On Photography – Ming Thein

Photoessay: New York City street colour

September 3, 2013 by Ming Thein

Today’s photoessay is a set of images shot with the Nikon Coolpix A on the streets of New York City during my earlier workshop trip this year. NYC on a blue sky spring day is seriously difficult to beat. Not much to add, other than enjoy! MT

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If you’d like to learn how to make images like this, you’ll be pleased to know that one last seat has opened up for the Prague workshop (2-5 Oct) due to a participant’s conflicting work commitments. Now available at the special price of $1,900 instead of $2,150!For full details and to make a booking, click here. Thanks! MT

Workers of heavy metal – a combined On Assignment Film Diaries Photoessay, part two

August 30, 2013 by Ming Thein

The second portion of this photoessay concludes (part one is here) with a plenty of images and couple of final thoughts: firstly, another huge thank you to the client for giving me this opportunity – he’s a reader of this site too – very rarely do professional and personal creative goals mesh with such rewarding results. Secondly, I think there are a couple of things I need to look for in future assignments: it’s a bit abstract, but basically one needs to have a subject with potential and a client who’ll trust you enough to let you run with it – without either, the ensuing images will always be a compromise. MT

Workers of heavy metal – a combined On Assignment Film Diaries Photoessay, part one

August 28, 2013 by Ming Thein

The welder.

If ever I had a dream assignment, this has got to have been one of them. (And the job isn’t quite finished yet; there are a few other outstanding items that need to be taken care of.) Imagine being presented with a scene of near-infinite photographic opportunity by a client who says ‘I hired you because I like your work, and I don’t want to restrict your artistic vision – so go ahead and shoot as you see fit.’ Then throw in the ability to shoot with the system(s) of your choice – including film – and a couple of good lunches to boot. And a chauffeured 7-series to and from the location. I swear a) I’m not joking, and b) this doesn’t happen often, but hey: if it did, we certainly wouldn’t be able to appreciate it.

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Don’t underestimate the final display medium

August 26, 2013 by Ming Thein

This image doesn’t work small: there’s far too much detail going on to appreciate at just 800 pixels high.

Here’s a question for all photographers: how many of you have considered the intended viewing method for an image at any point before final output? No need to answer this to anybody other than yourself. That said, I’m willing to bet that the number is very small indeed. In my recent article on pushing clarity and transparency in a photograph and the intense discussion that ensued, the one thing that stuck in my mind was how we (collectively) undervalue the output medium.

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Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, display medium, essay, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, output, photography, printing, thein

On Assignment: architecture by night

August 16, 2013 by Ming Thein

Sometimes, one is given some pretty sweet assignments. Quite near the top of that list is a commission to photograph beautiful buildings by one of the country’s – arguably the world’s, too – leading architects with the rare thing of a completely open creative brief. This is the position I found myself in a couple of months ago, camera bag in one hand, Mother Of All (somewhat portable) Tripods in the other, and sheaf of permission letters and permits from Hijjas Kasturi Associates tucked away safe inside the camera bag just in case.

Photoessay: New York City urbanscapes

August 14, 2013 by Ming Thein

I honestly have no idea what category or genre this kind of photography falls into; it’s not quite abstract because you know what the subject is, though there’s heavy reliance on geometry, form, color and light; it’s not street even though it’s generally shot on the street or from the street; I suppose it could be travel, though they don’t really especially make you want to go visit a place. Flaneur, perhaps; the exploring observer. Or still life, except there are frequently moving elements. It’s not really cityscape or architecture either, because often there are no buildings, or they’re not complete, or the view isn’t wide enough to be considered an entire cityscape.

Repost: It’s a visual world – the basics of making great images

August 10, 2013 by Ming Thein

This article was originally written for and posted on the official WordPress blog in two parts on 18 and 25 June 2013. I’ve reposted it here as I believe it makes a good primer to the science and art of making outstanding images – the full-blown article is here. MT

Ginza, Tokyo. Sony RX100 (I include camera info here solely to demonstrate that it really doesn’t matter what you use.)

When I was first approached by WordPress, I have to admit that I was a little worried about the magnitude of the task at hand: ultimately my own site is very much about what goes into the creation of outstanding images. And that’s a 600+ article, 1.3-million word work in progress. That’s obviously not going to fit into the length of your average post, so today I’m going to throw the rulebook out of the window and start again. I highly encourage you to do the same: regardless of your experience level with photography, do the same. Approach this article with an open mind and no preconceptions. I’m going to do the same.

A question of clarity

August 8, 2013 by Ming Thein

Photography as an artistic medium is limited: by and large, the structure of your image is restricted by what exists in reality. Sure, you can alter that representation of reality by changing the light, your composition, your physical position, focal length, perspective, white balance, saturation, or a thousand and one other technical and artistic parameters. But ultimately, it still remains both interpretative and approximate. This is a good and bad thing: it means that assuming there is no post-capture manipulation of content going on, a photograph can be used as a relatively accurate representation of something; there is an assumed level of integrity in a photograph that isn’t present in an impressionist painting, for example. However, photography as a medium isn’t really encouraging of the same interpretative latitude as other media where one starts with a blank canvas/ sheet of paper (forget three dimensional and mixed media for the time being, that’s something which photography will never be able to replicate).

The 2013 Maybank Photo Awards are now open!

August 2, 2013 by Ming Thein

You’ll probably have noticed the new banner on the right sidebar: following last year’s very successful Awards – nearly 20,000 entries and a couple of industry prizes for best campaign – Maybank are back again for 2013, this time bigger, better, and now open to all ASEAN residents – not just Malaysia, with the theme “Inspiring Asia”. Those of you who’ve been following the site since last year will know that I served as Head Judge for the inaugural contest; I’m pleased to announce I’m looking forward to resuming the role and working with them again this year.

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Filed Under: Competitions, On Photography Tagged With: maybank photo awards 2013, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, thein

Photoessay: KLCC abstracts in monochrome

July 17, 2013 by Ming Thein

Half of perhaps the most iconic building in Malaysia.

Rather frustratingly, I’d actually typed out a long history about KLCC, but WordPress ate it and it’s nowhere to be found. Here we go again…

The Petronas Twin Towers – 88 stories, and part of the greater KLCC complex (including a park, two hotels, conventionn center, mall, mosque and another two office blocks) – put Malaysia on the map for megaprojects. Opened in 1998, the towers were designed by Cesar Pelli and completed by competing Korean and Japanese firms. It was paid for entirely by petroleum revenues from the eponymous national oil company; during the Asian Financial Crisis, occupancy was low – again with the exception of the name tenant – these days, things are back to normal and space is at a hideous premium, even on an international level. Architecturally, the site is challenging as it’s a former racecourse with very little bedrock and a lot of clay and porous limestone; this is the main reason for putting the taller, heavier structures around the periphery. Even so, extensive piling and foundation works had to be done, and many of the lower basement levels underneath the main towers are filled with concrete to settle the ground and form a floating slab on which some of the other outlying structures sit.