If you want that bright sky and that darker ground just right, well that’s being just…. greedy.

1. The exposure histogram describes the brightness levels of the scene in numbers.
   1. It’s not a visual assessment. I’ll say it again, its not a visual assessment.
   2. It does not show whether the exposure is correct (see point 1 – there is no correct exposure). you can have what looks like a “good” histogram, whatever that is, but the face you want is contextually too dark or too light.. ditto with the sky and the earth.
   3. It can show that you are clipping highlights (255) or the shadows are going too dark ( 0 ). that does not mean you photo is “wrong” – it just shows that technically in numeric terms, you have lost digital data – that does not mean you have lost visual aesthetic.
   4. The averaged histogram may be misleading in technical terms. because your separate r g b channel histograms are different and one of them may already be clipping whilst the averaged histogram may not indicate that.
   5. There is more than one histogram for the same scene. Yes. There are:
      1. the Liveview histogram which is quickly computed so that the camera’s Liveview does not slow down. It is the stats BEFORE the shot is captured.
      2. the exposed photo JPEG histogram – this is the stats AFTER the shot is captured.
      3. the invisible and yet-to-be-deciphered raw file histogram. The reason why it is not visible can can’t be displayed is that the raw file has not been processed against your preferred set of contrast, saturation gamma curves. And if we did apply our preferences, it would no longer be the raw histogram, it would be the processed photo histogram.
   6. You might consider the highlight / shadow blinkies as an alternative to the histogram. But, the highlight and shadow blinkies give you even less information than the histogram – it can distract you by corrupting your perception of whether your exposure is contextually correct by painting your LCD with big blobs of red.
2. You will often encounter naturally lit scenes that exceed the dynamic range of a single shot, even if you shoot raw. You will have to turn the tables (Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru) by any trick – come back another day / season / time, stand with the sun behind your back, carry out exposure blending from multiple exposures, big a bigger sensor, shoot film).

Generally, we have:

• Spot Metering
• Centre Weighted Metering
• Evaluative / Matrix Metering

Spot Metering

It tries to make anything you point at, 12% grey in tone. Point it at a white shirt and it will try to make it grey. Point it at a black shirt and it will try to make it grey.

That’s not a general use, point and shoot metering pattern. Some people figure they can use it like this, well and good for them.

Centre Weighted Metering

Centre Weighted covers a central area – yes, around the centre AF spot. The area may be hard edged. Or not. On optical viewfinders you may not be able to estimate how big the area is.

It has sufficient area that if you point it at something, it will average that bit of face, that bit of shirt and that bit of background to 18% grey. That might be just what you want – the face might turn out alright.

It has a small enough area to exclude the bright sky or that dark table shadow from dominating your camera’s exposure proposal.

There is also on some cameras, a spot biased centre weighted choice.

Matrix / Evaluative Metering

You could get the meter to measure the whole scene and take a dumb average. If you do that, some bright sky could “pull” the meter reading quite unfavourably towards a darker exposure.

So the camera makers came up with Matrix / Evaluative. Some cameras even have computationally enhanced evaluative (with elements of Artificial Intelligence, database statistics on image scene modes, face detection etc…)

This is the metering pattern (well it is not a pattern, it is a tremendous state of the art calculation) that the camera makers put a lot of their skill and knowledge into. If there is one thing they can create to help the millions of customers who just want to aim and press the trigger, this is the epitome of technological prowess.

So far on my cameras which are not leading edge nor are they the most expensive, this form of metering still can’t make it happen for the majority of my shots. Yet. And I can’t predict in which direction and by how much it will bias the camera’s setting since it is using some dynamic logic, not a standard pattern.

The Bottom Line

I have met a whole bunch of amateur photographers of various experience levels. And encountered even more on the web and in forums. Using my preference – Centre Weighted and the subjects I shoot, let me put forward some advice:

1. Each country (e.g. Australia, Malaysia), each season (blue sky summer, gauzy overcast winter) and each time (Golden Hour, mid day, etc..) merits different consideration and care.
2. There is no set-and-forget. And there is. Depends on your style and what you approve of and accept. You can accept that, for example, Street Photography of strangers cannot be controlled and is an unrepeatable point in time so any shot is good, even a technically imperfect shot. Or you can put on your grumpiest attitude and criticise the hell out of every landscape / panorama shot.
3. These are modern cameras. Centre Weighted should be predictable. I didn’t say what you want (who knows what you want?). But it should be predictable. On a “standard” scene “what is standard?”, it should either be pretty close to good, or within 0.7 dark or light. If it is too dark or light, remember how it behaves and set the bias semi-permanently. It is semi permanent because there is no standard scene.
4. Learn to identify several types of scenes. Why? Because that is what the camera makers are also doing for point and shoot people – that mechanism is called SCENE Modes. I’m NOT saying you should use SCENE mode. I’m saying you need to identify the scene you are pointing at, test it out beforehand how your camera’s Centre Weighted Pattern predicts and develop your own exposure biases so that they become instinctive and intuition.
5. If you are using an EVF / LCD mirrorless camera, it’s even easier. Set your Liveview to exposure simulation mode (they’re already defaulting to that) and point, assess the darkness / brightness of the scene and flick your Exposure Compensation Dial. Just like that.

