Photoessay: Diagonal non-sequitur

December 31, 2019 by

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Trying something a little different today: a series of images that are linked thematically by type of light and overall presentation, but have little to nothing to do with each other subject-wise. It is thus a logical non-sequitur but not a visual one; the intention is for the audience to get almost lulled into a sense of rhythmic monotony until you realise the subjects, their sizes/scales and even physical layouts are wildly different. I realise this is completely at odds with any traditional curator logic, but this particular group of images had been sitting in my posting folder for so long challenging me to find a way to use them that I somehow overlooked their core similarities in visual style. MT

This series was shot mostly with a Nikon Z7 with custom SOOC JPEG profiles, or Nikon D3500.

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Photoessay: Dresden cinematic

December 22, 2019 by

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In keeping with the seasonal theme, and one of my favourite parts about travelling to Europe during the winter season – the Christmas markets are interesting hives of human activity. People are relaxed and happy; they’re doing interesting things or having interesting interactions and the light gets cinematic fast since ambient is pretty much nonexistent by the time things really get going. It felt like the right time and subject for which to reprise the cinematic style a little, too – and an excuse to see what this new 85/1.8 Z can do (in short: I like it, very, very much). Unfortunately, I didn’t have as much time as I’d have liked – but there’s always next year, and I’d much rather the feeling of potential left to explore than a subject being completely tapped out…

This series was shot with a Nikon Z7, the Z 85/1.8 S and my custom SOOC picture controls.

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Photoessay: PAM, part II

December 16, 2019 by

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Continued from part I

The way bright sunshine projects through the space through its various apertures and orifices is the kind of thing that is practically begging for a high contrast monochrome series – in person, the actual interior is much more similar to the first set of images in brightness as the concrete reflects and diffuses a lot of those hard beams. I imagine it’d be a very different space on an overcast day, with none of the drama and detail seen at the time I shot it. The horological side of me couldn’t help but think some of those floors would be great with calibrated scales to allow the light to be used as a sundial of sorts… MT

This set was shot with a Nikon Z7, 24-70 and my custom SOOC JPEG profile pack.

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Photoessay: PAM, part I

December 13, 2019 by

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What happens if you have a group of architects design a building entirely for themselves? The PAM (Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia – Malaysian Institute of Architects) building in Kuala Lumpur is precisely that. I got a tour from one of the people involved in its creation, which proved both insightful and the kind of thing you hope never to face yourself as a creative – i.e. when your client  is also an expert in your field, has a vested interest and there are many of them! It’s full of the kinds of features architects love like exposed concrete and structural finishes; open spaces, voids and plenty of natural light and air circulation. Unfortunately, it’s also the kind of thing that tends to get heavily diluted by commercial considerations because it’s financially unviable – the actual usable floor area yield of this building is far below what would be needed to make it a profitable exercise for any developer. Still, I’m glad such proofs of concept exist, if only to showcase some ideas that might make it into more public use. But by far the most impressive thing about the building is the way light plays inside the structure as the sun progresses; though it appears externally solid, it’s internally very porous and light – just not the kind of place for tricophobics, as you’ll see in the second part of the presentation. MT

This set was shot with a Nikon Z7, 24-70 and my custom SOOC JPEG profile pack.

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Photoessay: Neighbourhood

December 7, 2019 by

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On the basis of the adage that we tend to avoid or overlook the things closest to us…I undertook a rather narrow challenge: images visible from my building only, without leaving. I realise of late I’m falling into the trap of taking things for granted – you see them without really noticing, because you see them every day. (Creative use of teleconverters notwithstanding.) On one hand, the restriction to familiar subjects would be immensely constraining, but on the other – being able to see the same subjects under a very wide variety of light conditions, plus access to all of your hardware (no “I wish I brought X” syndrome) should balance things out. All in all – an interesting exercise, which I think I’d repeat in future if based in a single place for any length of time… MT

Shot with a variety of hardware, but mostly either a D3500 or Nikon Z7 and my custom JPEG profiles.

