people – Ming Thein | Photographer

Photoessay: Ambiguity, part II

August 24, 2020 by Ming Thein

Whilst the previous post was all about ambiguity in groups, crowds or simply physically larger and visually more dense situations, with the barest hint of narrative (if any) dictated by gross body language – this set focuses more closely on couples or a single individual, thus leaving more room for expression and gesture. It is more of an emotional set that suggests causality from a detail or gesture frozen in mid-motion rate than juxtaposition. Though to be honest, the differences are perhaps not as stark as I make them out to be, even if during the curation process the images naturally separated themselves into two distinct groups. Enough words about images that are intended to stand on pure visual interest…MT

This series was shot with a mixed bag of hardware over some period of time and multiple locations, but predominantly the Nikon Z7, mostly the 24-70/4 S and my custom SOOC JPEG profiles.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: ambiguity, blackandwhite, life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, monochrome, people, photoessay, street, thein

Photoessay: Ambiguity, part I

August 21, 2020 by Ming Thein

I make no claims to have any idea what any of these people are doing – and judging from how some of them look in certain locations, I suspect neither do they themselves. But that’s okay, because it makes for the kind of open-ended storytelling photography that allows us to fit our own narrative to things, and thus manage to satisfy a wider variety of audience expectations. In my previous work of this kind, I’ve always tried to provide some sort of serving suggestion for the narrative; in these sets, I’ve deliberately stayed away from that as far as possible and focused on curation for the sake of visual entertainment only. Shadows, textures, patterns, dynamism and implied flow…but no immediate narrative. Because honestly, why not? MT

This series was shot with a mixed bag of hardware over some period of time and multiple locations, but predominantly the Nikon Z7, mostly the 24-70/4 S and my custom SOOC JPEG profiles.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: ambiguity, blackandwhite, life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, monochrome, people, photoessay, street, thein

Photoessay: Quotidian for some

October 29, 2019 by Ming Thein

Where I live, making images that are vignetted observations of life in the style presented today is very difficult for one simple reason: people tend not to walk much or use public transport; the former because it’s just too damn hot and society still expects you to wear a suit (and as a consequence, the whole city isn’t very pedestrian friendly in the first place), and the latter because it doesn’t really exist outside of a small network. You land up with a lot of cars and not much human interaction – and thus nothing much to photograph. It’s for this reason that whenever I travel to a place where there’s a lot of human life at street level – I tend to gorge myself photographically and amass a lot of material in a very short space of time. This reptilian approach to photography is not intentional but simply a consequence of circumstance. It does also have the happy coincidence of forcing one to break creative anxiety – every situation is constant reminder that your expectations are probably invalid, and to always be open to serendipity. MT

This series was shot with a Nikon Z7 and 24-70/4 S, with my custom SOOC camera JPEG picture controls available here.

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Filed Under: On Photography, Uncategorized Tagged With: japan, life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, monochrome, people, photoessay, photography, street, thein, tokyo

Photoessay: Tokyo life

July 25, 2019 by Ming Thein

Trying something a little different with the curation this time: think of today’s presentation as a sequence of places visited and a journey rather than a similar collection of images. Note the rhythm of transition between indoors/outdoors; bright/dark; intimate and detached. It is a series of interactions between observer (me) and the environment and people around me; I experienced first and shot second, rather than focusing purely on photography. Trying to put my new approach to travel and image-making into practice… MT

This series was shot with a Nikon Z7, 24-70/4 S and SOOC with my custom Z7 Picture Control profiles.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, nikon z7, people, photoessay, photography, street, thein, tokyo

Photoessay: Long goodbye

July 19, 2019 by Ming Thein

Something a little different today: curated over a period of time into a narrative area whole bunch of images that actually have little to no actual causality. Rather these are an example of how you can stitch a storyline together by implication alone, and both the power (and misleading danger) of photojournalism with its implicit veracity. That said, I think of today as a series of departures and moving-ons; a mix of melancholy, reminiscence and optimism that tomorrow will be a better day. There is enough ambiguity for you, the audience, to decide how you want to feel. The end can also be the beginning. MT

Shot over a long period of time with a wide variety of hardware.

