scrapbook – Ming Thein

MT’s scrapbook: Supposedly scientific

March 29, 2019 by Ming Thein

The moniker “National Science Centre” conjures illusions of grandeur and seriousness – unfortunately, the reality is quite sadly different. At best, it’s a bunch of very amateur, run down (and often non-functional) experiments clearly of a mid-90s aspirational country vintage designed to appeal to kids below the age of 10; at worst, it’s something that reflects the state of public education in this country when many attending grown adults find exhibits of this nature fascinating in 2018 – to be honest, the average dentist’s waiting room has more advanced toys. I took my daughter here for want of something to do on a Sunday afternoon, but in the end she found the enormous panel of electrical switches more entertaining. We left confused: not knowing whether to laugh, cry, or come to the conclusion the visitors were probably the most interesting experiments to observe. MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

MT’s scrapbook: Angled

March 23, 2019 by Ming Thein

Lots of hard light and pointy geometry today; to the point that many scenes are abstracted into making little spatial sense. The deep shadows constrain physically but open up ambiguity and leave you to come to your own reflections on what exactly has been hidden. Mostly shot around two buildings that come alive at the right time of day with the right light (but the buildings themselves in gross form are a bit simplistically monolithic and not very interesting). We’re a good few months into the SOOC JPEG experiment now, and so far it seems to be sticking…it is forcing me to adopt a rather filmic approach to photography and the subtle but important difference of imagining what can be now, rather than what can be with a little work. Interestingly, I find my compositional balance has improved since I am no longer thinking about fixing things in post with a gradient. It of course makes post processing somewhat easier since there is less local work to be done, but at the same time overall image quality is slightly compromised as I am exposing to output rather than to maximise data collection. Still, the tradeoff in time saved and other opportunities explored seems to be worthwhile so far… MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

MT’s scrapbook: Duo

December 18, 2018 by Ming Thein

I happened to be staying at the hotel in this rather interesting property a couple of months back; whilst I don’t think I’d want to live here (there are apartments in one of the other towers) because it feels a bit cold and impersonal – the architects did a good job breaking up the potentially overbearingly massive geometric forms with cladding and ground landscaping, so you never feel that dominance at ground level. There’s no question some very clever structural engineering was involved to make the masses balance (and to install that curtain wall). The interior spaces are strange though – despite the size of the building, they never feel very large inside; I don’t know if this is due to the internal space division or the very non-square geometry. Still, it made for a pleasant half an hour or so’s worth of diversion wandering around and hunting for images. MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings). One or two were reprocessed to match the rest of the set using The Monochrome Masterclass workflow, for visual consistency and correction of verticals.

MT’s scrapbook: block form

November 3, 2018 by Ming Thein

An afternoon walking around Singapore yielded a lot of recursive cubism – order, almost-order and chaos made to look like order. Society here is known for its regulation and discipline, and it’s almost as though that same discipline is imposed on its architectural forms. Of course this is a deliberately curated (and thus biased) set, and granted, most are older buildings; the newer ones seem to still be full of straight lines, but with a conspicuous allergy to right angles. Surely we must be close to the point technologically where non-rectilinear forms of architecture are economically viable (I suppose Gardens by the Bay and the Henderson Waves are good examples of this, and located in Singapore too). Sometimes I also wonder if it’s a sort of physical manifestation of digital influence…of course, it’s more likely that economics is the underlying driver, but there’s no cost to philosophising. MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

MT’s scrapbook: still life interludes, part I

October 22, 2018 by Ming Thein

Two questions to address today – firstly, what differentiates the scrapbook series from photoessays, and secondly, why do they tend to be monochrome? What I post here in the form of photoessays are much more tightly curated series around a certain subject or theme, shot with the sole purpose and intention of photography, and sequenced into a storyline from a much larger set. The images are individually post processed and made consistent. The scrapbook series is more spontaneous – there is never a narrative because they’re single snippets grabbed here and there and then sorted into something visually coherent (which isn’t the same as a storyline). They’re opportunistic as opposed to planned or sought; sometimes single, sometimes in a mini-sequence. And there’s no post processing; what you see is a resized SOOC JPEG. They also tend to be monochrome, both as a concession to prioritise the light and also because there’s no need to correct for accurate color. It’s my compromise to keep my hand in practice, but for times when I don’t have the time to commit to something more focused. Today: more long shadow play, with a candid guest appearance from some Mapplethorpian bananas… MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

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Filed Under: MT's scrapbook, On Photography Tagged With: ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, monochrome, photography, scrapbook, still life, thein

MT’s Scrapbook: Rainbow

September 7, 2018 by Ming Thein

Probably not your usual kind of rainbow, but instead some colourful remnants from an intensely bright afternoon (and rather 80s building). The National Science Centre reopened to the public recently but still feels very much like a 1980s attempt at a science-themed activity centre for primary school kids; I suppose its fun if you didn’t notice the rest of the world entering the internet era twenty years ago. Still, at least the building is visually interesting…MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

