Ming Thein | Photographer

Photoessay: Urban form

April 17, 2019 by Ming Thein 16 Comments

Just as the previous photoessay focused on the distilled shapes and forms of the organic, today’s does the same for the inorganic. Hard shadows play off hard lines and angles and deep blacks create a sense of spatial discontinuity that turns the unknown into a solid anchor, intentionally inverting perception. Sorry, sometimes I forget I’m not writing for a society art critique. Most of the time, I just like the shapes. MT

This series was shot with the Nikon Z7 and contains SOOC JPEG images using my custom Picture Controls, available here. Similar results are available with other cameras by following the Monochrome Masterclass workflow.

Framing, color and simplicity: Robin’s take

April 13, 2019 by Robin Wong 24 Comments

After sifting through a huge collection of street images shot within the past year, I found that I was specifically drawn to colour and simplicity. We all look for different subjects and approach street shooting differently. For example, I love MT’s appreciation of interesting and unusual urban geometry as well as creative use of dramatic shadows and light in his framing. In contrast, I take a more simple approach by focusing on a singular subject/content and ignoring everything else. I work with many human subjects – close up street portraits in particular – and keeping the image clean helps take the attention straight to the facial expression of the people. I have come to the realization, very recently, that colour also played a huge role in how I chose and frame my portraits and general street shots.

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Filed Under: On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: color, composition, framing, mingthein.com, photography, robin, Robin Wong, simplicity, wong

Photoessay: Park form

April 10, 2019 by Ming Thein 16 Comments

A walk in the park can sometimes be more than easy and better than creative – a refreshment of the mind and eye, and some good light to make things interesting. I’ve found myself working increasingly in monochrome these days to focus on forms and shapes and remove the distractions of color; there’s a time and place for it but the color really has to carry the story. In a high-density and high-contrast environment that’s monochromatic anyway – taking away the color pushes the eye towards the core of the story. MT

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, monochrome, nikon, park form, photoessay, photography, thein

Repost: Derivative works and photography

April 7, 2019 by Ming Thein 41 Comments

Influenced by the architect? Surely. Created by him? About as much as it was created by Apple, because it was shot on an iPhone.

I originally wanted to call this article ‘is anything truly original?’ – however, I think that’s the concluding question I’d like to leave the reader with rather than the opening one. There has been a lot of debate recently – both in the comments here, offline amongst my usual correspondents and in various places on the internet about why a) photography is perhaps not perceived as ‘highly valued’ as other art forms; b) obviously derivative works and the creative value – or lack of – contained therein; and the greater question of whether c) the medium as a legitimate creative art form rather than merely a recording/ documentary one. Perhaps the biggest question is in the title: ‘but is it art?’

Photoessay: Shadow form

April 4, 2019 by Ming Thein 21 Comments

When three dimensions collapse to two, the only way to infer spatial placement is by the position and overlap of shadows; this includes not just large macro-scale objects but also texture, which is nothing more than superposition of entitles at the micro-scale. No light, no shadows, no image, no spatial relativity. Yet the interesting ability of photography has only two interesting elements when collapsing dimensions: firstly, to reproduce exactly what we see (or think we see) and preserve an otherwise transient moment; secondly, projection that is unnatural or not normally noticed with stereo (i.e. human) vision – be it an exaggerated depth or a completely collapsed one. Expression or collapse in dimensionality is interesting because it almost lets us imagine what the universe might be like if we could perceive more than the standard four dimensions (three spatial, plus time). Either that or it’s the repressed physicist in me geeking out. MT

Images were shot with a mix of hardware over the last year and post processed with the Monochrome Masterclass workflow.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, monochrome, photoessay, photography, shadows, thein

Addressing some rather serious feedback

April 1, 2019 by Ming Thein 20 Comments

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The quality of readership here has always been very high, and I owe the audience a big thank you for contributing intelligently to the discussion. But there are some occasions where people go above and beyond to bring something truly special to the table. I therefore feel it is only fair to highlight some of these today and give them the stage and attention they truly deserve.

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Filed Under: Off topic Tagged With: ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, thein

MT’s scrapbook: Supposedly scientific

March 29, 2019 by Ming Thein 37 Comments

The moniker “National Science Centre” conjures illusions of grandeur and seriousness – unfortunately, the reality is quite sadly different. At best, it’s a bunch of very amateur, run down (and often non-functional) experiments clearly of a mid-90s aspirational country vintage designed to appeal to kids below the age of 10; at worst, it’s something that reflects the state of public education in this country when many attending grown adults find exhibits of this nature fascinating in 2018 – to be honest, the average dentist’s waiting room has more advanced toys. I took my daughter here for want of something to do on a Sunday afternoon, but in the end she found the enormous panel of electrical switches more entertaining. We left confused: not knowing whether to laugh, cry, or come to the conclusion the visitors were probably the most interesting experiments to observe. MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

Long term field test: Olympus ZD 25/1.2 Pro

March 26, 2019 by Robin Wong 30 Comments

If I were to choose one of the three available F1.2 prime lenses from Olympus (17mm, 25mm and 45mm), most people would guess 45mm which is not a surprise considering that is my favourite focal length. However when the decision was finally made, I chose the M.Zuiko 25mm F1.2 PRO lens instead. Of course I wanted all three F1.2 lenses but that will seriously burn a huge hole in my wallet. The choice of 25mm PRO has a lot to do with the nature of my commercial photography jobs and also practical use in street photography and most casual shooting environment, which I shall explore in this article. Bear in mind this is not a review of the lens – I published my full review in 2016 here in case you missed it.

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Filed Under: Gearhead: Reviews, Robin Wong Tagged With: 25 1.2, gearhead, mingthein.com, olympus, review, robin, Robin Wong, wong

MT’s scrapbook: Angled

March 23, 2019 by Ming Thein 29 Comments

Lots of hard light and pointy geometry today; to the point that many scenes are abstracted into making little spatial sense. The deep shadows constrain physically but open up ambiguity and leave you to come to your own reflections on what exactly has been hidden. Mostly shot around two buildings that come alive at the right time of day with the right light (but the buildings themselves in gross form are a bit simplistically monolithic and not very interesting). We’re a good few months into the SOOC JPEG experiment now, and so far it seems to be sticking…it is forcing me to adopt a rather filmic approach to photography and the subtle but important difference of imagining what can be now, rather than what can be with a little work. Interestingly, I find my compositional balance has improved since I am no longer thinking about fixing things in post with a gradient. It of course makes post processing somewhat easier since there is less local work to be done, but at the same time overall image quality is slightly compromised as I am exposing to output rather than to maximise data collection. Still, the tradeoff in time saved and other opportunities explored seems to be worthwhile so far… MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

Equipment failure in the field: a practical challenge

March 20, 2019 by Robin Wong 43 Comments

For a trip back home this Chinese New Year I only packed one camera and lens – the Olympus E-P5 and M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8. Little did I expect the, now 7 year old, E-P5 to malfunction and leave me with a dead LCD screen (with the external EVF back in KL). A little testing revealed that, aside from the LCD screen, the camera worked perfectly fine. This left me with two options for my time in Kuching – turn to my smartphone or take up the no LCD, no EVF challenge and use the E-P5. I chose the latter and every single image in this article was taken without the ability to compose my scene.

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Filed Under: On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: dead lcd, equipment failure, mingthein.com, photography, robin, Robin Wong, wong