Walking around Pudu market with Robin (Part 1)

I come to visit my mum and sis in Kuala Lumpur, yearly, it's a pilgrimage to my loved ones and my roots in Malaysia. One highlight over recent years is that +Robin Wong is kind enough to host me around his favourite Photo Therapy spots, often bringing some gear for me to experience.  This time, it was the 25mm f/1.2 M.Zuiko.

A few words about the lens I used most

25mm is a "normal"  field of view in Micro Four Thirds sensor format. There are other lenses in this genre - I have had and continue to have good times with my 20mm f/1.7 Panasonic Lumix pancake (the mark 1 version) that +Luke Ding sold me, second hand when I first started Micro Four Thirds. The two lenses are worlds apart in practical physicality - the 20mm is a pancake design, therefore quite short and light, less expensive, slowish in autofocus because it moves all lens elements to focus. The 25mm f/1.2 is the latest design, heavily corrected for optical performance, sharp, very fast AF, an obviously shallow depth of field at f/1.2, with the focus  clutch system for quick switch to manual focus. It is expensive, chunky and obvious, with length and  weight such that it would tip the OM-D E-M1 body forwards in balance (front heavy).

In this session, I also used my 7.5mm Samyang fisheye for some shots - it is much less bulky and expensive than the 7-14 M.Zuiko zoom but is manual focus and manual aperture.

About the images

I didn't want to carry out a lens review. I just wanted to enjoy my experience with the lens and with Robin. So these images aren't meant to be objectively delineated or critiqued but a momento of my experience and my time.

Robin, in his Shutter Therapy blog is world famous for several things, getting the max out of Olympus images, his excellent series of street portraits. You just have to be with Robin, shooting with him - he has this confidence in his purpose and his skill, his ready rapport with his subjects - one of several, very memorable masters of the craft. So when I was shooting with my Olympus E-M1 Mark 1 and this fab lens, I was feeling the heat - I had not been interacting with people and working the street for months, I had set the lens to a very shallow depth of field, requiring attention to technique, my eyesight for inspection of shots is not at a high, yada, yada, yada.

This shot above, I was very happy with. (Robin had coaxed me to try this position by the way, I had tried a less magnetic position). The subject had paused his coconut dehusking or cracking for me, and his expression, the thoughts in his eyes and his lips just convey his personality to and for me. 

The shot is SOOC JPEG from the camera, with light tonal adjustments and cropping in Snapseed for Android.

Here's the second portrait that I find magical for me. This guy had been working pretty hard, handling the chickens in this stall at the wet market. It was hot in the sun, the working environment is make shift. The workers wear gum boots because as you wash and cut  up produce, it spills on the ground and you wash the floor with running water.

Again, there is a message in his eyes and his expression is his signature. He's grasping a cheap phone, that plastic bag (yes, I know about the anti-plastic bag movement but this also shows why they have become ubiquitous) may be holding his cooked lunch. That white plastic resin chair isn't a #lonelychair by the looks of it, and the blue plastic drum is quite common to hold produce or water for rinse.

A portrait lens would have allowed me to frame his face but would have cropped out details of his environment. Moving closer to him would have exaggerated his limbs and features - I quite like this composition, distance and focal length.

People go rabid about bokeh and love to show bokeh balls. Yes, then talk turns to the size of your sensor and so on. In retail photography (weddings etc) there is a yen for backgrounds and simulated romance / staged nostalgic moments etc.... After a while, it's just a "feature" that you ask for  / buy with the photographer. I'm a bit over that for the scenes I shoot. I just want natural looking focus fall off, that's not over contrived nor ambiguous (like in a kit lens with limited f/nos).

This lens, with the two portraits done this distance, does not make background abstraction by blur, obvious. There is definite differentiation in focus though, between the different areas - a fair number of my shots were out of focus on the desired subject - I don't practise #extremeChimping, I was using Single Point Auto Focus on S-AF. The Focus and Recompose technique might be hampered by the shallow depth of field.

There's also the notorious Olympus implementation of the body framing/live viewing the shot at f/4 instead of the largest aperture of the lens - I routinely have difficulty with that on my 20mm f/1.7 Panasonic where liveview looks sharp but the actual shot has a different depth of field. I was too busy enjoying my walk this time, to notice. 

This photo above has been processed from raw with On1 Raw Photo 2017 - I noticed that her face was subtly in better light than the rest of the scene but I didn't want local adjustments. This cinematic look freshens and lifts the scene.

Robin reminded me that if the f/1.2 was difficult to achieve in broad daylight with 1/8000th sec mechanical shutter, electronic shutter has a higher ceiling.

Like The Movies (Creating A Cinematic Visual)

I've just come back from watching La La Land - a lot of things to like about the film. The allusions to old films and music interspersed thoughout the movie, the Fred Astaire tap dance segments, updated to a modern feel, the cinematic look. Yes, the cinematic look often enthralls me.

I guess I'm an incurable romantic, whatever my feet-on-the-ground life has been. Another film that dazzles me with colour, tone and visuals is The Grand Budapest Hotel. Wes Craven's use of colour is so magical.

And my favourite for a long time, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

I guess in stills photography, I continue to have a fascination with colour.

