leica q – Ming Thein | Photographer

Photoessay: Waking Coonoor

April 19, 2016 by Ming Thein

Half an hour before we were to meet our contact from the wildlife preservation department, we arrived in Coonoor, the Nilgris range, India, to find the town sleepy and barely stirring. Sunlight was just hitting the very tops of the highest buildings upslope, and the few residents stirring were dragging their feet – a massive contrast to the scene a couple of hours later, which was so different you could not imagine the place empty. As we did a quick walk through, I felt like I was observing the aftermath of the night before…a sort of crime scene worker, if you will. What follows is from the body of evidence, filed under ‘environmental context’. MT

This series was shot with a Leica Q, and post processed with PS Workflow II.

Photoessay: 28mm in Tokyo

March 27, 2016 by Ming Thein

Camouflage (urban jailbreak)

People, an urban centre, 28mm, and monochrome – is there a more ‘classical’ recipe for what might be traditionally classified as street photography? Perhaps, perhaps not. The whole genre is so fluid that I think it is impossible to define anyway; I instead think ‘snippets from the quotidian’ is probably more accurate in this case. They are vignettes and observations of the repeated, the mundane, and the boring. But the pace of the world changes so fast that who knows what the same activities will look like in twenty or fifty years? MT

This series was shot with a Leica Q and post processed with The Monochrome Masterclass. You can also look over my shoulder at the underlying postprocessing in the Weekly Photoshop Workflow series.

Photoessay: Hong Kong Urbanscapes II

October 2, 2015 by Ming Thein

Rebirth

Following on from the previous photoessay, I’d like to present part two as a counterpoint – both visual and metaphorical. Whereas the previous photoessay was semi-decay and urban wear and tear, this series of images is the shiny, soulless face of modernity. We are still devoid of humans because the environment has almost become inhumanly clinical, yet somehow there remains a sort of stark beauty in what is left behind. Enjoy the idealised utopia!

This series was shot with a Leica Q and processed with Photoshop Workflow II.

Photoessay: Hong Kong Urbanscapes I

September 28, 2015 by Ming Thein

I Maze

Ranging from the shiny and complete to the decrepit and the transformation process that takes place in between, today’s photoessay is a deliberately dehumanised look at the the urban landscape. It is a series that intentionally feels both cold and evokes a little deus ex machina feeling – actually not so easy to accomplish in a place like Hong Kong where it is usually impossible to achieve an image without some humans in it! MT

This series was shot with a Leica Q and processed with Photoshop Workflow II.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: hong kong, leica, leica q, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photoessay, photography, q typ 116, thein, urbanscapes

Photoessay: observations in Hong Kong

September 20, 2015 by Ming Thein

Everybody is a tourist sometimes

Today’s images are a series of observations of people shot in Hong Kong – it’s not quite the traditionally expected street photography, though neither is it my more abstracted ‘idea of man’ series, either. They are the sort of vignettes of life you get as you pass through the city with an openly observational eye – varying in scale and intensity of personal contact; familiar and unusual. I think this juxtaposition of immense scale and the relative insignificance of the individual being at odds with the lack of personal space is very much Hong Kong, as is the very variety of situations one might encounter within a relatively small radius. Enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Leica Q Typ 116 and processed with PS Workflow II or the Cinematic workflow in Outstanding Images Ep.5, Processing for style.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: hong kong, leica q, life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, people, photoessay, photography, q typ 116, thein

More images from the Leica Q Typ 116

June 13, 2015 by Ming Thein

Pipework

Today’s photoessay is a mismash of sorts: additional images from the Leica Q, which I’ve had a chance to shoot a bit more with over the last few days in between assignments and preparing for my exhibition Connection which is now open at the Hong Kong Arts Centre. (The original set of images was made with no more than about 8 hours of shooting time in total, excluding bench testing etc. I’ve not got much to add to my original review other than the initial impressions are continuing to hold: this is one responsive, fluid, transparent camera. The edges are better if you avoid focus and recompose, and mid-distance performance seems to be slightly better than infinity. There can be some odd internal reflections inside the finder if you have light coming in from behind, but that’s only happened twice. I’m still very much enjoying shooting with it, as I’m sure you can tell from this set, and the fact that the shutter has racked up close to 3,000 images in six days…enjoy! MT This set was shot with a Leica Q Typ 116, and processed with Photoshop Workflow II. [Read more…]