Sunday, May 31, 2009

The day spent shooting

As some of you may know I've recently taken up a new hobby in the form of photography. I think my fascination in photography is taken from a some what philosphical standpoint in that sometimes what we see with our own eyes, can be viewed upon in a whole different way in another. Moreover, if we really wanted to, we are able to see situations in a whole other light, which makes those dark grimy days easily managable.
It's all about how was perceive things.


For example, when you look at this ambiguous, strange and argubly ugly looking picture what do you see? If I were not to tell you what this photo actually is then it could be whatever you think it is.
In actual fact, this photo is a picture of my toilet.
If you look closely you can see the airfresheners on the window and the outlines of my toilet seat on the bottom of the photo.
The point I am trying to prove is, though I am probably arguing this poorly, is that life can be seen in many different ways and it should be important to try to look at things from a different point of view if we are ever to appreciate and understand the dynamics of life. (and yes I do appreciate my toilet)



Everyone say hello to Andy Guo. Andy is a close friend of mine who I attended highschool with. If I keep up with this blogging thing you will probably see his face on here quite often. Anyway, after having a pretty long week filled with deadlines for my assignments, I was in need of a casual night out, with a drink or two on the side. So my friends Andy, David (who you will meet later on) and I went out to take some photos before getting our drink on (when my camera decided to die as soon as we made it to the bar). As you can see in the photo, Andy is holding a dSLR with a 30mm 1.4 lens mounted (a lens that is insanely sharp) - he is also a fellow photography buff.



This is my friend David Chau, the person I mentioned earlier. David Chau is a 22 year old graduate accountant who has the mannerisms of an uncle back in the "old country". We sometimes call him 'Uncle Chau' or given the fact that are so many Davids we just tend to call him "Chau" for simplicity sake. I've also known chau for a while now and Chau is the person that actually introduced me to photography and lent me his camera a few times to try it out. Chau has taken a lot of time to show me around and I would like to take the time to say thankyou for his wonderful contributions. Thanks mate.
Chau's forte is shooting in film, something that is becoming quite rare in today's digital age. His signature style is black and white street photography, a particular area in which he is talented in, but unfortunately is a style that has gone out of popular fashion in favour of more colourful and commercial photos. Which is a real tragedy if you ask me, because his black and white photography has a nice subliminal tone to them and in my opinion, film has so much better characteristics then its digital conuterpart, yet the general appreciation for them is significantly less than what it should be getting. If you are interested in seeing some of Chau's work then give his flicker a visit @
http://www.flickr.com/photos/82952858@N00/.

In homage to Chau, the next few shots will be in black and white.



This photo was taken on Friday night while we were having coffee in Central market. If you are out on late night shopping on a Friday, you should really consider having your coffees here. There's usually very talented buskers located there, playing some really smooth acoustic and the ambience is fantastic when you are catching up with close friends over a nice hot cup of brown goodness.

Here are some random black and white shots of Chau without commentary to conclude todays posting.






Hope you have enjoyed reading about my outakes on photography and other ramblings.Til next time. Take care!

The very first blog

Hi there folks,
I recently decided to start my own blog and if time/motivation permits I will hopefully be able to blog on a periodic and regular basis. If you are wondering why I have decided to blog. Well it's because I think blogs are good way to record the day to day events in our lives. So now you ask, what's the point in recording the day to day events? Well it's my belief that too often in life, things become all too routine/transitory in nature and its hard to comprehend the substance behind it all, unless we really give it some concious thought instead of backlogging it into our subconcious where it will eventually be forgotten.

Hopefully these posting will be entertaining so that I don't cringe when I read back on them and you won't close the window.