Further Reading

• Interpreting the Histogram (this blog)
• What is Correct Exposure (this blog)
• Nikon article on the histogram and getting a histogram of a portion of your scene
• DPReview forum search on histograms

An irreverent take on 50 Photography Tips

What's occupying my time and filling my mind

Olympus gets it right

After a long journey to reach this milestone, Olympus has got it right. Firstly the really competent OM-D / EM-5 that is attracting attention from hardened Canon / Nikon DSLR owners (and this before any advertising commenced). And the Olympus Australia gang has upped their visual impact like, awesomely striking

I encounter people discussing whether the Micro Four Thirds this or that could compete with a Canon DSLR or lens and what is the shock, horror, equivalence of f/1.8 from Micro Four Thirds in Full Frame terms.

What is the equivalence of this?

Is it this?

Are you serious? There is no equivalence.
Just rock back. Take off the “mine is bigger than yours attitude”. Enjoy. Seize The Day!

Olympus Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 on E-PL1
- YouTube

The Reflect Verb

Whoa, it's been quite a hectic period in my photography, thanks to Marg Wong, the fun gang at the Melbourne Photowalk on Google+ and encounters with the Melbourne Street Togs Facebook group.

I'm posting more and most of my photos more frequently to G+ (it's addictive) and my flickr account is languishing. Will have to correct that soon. Before I get waylaid by words (the downfall of several nights now, let me share my latest favourites.

This is my favourite from my walk along Toorak Road, South Yarra. Slightly darkened for the patina, hand held with the 20mm f/1.7 Lumix on my Olympus PEN E-PL1.

Since I got the lens, I've experienced a few answers to questions of image "look" (I refrain from using the often misconceived words image quality)

This second shot is the most bokelicious I've ever made.

More later...

Shit Photographers Say [Official]

Tired but floating on a cloud

I’ve been meaning to catch Burt Bacharach all these years. His rich music output over all these years covered my early teens through to University and beyond. Part of the nostalgia kick is to listen to Dionne Warwick, Karen Carpenter and all the ones who made it with his songs.
By the way, Burt says Hal David is in hospital and not doing well at all. Take a pause and send some good thoughts his way.
You know the old songs of Burt and Hal, from What The World Needs Now Is Love, Walk On By, Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head – you’ve heard them a thousand times from the hollow sounding microphoned recordings of old through to some chick flick leveraging nostalgia and soft moist tissues. – they’re very much like old film.
A lot of the youngsters have re-discovered the dye colours of film, shirking digital purity. They’ve seen the stuff we used to shoot on Kodakchrome, Ektachhrome, Agfachrome, faded a bit, and they want to shoot the same deal – with sprocket holes. See how many canned effects we have in Instagram, Picasa, Piknik that mock up that. That’s because they didn’t dip their hands in D-76 and the only hypo they know is a syringe reference.
Ok, film, despite the slow demise of Kodak, is not dead and not faded – it’s getting a new lease of arty life. Maybe, maybe you should experience film, just a few rolls, before cost and saving the earth from smelly chemicals and dyes overcome you. For, if you don’t feel the past, feel the current, how do you fashion the future?
Go get an old film camera, it doesn’’t have to be a Leica, it doesn’t have to be a Holga. Shoot it. You’ll never know until you do.

From Ananda's Film Album

From Ananda's Film Album

From 06/04/2012

Oh, and Burt. Bliss like anything. More than just an item on my bucket list. He brought the nostalgia back to me and to the whole audience of grey hairs and balds. We felt like teens and children again, swaying to the spell he cast. But it wasn’t tired, hollow mic-ed music performed competently. It was superb modern arrangements (but still the impeccable timing and precision that you can rely on from Burt), passionately played by his core band (and the Australian ensembles) and sung for all their life with interpretive gusto by Donna Taylor, Josie James and John Pagano. Melbourne still has one day, the 20th April – and tickets should still be available online.

 

Better Posed Portraits

Peter Hurley has been in the news - he has a video to sell (via fstoppers) But, lots of experienced and good advice for Headshots and Portraits in the New York Times article

Ananda's 10 Point Photo Critique Rating System

Updated: 23rd April 2013

I participate in a Beginner's Forum and interact with other photographer's senior and junior, experienced and newbie - this aspect of social interaction and learning is unparalleled by anything pre-Internet. Not only have my technical skills evolved at a rapid pace but my understanding of what I like and my appreciation has too.