A recent DIYPhotography article set me off thinking that I should have a long duration theme for some shots (maybe a year?) on creating some cinematic or close to cinematic stills myself. I will use the hashtag #justLikeTheMovies - I'd also like to see how other creatives make it happen, so come play with me,  please show me cinematic stuff and tag it with that tag. I will create a Google Plus page as a rallying point for G+ users where I spend a lot of my time.

I'm an Olympus camera user. For certain recent models of these cameras, you can simulate colour tints in the field - you can produce raw and jpeg and take the raw to produce more sophisticated processing or just use the jpeg SOOC as is.

There is also the older Art Filters approach

My photo retrospective of 2016

In past years, I had thought of doing a retrospective over the year but didn’t get round to it. I’ve made more progress this year.
So what happened, photographically this year of 2016? I didn’t buy new lenses or a new camera. By mid-year, work and just life, had taken so much of my focus that my camera was not seeing much action. When I looked over my shots, I saw that tail off in memorable photos as well.

Why produce a retrospective?

It’s about showing your photos. I’m a firm believer that if you are serious about photography, you need your peers to know what  you are producing and an audience to give you feedback. You need to look at your photos and get a vibe, a feeling, the big picture, instead of just looking at just one frame in isolation. So what do I see of my photos this year? Let’s have a look at the images first.

I like the shot above a lot – lots of red in the background (my favourite colour), animated finger expression (I don’t think she was saying that some people had small ones) and that gift monkey from the Vietnamese community during Chinese New Year.

This man above is, I think, Adam Bandt – he had brought his children to the Chinese New Year presentation in Richmond. I’m mesmerised by that thoughtful look.

This was Australia Day, it’s quite close to Chinese New Year. The flags are iconic, cameras are so evident during the parade. Notice the prayer beads – probably Buddhist.

There is a whole collage of participants in the Australia Day Parade. The forbearance of the children in the parade is exemplary, the parents and guardians pretty much supervising progress.

As one of the curators of #ShoesMonday that gear fascinates me enough to watch the different fashions. Melbourne is a shoe capital – there is a diverse range of shoes, reflecting the fashions of different seasons, cultures and ages.

Of course, shoes are not really useful unless you wear them and, um, dance in them.

The image above shifts to the famous Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur.  Whenever I visit, I note that newspapers are still  bought and read with gusto – the folk are equally adept on web and internet but the newspaper is part and parcel of their daily life. This chap seems to be reading some unwelcome news.

 

Here’s good friend Robin, above, his favourite street camera, the E-PL5 in his hand. Although Bjorn prefers his full frame Sony.

Kuala Lumpur is hot, humid the sun shines with a glare on the street. A raised hand does wonders.

 

 

For that day, Robin had arranged to let me shoot the then new, Olympus PEN-F. I rather like its off centre EVF, that twist and flip LCD screen for selfies and the level of control over tones for the SOOC monochrome JPEG (although Olympus persists in calling it Monotone)

 

Amir, Robin and I were in Brickfields and there was this vegetarian Indian restaurant – the menu is extensive.

I will have passed this Chinese temple in Brickfields many times in before but didn’t venture in. A little bird whispered in my ear that the wall paintings of allegories and fables were unexpectedly visual and raunchy.

Back in Melbourne, for the White Night event, with friends Paul, Trace, Kelvin and Kim – I rather like the concentration that Adrien Siboule (#SiB) at #speakeasy put into his performance.

Nick Hadgelias concentrating on the harmonica during the #whitenightmelb event

 

Although the selfie is ubiquitous, some people are not ok with it. I guess she’s one of them.

#whitenightmelb is so packed at certain times and certain places, it’s hard to get a photo. Raising the camera high is a valid technique

Look, even Trace holds his camera high up.

Some people have got tired with the weight and bulk of the classic DSLR. There’s still life in that product line regardless of the uptick in mirrorless product.

Sometimes you have to make sure that the customer knows how to bite the skewered meat. Really!

The things that you can do with moving bicycles is only limited by your imagination. I like the fun these guys had

 

I guess, just another pair of shoes, just because…..

There’s that “come hither” look that Justin Branecki gives in DCW/Photology sessions

I confess I forget her name. Fab sole patterns though.

Melbourne’s Dai Loong (Chinese Dragon) comes out for Chinese New Year and the Australia Day Parade. Many of the volunteers are not Chinese but they all have fun.

 

This dancing fun happens after the parade ends.

Federation Square is often a great place to come on a Melbourne Summer weekend. Heaps of cultural festivals with fab costumes.

 

 

Melbourne is well known for its Street Art. Those at Hosier Lane are in a continuous state of flux.

 

Hosier's is so well known that tourist and locals visit often and wedding parties come for photo shoots.

 

If you've ever wondered how the Street Art is painted so high up, tall ladders are used. As well as cherry pickers.

I wanted to get in closer and show the shopping bags at their feet but this pseudo panorama does convey the scene.

 

I met this little boy at #boxwars. This is my favourite image of the event.

 

Probably the last photo I want to pick as part of this collection. Are we apprehensive of the new year? Should we be?

 

In Conclusion

What do I see? I like people. I like photos of people. Sometimes that's called Street Photography. I take photos of abstracts, patterns, shapes, buildings maybe even landscapes. But people turn me on.