mingthein.com – Ming Thein

Photoessay: Life in Porto, part I

June 28, 2016 by Ming Thein

I came away from Porto with a bit of strange feeling about Porto. From a distance, and on the opposite bank of the Douro, the old town looks charming and quaint, with a vibrant revival immediately around you. The sun is shining, the tourists are enjoying their wine tastings, and the locals are eager to please. Go back over, however, and a cloud seems to settle; edifices that appeared charmingly quaint are really decaying very badly and somewhere between neglected and derelict. There are few locals left, and those who are are very elderly and not in much better shape than the buildings. Smiles are absent. Tourists are tolerated or seen as targets. It is altogether a very different Porto from The Other Side. It seemed to me that most of the locals inhabited a sort of zone between the two – a monotonous grey transience between the two states of decay and forced tourist joviality. They lived lives subservient to their environment and took what little joy where they could find it – a drink here, a smoke there, a bit of sun when it showed. It honestly felt a bit sad. These are the impressions I left with of life in Porto. MT

Shot with a Hasselblad H5D-50C and 28, 100 and 50mm lenses except for one image, which was shot with a Leica Q. Postprocessing was with the Monochrome Masterclass Workflow.

Digital resolution: why enough will probably never be enough, and how to solve it

June 26, 2016 by Ming Thein

How often do we have nice regular subjects like this? Hardly ever.

The pixel race continues: more resolving power is being crammed into smaller and smaller physical sizes. The recent Hasselblad X1D announcement is at the pointy end of that: we now have medium format resolving power and tonal quality in a package that’s smaller than many 35mm solutions. I have a theory about resolution and the megapixel race and perception. Aside from the marketing reasons why 100>50>24 and must therefore be better, there are much more fundamental reasons why we feel the resolving power limitations of digital far more acutely than film. And it isn’t just our ability to pixel-peep with ease; it’s more to do with the fundamental nature of the world. Yes, there’s sufficiency in output because of the limitations of the output device itself, but I suspect these will catch up and exceed capture very easily. Allow me to explain why, and why I think there’s a way out that might well result in a very different sort of sensor…

Das Wimmelbild in der Fotografie

June 24, 2016 by Ming Thein

During one of the many discussions on composition that took place during the Lisbon Masterclass a few months ago, one of the participants suggested that my compositions were reminiscent of something called Wimmelbild in German. Loosely translated, it’s the concept of ‘teeming pictures’ – or a composition that is extremely full of detail and sub-scenes within the main composition. Two of the better-known examples of wimmelbild are the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and childrens books by authors such as Richard Scarry, Ali Mitgutsch, Rotraut Susanne Berner, and Eva Scherbarth – and of course the ‘Where’s Wally’ series by illustrator Martin Handford. If there’s a single gestalt that best describes the nature of most of my compositions – wimmelbild would be it. So it’s probably worth spending a little time explaining exactly what it is…

Announcing the Hasselblad X1D-50c: medium format mirrorless is here.

June 22, 2016 by Ming Thein

X1D_Front34_B_Grey_v011_g copy

The teaser said game changer; those fighting words have been used before and left something wanting. I think now that the dust has somewhat settled after the X1D announcement, clearer heads may prevail in the analysis. For those who missed it: Hasselblad have just announced a 50MP medium format (44x33mm) mirrorless camera with a 2.36MP EVF, new lenses and full back compatibility with existing H system lenses, at a price point that’s bringing the fight to Pentax and making 35mm DSLRs look physically bloated.

It’s now time for a little of my customary analysis, and in a few weeks, an extended shooting report.

Photoessay: Architectural leftovers, part II

June 20, 2016 by Ming Thein

Somebody, somewhere, had to put in the work into designing these places. Somebody had to build them. Somebody paid for, used, and in most cases, still use them. Some are decayed and awaiting decommissioning or demolishing. But the impression I get is that not all were loved even in their prime, and are certainly not loved now. Here is a tribute to the architectural leftovers of Kuala Lumpur (and one or two from other parts of Asia): and in case you haven’t noticed, we seem to have quite a lot of them. This is the start of a of a new project: photograph old, decaying, ugly buildings as fresh ones. Even though some of these structures are new or even under construction, they still have the feel of decay – which I find quite remarkable. How much is presentation, how much is bias, and how much is simply expectation? MT

Shot with a wide assortment of equipment over a period of time, mostly processed with Photoshop Workflow II.

Places left for final 2016 Masterclasses – Singapore (Jul) and Prague (Sep)

June 19, 2016 by Ming Thein

There are places still available for the final two workshops of 2016 – the Singapore Masterclass (1-6 July) and the Prague Masterclass (5-10 September). Click on the respective links for the details, or send me an email to book. These are likely to be the last workshops for some time…

Filed Under: Teaching Tagged With: 2016, masterclass, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, prague, singapore, teaching, thein, Workshop

Hasselblad announcement – 22 June livestream

June 18, 2016 by Ming Thein

Hasselblad HTML Teaser Image

I bring you a message from the mothership:

On June 22nd, 2016 at 14:00 (CET), Hasselblad will announce a game changer in the world of photography: Click here to join the livestream event

Editor’s commentary: let’s say I do have some knowledge about what this might be, and it’s at least twice as interesting as they promise 🙂 Feel free to speculate away in the comments; I shall neither confirm nor deny…

Hasselblad_Livestream_Event_Wed_22nd_June

Filed Under: hasselblad Tagged With: announcement, hasselblad, june 2016, ming, mingthein.com, thein

Photoessay-WIP: Architectural leftovers, part I

June 16, 2016 by Ming Thein

Today’s series of images is going to be a bit looser in curation than previously; it is the beginning of an idea which I intend to explore further in the future. We tend to photograph very new, very old, and generally well-kept buildings in a sort of formalist style which everybody thinks of as ‘architectural’; it is not too different to the artist’s perspective-controlled rendering. We aim for the vantage points as the architect imagines them, even if they are almost impossible due to access and sight lines being blocked by existing structures. We focus on that which is aesthetically beautiful, unusual, functional, or generally an ‘ideal’ of the type. What we don’t do is acknowledge the ugly, the incomplete and that which is in generally poor repair. It isn’t the same as a picturesque ruin; I suppose it’s the brutally functional edifices that are built to a budget. The kind of thing you pass every day and don’t linger by because it’s somehow unpleasant. The leftovers. What results if we treat them with respect? It isn’t going to be pretty, but it could be dignified. MT

This series is ongoing and was/ will be shot with pretty much everything under the sun.

Layering

June 14, 2016 by Ming Thein

There are two obvious definitions to layering: the literal splitting of the frame into planes of different distances, and the metaphorical addition of implied meaning through careful choice of subjects and subject placement. Ideally, an image should employ both to reward the viewer on further contemplation and to provide a visual that isn’t overly literal or one-dimensional. Unquestionably, a degree of ambiguity is required too, especially when working with implied meaning. But how can we consistently make images that fire on all cylinders?

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: how to, layering, meaning, metaphore, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, spatial, teaching, thein

Photoessay: last of the Nilgiris landscapes

June 12, 2016 by Ming Thein

Last of the Indian landscapes shot in the Nilgiris mountains around Ooty and Coonoor for today. They are standalones and I think actually work as a single set to demonstrate the diversity of the region – everything from untouched virgin forest to a hybrid cultvation of tea bushes to a little entropy and human evidence in the margins. Enjoy! MT

Except for one image, this series was shot with a Hasselblad 501CM, CFV-50C and mostly the CF 4/150.

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