One perennial feature of understanding the human aspects of a photo is the seeking of justification, validation and vindication. This urge often detracts from and clouds the learning experience and waylays explorers away from the truth or their perception of the truth.

I had created a rating system for myself to assess photos I come across and also assess my reactions to these photos previously (see APR Edition 1.1).

This is Edition 2: I'll call this "Ananda's 10"

Without further ado, here it is:

Ananda's 10

I	Is the subject interesting by itself ?	Max 1 point
SC	Is the photo delivering subject/scene context?	Max 1 point
GC	Is the photo context part of a general historical / family / celebrity / time in personal life context?	Max 1 point
A	Is the subject well abstracted from the mundane-ness of the scene or other photos of the subject (Visually Interesting) ?	Max 1 point
T	Do technical aspects of the photo convey / obscure what the photo is all about?	Max 2 points
ChOShO / ESP	Does the assessor have a Chip On Shoulder Obsession about the photo? (see example list of ChOShO points) or conversely Emotional Subconscious Positives (see example list of ESP)	Max 4 points

Example list of ChOShO

1. That photo wasn't taken by a Leica / Nikon / Canon / put_your_brand_here.
2. That photo wasn't taken by Me.
3. I just came from a small sensor Point and Shoot cam. Ooooh, this photo has NOISE!
4. I just came from a Four Thirds / Micro Four Thirds beatup.  Ooooh, this photo has NOISE!
5. I just came from a Four Thirds / Micro Four Thirds beatup. Where's the Bokeh in this?
6. I just came from a small sensor Point and Shoot cam. I just hate the "everything is sharp" look
7. I don't like photos of dogs / cats / squirrels / birds / landscapes / graffiti / urban decay / tattooes / guns
8. I just don't like HDR / faded shot through a nylon stocking David Bailey looking waifs
9. That's sooo digital, I shoot film
10. That's sooo film, I shoot digital
11. It's not sharp. Really. Look at this 100% crop. It doesn't look like this (show ace shot from the Internet)
12. It's Noise Reduced Smear Messed / JPG artifacted.
13. So, you didn't post process? Can't be that good.
14. So, you shot RAW and post processed. Dude, you oversaturated and messed up.
15. Heck, where's the Rule of Four Thirds? Sorry, Rule of Thirds.
16. The Horizon's Not Level Mate
17. Umm, you're makiing me woozy, can't stand that crazy wide angle distortion
18. Seen one panorama / fisheye / sunset / sunrise / tropical beach / underwater shot / flower closeup / bug close up / flowing silky water 30 second shot? Seen them all.
19. Where's The People In This Scene Mate?
20. Street Photo of a Person - nah, I think it's a affront to privacy and aggression
21. Why is the sky white? Huh?
22. Why is the sky so uneven in blue? Your polariser's just ruining your shot
23. That's not my idea of art
24. That's not my idea of photography
25. That's my idea of graphic arts not photography

And the ultimate:

26. "Like that also want to take a photo"

Example list of Emotional Subconscious Positives

1. Wow! That's a Great Shot
2. Awesome!
3. Well composed
4. Well presented
5. I like the light
6. I like the pose
7. You captured the moment
8. The moment captured you
9. Bloody Good, Mate
10. You're my idol photographer - you could shoot a picture of a _____ with a Kodak Brownie and it would still come out awesome
11. Adventurous and explorative technique.
12. I love photos of HDR / flowing water / blurs of people moving past / Art Effects from ____ cameras - that's cool!
13. How come you saw that when I didn't and I was next to you at that time?
14. How come you made that shot of _______ when my shots look like throwaways?
15. You shot that with ______ brand camera, you can't go wrong, hey, I use one too.
16. We of the _______ gender got to stick together
17. We went on the same Photowalk together, we've got to bromance.
18. That's a photo of my fetish for shoes / tatooes / roadside kerbs, it's Sheldon time.

So, that's it. Now, let's see whether "Ananda's 10" works out. Tell me how you go.

Is 5 the answer?

There’s the perennial question about Photography that floats around – “Why are you interested in Photography” or more relevantly “Why did you take that shot?”

This one? Maybe it’s some Jungian urge to fondle the EM-5.

OMG, the OM-D/EM-5 is out

It's no secret that the OM-D / EM-5 has finally been released.

And there are those to praise it, those who knock it, those who lust over it and those who ask why. This is for those who ask why.