Photoessay: Tokyo Teleport

May 17, 2019 by Ming Thein

When you have a subject with a title this good, one is simply compelled to use it – even if it means some heavy curation, some redaction, and some vicious cuts. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I loved the alien-dystopian-ness of this series, combined with the motion and slightly shadowy figures. It’s both surreal and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, with solid blocks contesting against ephemerally transient reflections and ghosts. If it gets chaotic, just go with the flow. Welcome to both yesterday and the future. Embrace the cliche. Welcome to Japan. MT

This series was shot with a Nikon Z7, 24-70/4 S and 50/1.8 S. No post processing, just the monochrome picture control from the Z7/D850 profile pack…

Photoessay: Life in the fishbowl

May 11, 2019 by Ming Thein

With the amount of glass (all flawlessly clean, of course) in Tokyo, the number of tourists and the close proximity of everything…I can’t help but wonder if the residents sometimes feel like they’re living in a giant exhibit, periodically interrupted by gawking visitors with cameras from another realm. They take it with remarkably polite stoicism, unlike say, Venetians, who suffer the necessity of paying tourists with the bare minimum of tolerance. I suppose having industry other than tourism helps; that feeling of the ability to say ‘no’ – even you never do. Even if they didn’t – I certainly felt like I was part of the show. If not diving with the sharks, then at least snorkelling in the aquarium. MT

This series was shot with a Nikon Z7, 24-70/4 S and 50/1.8 S. No post processing, just the monochrome picture control from the Z7/D850 profile pack…

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

Photoessay: Life, observer and observed

April 23, 2019 by Ming Thein

Alternative title: observing people observing the world. Actually, I feel about as detached from these images as the subjects feel detached from their surroundings. In a strange way I feel this coldness of mood works quite well for the given subject matter and creative intent; on top of that, color would have inevitably suggested moods or emotions that are neither appropriate nor sufficiently sangfroid. Actually, on second curation – I can’t help but see can alternative interpretation in a lot of situations. Missing is that feeling of intense focus implied by observation; rather there’s just a sort of blank mechanised obliviousness. This is probably not helped by the predominantly low key tonal palette; I’ve always liked that possibility of ambiguity and mystery suggested by it (regular readers will probably notice a distinct lack of high key monochrome here) – eyes you can’t see tend to mask the thoughts of the individual. MT

Shot over a period of time with a Nikon Z7, Olympus Pen F and various lenses; images are SOOC JPEG using my Nikon Z7 picture control pack, or specific Pen F settings.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, monochrome, people, photoessay, photography, reportage, street, thein

Photoessay: Monolumpur, part I

March 11, 2019 by Ming Thein

Today’s set is an anonymity-bringing-scale field test around the old part of Kuala Lumpur (Robin’s usual hunting grounds, though I’m sure you’ll see we came back with very different material) of something I’ve been working on for the last couple of months: an attempt at tuning a universal monochrome profile to my preferred style for the Nikon Z7. Whilst the Z7 doesn’t have a direct curve adjustment in-camera, it’s possible to add your own if you use the ‘Nikon Picture Control Utility 2’ software. It takes the place of the contrast and brightness sliders (my guess, ‘contrast’ pushes down the midpoint of the curve, ‘brightness’ brings up the upper quadrant). However, be warned: it seems the mapping is much more aggressive than the input/output controls suggest, resulting in much more contrast than you’d expect, so go easy on the curve. The only explanation I can think of this is that it’s acting higher upstream in the processing chain than we are used to with a curve in post processing. This is a good part of why tuning a profile has taken so long; it also seems that you need to apply some d-lighting (Nikonspeak for fill) to get the right lower midtone luminosity. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the results – and light was absolutely spectacular while I was shooting, which doesn’t do any harm either. Is the Pen F retired? If not yet, its days are certainly numbered. Now, on to the greater challenge of color… MT

This series was shot with a Nikon Z7, AF-S 70-200/4 VR and MT’s special sauce in-camera monochrome JPEG profile.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: kl, kuala lumpur, malaysia, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, monolumpur, people, photoessay, photography, street, thein

Photoessay: Stolen moments

August 11, 2018 by Ming Thein

In my mind, this set feels vaguely voyeuristic – stealing snippets of time from my subjects, without any of them noticing. Photographing around corners, street furniture and other foregrounds; taking small glimpses into unguarded moments of an individual – what were they thinking? What were they feeling? Where did they come from? Where are they going next? Perhaps the uncertainty of continuity combined with the strong individual emotions and expressions is what drew me to these scenes; the kind of tensions precipitated by something seemingly trivial to an outsider, yet intensely important to a single person. I didn’t set out to shoot these; they just happened across the course of a week and about seven thousand frames. Sometimes our minds pick up on recurring themes we aren’t consciously aware of. In this case, both photographer and subjects were lost in the moment – they in their lives, me in that intense blink of observation. MT

This set was shot with a Nikon D850, 24-120VR and post processed with Photoshop Workflow III.

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