ming thein – Ming Thein

Photoessay: Germany, on the move

December 29, 2015 by Ming Thein

_7R2_DSC1032 copy

Today’s photoessay comes from a much earlier trip in the year to Zeiss HQ in Germany; I had a lot of connections and a lot of transit time. The camera naturally falls to hand and one starts observing and recording. Having personally spent a lot of time in transit in a large number of countries around the world, I always find it remarkable how developed countries are quite similar – but somehow little things make a difference in implementation and efficiency of the overall system. Whilst German public transport lacks the brutal efficiency of the Swiss, it also lacks the unpredictability of the French and Italians, so I suppose that’s reason not to complain…MT

This series was shot with a Leica Q, Sony A7RII and Zeiss 1.8/55 FE and 1.8/85 Batis lenses. You can learn the underlying postprocessing in the Weekly Photoshop Workflow series.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: germany, life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, people, photoessay, photography, thein, transport

New: MT’s Weekly PS Workflow Classroom

December 27, 2015 by Ming Thein

PS weekly review

It’s time to take postprocessing further in the new year.

Given the popularity of the photoshop and postprocessing videos, and the continual feedback for more of the same – I’ve decided to try an experiment for 2016. Every week, with the first instalment available on 3 Jan 2016, I’ll be putting out a new video. The concept is simple: it’s a classroom where submitted images are critiqued and postprocessed and subscriber questions answered. This is the closest I can get to a providing a consistent learning environment for a large audience.

Subscribers can submit images of their own; I will try to critique all of them
We select the most interesting to post process in ACR/photoshop using workflow II, with a discussion of the rationale behind it
Any subscriber questions are answered
In addition, I postprocess images of my own so you can see the complete workflow from capture and conception to completion – to see how the complete ‘idea’ comes together (i.e. capture with previsualized output)

Each weekly video will run for ~1h15min.

Christmas humour 2015: Photographers’ beliefs

December 25, 2015 by Ming Thein

_M9P1_L1002990 copy

In the tradition of previous years…today’s post takes a break from any serious sort of photography. Merry Christmas, all!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Off topic Tagged With: christmas, christmas 2015, christmas humor, humour, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, thein

Photoessay: Paradise Lost, part I: the daydream

December 23, 2015 by Ming Thein

_7R2_DSC0929 copy

What if inanimate objects had a soul? Hopes, dreams, lives, consciousness, a feeling of purpose? Do they have salad days? What happens when they retire, descend into old age and start to feel their mortality? How does a retirement community for Air Force aircraft feel?

Paradise Lost is a project I’ve been working on for the last few months that attempts to answer some of these questions in a photographic interpretation. At some point, I’ll expand this to include other machinery – mining equipment would be fantastic (but tricky to access) and cars are probably the next logical steep (and easier to execute). The first part of the series is supposed to evoke feelings of daydreaming, wistfulness and a nostalgia for golden days past. I’m once again experimenting with the metaphor of clouds as insubstantial fleeting thoughts (first encountered in The Dreamscape Project). Enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Sony A7RII and Zeiss 1.8/55 FE and 1.8/85 Batis lenses.

Photoessay: Details of Aalen

December 19, 2015 by Ming Thein

_7R2_DSC1196 copy

For a relatively small town in Germany, Aalen has quite a few little interesting architectural details – certainly enough to make for a morning’s worth of abstracts in the right light. For the curious, though I mostly shoot in this ‘abstracted form’ style* for myself as eye training for still life or structuring product shots, the architectural details are also frequently commissioned by clients – so there is some commercial applicability…

*All elements decompose to just color, shape and light

This series was shot with a Sony A7RII, Zeiss Batis 1.8/85, and Contax Zeiss 2.8/35 PC Distagon.