Reasons why the OM-D / EM-5 exists
(In no particular order)

1. Olympus needed to move on past the financial debacle.
2. The Micro Four Thirds catalogue needed a higher end camera model.
3. OM film SLR owners needed something new to hold on to.
4. PEN lovers needed something a model when asking/asked - "where's the EVF?"
5. The Micro Four Thirds catalogue needed a body to fit the FL-600 flash onto.
6. Micro Four Thirds fans wanted a body with two adjustment dials
7. Olympus needed a body to stick the 12-50mm kit lens to.
8. The Micro Four Thirds catalogue needed a body that would allow lens designers to design bigger, brighter, tele lenses (which would dwarf PEN like bodies).
9. Micro Four Thirds fans needed a weatherproof body.
10. Micro Four Thirds fans wanted a magnesium body.
11. Olympus needed to sell a new battery.
12. Olympus needed a body to stick the battery grip and the landscape grip to.
13. Olympus needed a body to fit the 5 axis IBIS mechanism to.
14. You needed to plead with your spouse to feed your Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
15. Four Thirds DSLR owners needed a reason to yearn for an E-5 / E-30 / E-620 replacement and another reason to ask "but will my Four Thirds lenses autofocus fast on this body?"
16. Hump lovers just needed another body to love / vice versa for Hump Haters.

Any more?

The importance of being Earnest

Street Photography isn’t new. It’s as old as the redoubtable Henri Cartier Bresson or even Jacques Henri Lartigue. With Vivien Maier as a standout (who probably never made a cent from her passion) through to the current New Yorkers Joe Wigfall, Jamel Shabazz, Major Deegan. These guys have the magic of establishing relationship pretty fast, almost Yeow-like and Robin-esque. They engage pleasantly and comfortably with their human subjects, producing street portraits that are both impromptu and attractive. Quite the opposite style to in-your-face Bruce Gilden and the young exponent Eric Kim.

Sifu Yeow at work

The most approachable security guard I’ve met

Call me “Porkman”, he said.

How do you maintain a deadpan look of enquiry?

Shots of behinds don’t often work. I rather like this one

For human subjects, it’s particularly important to apply the golfer’s analogy instead of the tennis analogy – one has oneself to beat, not the competition. You’ve got to be comfortable in your skin and with your gear.

Endless debates cover:

• the size of your camera
• the size of your lens
• the focal length to shoot at
• the distance to shoot at
• the risk of equipment loss through theft and mugging
• whether you’re sucking the soul of the sitter through your lens can then selling it to the devil.

Only you can rationalise and emotivise your feelings. Only you can decide what style of human interaction works for you.

While you’re pondering that, take a look at David William’s work

Soaking in the vibe

The thing with most humans is that they want everything, all at once, right now. It’s not an unusual desire but in most cases, it just doesn’t happen. And so with photography as well.

I’m on my annual pilgrimage to the air, sights, smells, sounds and vibe that I grew up with. It’s quite a fascinating return each year if I allow myself the pleasure of enjoying the old and the new. I have old memories and perceptions to catch up on and I have new friends to see – Robin Wong, C.L.Yeow and Ronnie Oh were very quick to extend invites to a specially arranged photowalk and friends at the PEN Lovers group (as well as others) were there to make it a social and fun happening.

Although I have very fond memories of the locale (well, I prefer the fond memories than the gawky, fumnbling youth that I was), my street vibe in Melbourne with Marg is quite different. From the very fundamental thing like preferred exposure – Ev -0.7 in Melbourne’s direct sun vs Ev +0.7 in Kuala Lumpur’s gauzy sky, to the way human subjects react when encountering a dude with a camera, it’s different. Sure most passionate photogs want to step off the plane and get way excellent street shots in any city in the world, in reality, it doesn’t work that way. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So, I changed pace, soaked in the vibe. It isn’t all about photography as well. It’s human watching, taking in the ultra wide angle view of the scene (which only the human eye can do), interpreting the significance of dress, facial expressions, gestures. For maximum satisfaction, absorb that – it remains with you long after you’ve shown off that travel set of shots for the upteenth time.

The shot above – with a Tamron 28mm manual focus prime lens on the Olympus PEN E-PL1, faded effect courtesy of Picasa desktop client. Coming from a long flight, the atmosphere was lethargic – taxi drivers waiting for work. The guy on the left did not appear to be a taxi driver. And you sit on anything other than the floor – the public floor in the tropical Malaysia isn’t something locals are conditioned to sit on.

This was the neighbourhood wet market – the wet market is well, sorta wet. Old customers come back to favourite stalls and money changes hands, for in this case, freshly slaughtered chicken. That’s the way they do it.

Take a drive amongst tall buildings and you are in a different world – where the locals come to shop, relax, be seen.

Introducing the Canikon 1D3s (Parody)

Missed this gem from DigitalRev.