Here they build the super-tugs that maneuver and tend to offshore oil drilling rigs and production platforms. Series shot at the Jaya Shipyards in Singapore with the Panasonic TZ3 and Ricoh GR-Digital I. MT
POTD: Too many cliches – or, a story in an image
March 14, 2012 by
Too many cliches. Merdeka Square. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2/50 Planar
Meaning in an image: always subjective, sometimes obvious. Sometimes deliberately obfuscated. For instance, it could mean that on reflection, cloudy times are ahead for Malaysia; the wind has gone out of it’s sails now that we are no longer a cheap manufacturing country, natural resources are dwindling (limp flag) and independence has brought nothing but rainy days and corruption (photo taken of a distorted puddle of dirty water at Merdeka Square, the site of the declaration of independence) and greed. Or it could just be a reflection of a flagpole in a puddle. The beauty of photography and a multilayered image is that it’s up to the viewer to decide. MT
Photography equipment is a circle…
March 13, 2012 by
…and not because the lenses and control dials are round.
[Tongue in cheek] The phases of equipment euphoria go something like this:
Absolute newbie: Buys the sexiest, smallest point and shoot they can find. Then gets frustrated that it’s slow or the pictures look horrible in low light.
Modern alternative: Cameraphone.
Canon IXUS SD780IS. It was the sexiest, smallest, point and shoot I could find at the time. But I had my reasons for buying it, as you’ll see later.
Beginning hobbyist: Upgrades to a prosumer thing, the more buttons and dials the better; a longer zoom is just a bonus, as is if it looks like a DSLR – take that Nikon thingy with the 24-1000mm lens, for instance. 1000mm!
Leica D-Lux 5.
Amateur: A DSLR is a must. But why bother with the SLR bit if you’re going to hold it at arms’ length and use live view?
Nikon D40, swallowed by 400/2.8VR hood.
Serious amateur: A bigger, more serious DSLR. Maybe the same one as before, but with a battery grip and telephoto lens. Carries it around everywhere they go, complete with backpack containing 1001 other ‘essentials’ such as cleaning supplies, chargers, spare tripod heads, etc. Given a few years, will develop into an aspiring pro.
Semi-pro: An anomaly: may just use whatever midrange DSLR is given by their company, or use serious amateur gear.
Why choose between systems when you can have both?
Aspiring pro: Always has the latest and greatest; a pair of pro bodies, full set of f2.8 zooms and f1.4 primes, carbon fiber tripods, and…no work to pay for it all.
Pro: Only carries what they need; usually a matched pair of bodies for redundancy, with one lens each, and maybe a flash. No superfluous gear, because they know how much of a pain it is to carry. After several years, will develop a pronounced lean towards the shoulder that carries the spare body and a stoop from carrying 5kg around their necks.
Going light. Olympus Pen Mini.
Old hand: May or may not have been a pro, but now forced to sell some or all of their gear to cover chiropractor bills and divorce settlement after wife got ignored on too many holidays in favor of sunsets and sunrises and magic hour reflections; still can’t quite let go of the photography bug, so they look for the lightest thing they can find that just manages to do the job, but at the same time not require eating ramen or baked beans for a year.
And guess what: we’re right back where we started.
Now, you’re probably wondering why I’ve got photos of all of this gear: at some point or other, I went through it. Read carefully, and seriously, learn from my costly mistakes before you have both a bad back and an empty wallet. You have been warned. MT
POTD: Three men and a mirror
March 13, 2012 by
Three men and a mirror. Old Kuala Lumpur coffeeshop. Leica M9-P, Zeiss ZM 2/50 Planar
I do enjoy street photography. But it’s more of a social documentary and practice arena to hone my skills in other areas. The one big difference between photojournalism and street is your internal sense of purpose: with the former, you know you’re there on assignment, and looking for particular images. This means two things: confidence, and focus. That’s why I find photojournalism a lot easier than street – it’s all about confidence. MT
Photoessay: The Ford GT40
March 12, 2012 by
This car is a bit of a legend – the weapon that Ford used to beat Ferrari at their own game at Le Mans in the late 60s and early 70s. I was lucky to find an original, still-raced example locally, and even luckier to get the chance to photograph it. MT
Series shot with the Fuji Finepix X100.