[Read more…]

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

The portfolio

December 17, 2015 by Ming Thein

Screen Shot 2015-09-16 at 13.06.01

MT’s architecture master portfolio

Following on from the previous articles on curation and how to approach a project, I thought I’d conclude with a slightly different look at the same thing: the portfolio. We hear that word bandied about quite a lot amongst photographers and clients too: ‘Send me your portfolio’, or ‘That image is good enough to go in the portfolio’, or ‘Here’s my client portfolio’. What does it actually mean? How can we use it to our advantage?

Photoessay: Gold and Silver Forum, Schwäbisch Gmünd

December 15, 2015 by Ming Thein

_7R2_DSC1277 copy

During my previous trip to Zeiss HQ in Oberkochen, the group was taken to the nearby town of Schwäbish Gmünd for a demo session with the new lenses; I passed on the models and wandered around the town with Lloyd Chambers instead. Needless to say, this rather unique building caught my eye I and landed up producing a series of studies of it. It is the Gold and Silver Forum located on the banks of the Josefsbach stream in the centre of town; I was made to understand that the reason behind it was the area being historically a centre for fine metalsmithing several hundred years ago. Today, it serves as a public space to take in the sunshine and a meal. Personally, I think the most interesting part is the way the faceted facade reflects light and simultaneously creates the illusion of having many layers and great complexity thanks to the play of projected shadows on the underlying building’s core. This was accentuated by the hard light of that particular day. The facade itself is quite a challenging subject simply because it’s difficult to fully abstract without focusing overly on a single set of apertures, and pulling out loses the shadow gradation on the structure beneath. Enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Sony A7RII, Zeiss Batis 1.8/85, Contax Zeiss 2.8/35 PC Distagon and a Leica Q. Postprocessing was with the ‘commercial’ technique in Making Outstanding Images Ep.5: processing for style.

Photoessay-challenge: A single location, revisited

December 11, 2015 by Ming Thein

Only the clouds are truly free, II

During the last ten years, it’s quite possible that I’ve photographed in just about every accessible (and some inaccessible) location in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Many times, I’ve revisited the same location multiple times at different times of day and in different weather conditions to try and get something unusual; the more often you go, the more likely it is to be a bust – that’s just the law of probabilities at work. One location I don’t go to very often – mainly because of weather and its one-trick-pony nature – is the KL Tower; 421m to the top of the spire, about 335m to the outdoor observation deck, and a little bit more altitude (50m? 70m?) by virtue of being on top of another hill in roughly the highest part of the city. There are two challenges: one, good weather at the times of day when the sun is still casting interesting shadows; two, there’s always some degree of atmospheric haze or pollution, visible especially with distant subjects even if you’re on the roof deck with no glass in the way. My challenge for this visit – on the spur of the moment to make the most of a break in the schedule and a clear morning – was to try and make something different… MT

This set was shot with a Nikon D810, AFS 80-400/4.5-5.6 VR G and PCE 45/2.8 and processed with PS Workflow II.

Curation, judging and objectivity

December 9, 2015 by Ming Thein

_7R2_DSC0662 copy

Let’s start with three critical thoughts for any photographer: 1. You cannot show what you have not shot. 2. What gets seen is only what you choose to show. 3. What you choose reflects you as much as what you shoot. The more I think about it, the more I think what differentiates a really great photographer from a mediocre one – at least the perception of greatness – are their curation choices. I’ve written about curation in the past but not said that much about the criteria I use to determine in or out – that’s the purpose of today’s post.

Announcing the Lisbon Masterclass, 9-14 March 2016

December 7, 2015 by Ming Thein

_64Z4767 copy
From the Venice Masterclass

Lisbon is a new destination for me, which is why there’s no header image from there. This means unlike the previous Masterclasses, I’m also going in blind with no experience. I will experience the same visual overload as you, and you will in turn have the benefit of seeing how I work in a completely unfamiliar environment. Note that I am also reducing the number of workshops this year due to my commercial schedule – one per quarter is the aim. Please read on to book and for more information. Places will go quite quickly as the class composition is usually 30-50% returning participants.

[Read more…]