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MT’s scrapbook: Shadow play

July 27, 2018 by Ming Thein

It’s actually very rare to get this kind of hard afternoon sunshine in the tropics – by the time it’s late enough in the day for the shadow angle to be this oblique, the day has usually been so warm that evaporation of ambient moisture has created sufficient clouds to block the sun. Yet you still need just a hint of something in the atmosphere to make the light golden and warm. The quality of shadow actually reminds me a lot of the Atlantic coast of Europe – specifically Portugal – around autumn or spring. Why monochrome though, if the joy is in color? Two reasons: you still see the effects of warmer light when you apply a color pass filter, and secondly – without the distraction of color, the hard definition of form becomes that much more acute. MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

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Filed Under: MT's scrapbook, On Photography Tagged With: ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, scrapbook, shadows, sooc, thein

MT’s Scrapbook: Sunday afternoons

July 3, 2018 by Ming Thein

The first entry in the Scrapbook is a quasi-narrative one from a lazy Sunday – the perfect kind of thing for which to test the entire pretext of the exercise. There was enough photographic content to keep me challenged and in practice, but not so much as to turn into the primary purpose of the day – oddly, not something I’ve had to worry about too much in the past, pre-family. Finding that balance again is challenging. Definitely not perfect, but more importantly – with enough verisimilitude that it’s pretty much as we remember it, which oddly, reminds me a bit of shooting film on family holidays when I was much, much younger (and pre-serious-photography). MT

The Scrapbook series is shot on an Olympus PEN F, with unedited JPEGs straight from camera bar resizing (and of course some choice settings).

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Filed Under: MT's scrapbook, On Photography Tagged With: family, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, scrapbook, sooc, thein

Photoessay: the ever-present scrapbook, mid-2018 edition

June 21, 2018 by Ming Thein

I’ve written several times in the past about the legitimacy of phones as photographic tools My main assumptions have always been the same: that a) one does not compose any differently; a 28mm-e FOV is a 28mm-e FOV and does not change with recording format; b) you are aware of and shoot within the limits of the hardware, i.e. dynamic range, light, ability to handle motion, stability etc; c) you’ve almost always got it with you, so the opportunities are simply greater – especially the larger your primary hardware becomes. The number of excuses have gotten fewer too, as phone camera hardware has improved – but not as much as the processing software behind it. I’m currently on an iPhone 8 Plus, which has dual cameras (primary, 28mm-e, stabilised; secondary, 56mm-e, unstabilized, and a stop slower). I find that I use the tele camera a lot less than I’d have expected – probably given that its working envelope is very small due to the lack of stabilisation and what appears to be diffraction limits (not surprising given the extremely tiny pixels – in the 1um range or so). I’m also finding that whilst images look great at normal output sizes – say up to a moderate monitor – they really fall apart at full resolution, with perhaps even less pixel-level integrity than the earlier generation of phone sensors. I suspect this is because there’s a lot more processing going on to optimise things for straight out of camera use; blame the social media generation. They also won’t print well. These images either look okay as they are, or are going to present nigh on zero latitude for post processing – a fact confirmed by the surprising gulf between raw files and JPEG. Shooting RAW is a pain, requiring you to do it in LR Mobile (and very slow) – so I’ve only ever tried this on an experimental basis. I can’t help but feel though in some ways the limitations are somewhat part of the stylisation; mostly to do with handling of deep shadows and contrast. The camera’s limits do nudge you unsubtly towards shooting in a certain way; all devices do this to some extent, I suppose. Presented today is what I think of as a “scrapbook of experiments from the last six months I didn’t think you could get away with doing more seriously”; somehow the compositions are a bit more minimalist or stark or whimsical than what I’d do with a larger camera, though that’s not to say the results aren’t interesting…MT

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Heresy and sacrilege: MT and SOOC experiments

June 18, 2018 by Ming Thein

Due to an idle browser, more idle hands and pre-Raya* specials, the un-camera is no more. I traded in the GX85 for an Olympus PEN-F (previously reviewed here), available now at just half of its original launch price (at least in Malaysia) and with bonus goodies of grip with built in Arca rail and extra battery. For a modest supplement, it seemed like a good deal. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself: firstly, why? Well, a couple of things: if I’m going to shoot something serious, then I’ll break out one of the ‘Blads. If I’m not, then managing a three year old and the associated peripherals means that you don’t really have a lot of payload left over for hardware, let alone time to use it. But there are still opportunities to be had, and often single interesting grabs that require something quick**. On top of that, I admit the un-camera had a couple of serious deficiencies: firstly, the body was plastic and felt like it – grip it with moderate force and you’d be rewarded with a squeak or three. The back control dial was a bit recessed to access easily, and turned stiffly. Default color needed serious help (more on this later) – and lastly, I just didn’t like the fact that despite having a very comprehensive feature set (4K, dual IS etc) it felt like an appliance and had nigh on zero emotional value to shoot.

*end of Ramadan
**I’ll be the first to admit this does not describe the current generation of Hasselblads; but we are working on it.

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