Every special race car comes with a cute grid girl in a short skirt.
POTD: Shards
March 12, 2012 by
Shards. New facade of Starhill Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. Would probably look a whole lot nicer if they bothered to clean the glass, especially after repeated monsoon rains. Nikon D700, 24/1.4
Pet peeve: Proper perspective practice
March 11, 2012 by
Enough Ps for now.
One common mistake I used to make a long time ago, and continually rears its head is the proper use of wide-angle and telephoto lenses. A common conversation goes like this:
Friend: Can you recommend a good wide-angle lens?
Me: Why, what do you want to use it for?
Friend: Sometimes I can’t fit everything in the frame, so I thought something wider might help.
Me: [wrings hands in the air, launches into a tirade]
Dinner. Any closer and my lens would have been in the bowl of soup. Nikon D3, 14-24/2.8
Rule One: They are NOT to ‘get more into the picture’ or ‘get closer’. That’s absolutely the wrong way to shoot, and will result in far-away looking and very, very boring images.
Why?
It’s all about perspectives. A wide angle lens has a wide angle of view, as the name suggests. This means, that things closer to the lens will be exaggerated in perspective compared to things further away; simply because the foreground subjects of a given size occupy a larger percentage of the field of view. A telephoto lens compresses perspectives; which is to say, a mountain 5km away will appear to be about the same size as one 10km away, because the angle of view of the lens is narrow, and both mountains occupy similar proportions of it – despite the difference in subject distance. It also helps that because of the higher magnification of a long focal length, your subjects are naturally going to have to be much further away.
Ipoh hills at sunset. Nikon D700, 28-300VR.
Rule Two: Choose your perspective before you choose your lens.
If you know how you want the composition of your frame to appear – specifically, the relative prominence of subjects and other supporting elements – then you’ll know whether you need to use a wide-angle (all about the main subject, the rest is required to give context), a telephoto (isolating the main subject, or the main subject is compressed against the background) or something between.
This is one of the great secrets of professional photographers. Look carefully at news or photojournalism images: they’re shot with wide lenses, with main subjects front and center – that’s because the lines of perspective converge on the main subject, and the background is diminished. Give it a try, and you’ll find your images a lot more powerful. MT
POTD: The orange tunnel
March 11, 2012 by
The orange tunnel. Fuji X100
The color is caused by the extreme difference in color temperature of light sources: sodium vapor in the tunnel, evening shade outside. It would be impossible to get the right white balance for both – so a ‘middle value’ produces this effect. A pain when shooting something where color is important, or one of those interesting properties of optics that we photographers exploit from time to time…MT
Photoessay: Nagarkot
March 10, 2012 by
Nagarkot is a popular tourist destination at the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal; you aren’t really there, but you do get a spectacular view of the mountains if the weather cooperates – it did to some extent on the one day and one night we were there. Kathmandu is situated in a valley that tends to trap smog, pollution and every other kind of nasty; less than two hours outside (probably more like half an hour if the roads were maintained properly) and you’re breathing clear mountain air. Feeling ambitious, we undertook a 9km round trip hike; we underestimated the heat and altitude, and landed up flagging somewhat on the way back down – it might have had something to do with the rather disappointing view from the ‘lookout tower’ that was both not that much of a tower, and extremely difficult to climb because the ladder inexplicably started six feet off the ground. MT
Series shot with a Nikon D700, AFS 24/1.4 G and AFS 85/1.4 G lenses.
Everest by aeroplane
Incredible night view; not really visible to the naked eye, but that’s why we have cameras with 30s exposures and f1.4 lenses.
Before sunrise. What appears to be a cloud bank turns out to be a solid unbroken mountain range.
Breaking dawn
Watching the view
Commando training – center left.
POTD: Spiral
March 10, 2012 by
Spiral. Images are everywhere if you open your eyes. Olympus Pen Mini E-PM1, ZD 12/2.