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Photoessay: Slanted

November 25, 2019 by

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A series of rises and falls today; topology and mountaineering in urban shadow. An energetic, driving baseline as opposed to something more melodic; think EDM over Mozart (not that I listen to either, to be honest). The beat links the frames together across subject and scale, with occasional visual riffs and explorations of a motif but sticking with this same theme. I’ve probably said this somewhere before, but photography (and any visual art) have always been like music to me; a landscape of texture focused one of our senses. Crucially, both have limitations – music is temporal and one-way only; photography has only two dimensions. But both also have the ability to effect a presentation that transcends the limitations of reality by encouraging us to suspend disbelief and just appreciate what’s put in front of us; we can only see what we are shown. MT

This set was mostly shot with a Nikon D3500, 18-55 kit and SOOC JPEG, with a guest appearance from the Z7 and Pen-F.

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Photoessay: Nostalgia

November 19, 2019 by

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I recently met up with some classmates from nearly 20 years ago (boy, does that make me feel prematurely superannuated), which got me digging around in the archive on my return home. Whilst the earliest roots of my interest in photography started at university, I didn’t really do much serious shooting until the year after – there simply wasn’t the funds or time. I am reminded that the underlying purpose of most images is memory; be it of people, events, ideas, or something else; and that memory is often dynamic with time. Emotions tend to skew things towards extremes, and photos can either be a normalising factor or an emotionally enhancing one. In the browsing I did come across images that were both; all were universally of zero photographic merit and a lot of it was honestly dingier than I remember. But looking a little later – a couple of years – yielded a very thin set (this set) that was a bit more in line with what I want to remember. No doubt I’d make something quite different if I was back there again shooting today. When it comes to remembering photographs, the digital archive doesn’t change or fade, so it can only be our memory that’s playing us for a fool. MT

Shot with a mixed bag of stuff from a long time ago.

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Photoessay: Quotidian for some

October 29, 2019 by

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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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Photoessay: Alpine

October 23, 2019 by

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Earlier in the year, I made a family trip to Japan – Tokyo (of course, images to follow) and Hakuba – site of the Winter Olympics in 1998. As it turns out, torn discs aren’t that much of an impediment to skiing since if you’re as out of practice as I am, most of the work is done by your thighs and knees; in the end I managed only two days before I gave up and decided to make the most of the one clear-ish day we had for some landscape photography. Even so, it had to be squeezed in between parental and spousal duties, so opportunities were somewhat limited; as it turns out the light didn’t last that long, anyway. All of my previous alpine photography experiences have been on bare mountains; it’s quite different to have the varied textures of different trees to work with, and the subtle gradations as the clouds shifted and shadow patterns across the hills changed. I deliberately left in the large color temperature differences between direct/reflected sun and snow/ ice in shadow; it seems the ice attenuates certain wavelengths to emphasise the cool shadows. Hopefully some of that delicacy is translated here. MT

Images were shot with a Nikon Z7, almost entirely the 70-200/4 with 1.7x TC, and post processed with Photoshop Workflow III and the Z7 Profile Pack.

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Photoessay: Alien geometry

October 17, 2019 by

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Every time an architect tries a postmodern, hypermodern, pseudo-alien interpretation of something – I can’t help but think that the opposite is true. By intentionally shedding societal convention and expectation of what a building or space should be, and given a sufficiently liberal client – all that’s left are the limits of the designer’s imagination*. And unless the designer isn’t of this planet – what remains is if anything about as human as things get. I do realise this sounds somewhat unintuitive at best, and downright hypocritical at worst; but ask yourself this: for something to be truly alien it has to be foreign to you. And if it was created by humans – as all buildings on Earth are – it’s still within the realm of our understanding and appreciation. Different, yes; completely alien, no. Somewhat related segue: not having the dictat and expectations of history is not a bad thing at all when it comes to design; I don’t think I’d be able to create a watch to a company expectation or style, for instance. To the creators of the buildings – I applaud the clients for not saying no (or for insisting son something different) and for the architects and contractors to pulling it off. MT

This series was shot some time ago with mostly the Olympus Pen F and various lenses, mostly SOOC camera JPEG. Some Nikon Z7/ 24-70 thrown in for good measure, too.

*And structural engineers’ ability to execute. I respect/ pity those who work for Gehry, Hadid etc.

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