venice – Ming Thein | Photographer

Photoessay: Monochrome life in Venice

November 9, 2015 by Ming Thein

Venice in winter is grey, with occasional Canaletto skies when the clear window happens to coincide with sunset. But for the most part, light is meagre but nicely angled. Life continues as normal for the inhabitants and tourists, though; in fact, it’s getting increasingly more difficult to spot a local at all; they’re a minority in their own city, which is a little sad. The unifying theme throughout these images is that with the exception of one or two, all of the protagonists are locals. They’re a little bit more elegant, don’t carry backpacks or cameras, and walk with purpose rather than dissembly – here’s to the Venetians.

This series was shot during the Venice Masterclass with a Ricoh GR, Pentax 645Z, 55/2.8 and 150/3.5 lenses, and post processed mostly using the low key and balanced workflows in The Monochrome Masterclass.

Photoessay: People of Venice

July 24, 2015 by Ming Thein

A touch of longing

Today’s photoessay is perhaps best thought of a series of vignettes of the locals living in Venice – there may be one or two tourists that got caught in the mix, but I doubt most of them would buy raw meat at the butcher’s. There was a deliberate effort on my part to exclude people who were obviously tourists and focus on individuals; that wasn’t actually too difficult since it was a) winter and b) I was in many of the neighbourhoods that pretty much only saw residents. Those who attended my Venice Masterclass in November 2014 may recognise some of these images from the final day’s curation and processing session; in fact, you might even have been there at the time of capture… Enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Ricoh GR, 21mm converter, 645Z and 55/2.8 SDM and processed with a mixture of PS workflow II and the ‘fine art’ style in Making Outstanding Images Ep.5: Processing For Style.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: 645z, life, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, people, photoessay, photography, reportage, thein, venice

Photoessay: Painterly in Venice

July 20, 2015 by Ming Thein

Lamps and gondolas

Soft, diffuse light from an overcast sky; directionality to darkness brought on by narrow alleyways; perpetual twilight indoors necessitating the use of artificial incandescent light all the time. Sounds like a photographic nightmare? Not quite; I’ve revised my initial philosophy of ‘you always need great light to make a great image’ to ‘there’s no such thing as bad light: just inappropriate light for the subject and vice versa’. November in Venice is almost nothing but this kind of light – one can either put the camera away entirely and stay indoors, or make the most of it by finding the right subjects.

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

New Ultraprint offer: Motion at Rest, Venetian Cinematics 2

May 11, 2015 by Ming Thein

Motion at rest – 15×12″, edition of 20

The next two images on offer are from Venice; after a decent amount of sitting time, the proofs are definitely something that I’d like to have on my own wall. Motion at rest is a study in contrasts between hard and soft light and forms; it is identifiably Venice without being a cliche. Venetian Cinematics 2 is all about the red umbrella: that transient instant of passing a stranger in a rainy alleyway where you perhaps register their presence but not at a particularly conscious level; later on you may stop and wonder what might have been. It is in essence the intrigue of the city at the human level.

Read on for more information and to order. I’ve also got a Hanoi Cinematic Masterclass (21-26 July inclusive) which is open for registration – click here to book and for more information.

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Filed Under: Prints Tagged With: ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, motion at rest, print offer, printing, prints, thein, ultraprint, venetian, venice

Photoessay: Venetian nights

March 24, 2015 by Ming Thein

An alternative to the Venetian Cinematics

Evening falls early in Venice in the winter; on a grey day, you can start thinking about blue hour come half past three in the afternoon. Coming from a country where sunset and sunrise vary very little through the course of the year (I’m pretty much on the equator), it’s a little disorienting – but very productive for photography once you get used to the time difference. I always find one of the more interesting things about higher latitudes the fact that changing daylight hours result in the visually unexpected: everything closed and empty streets with sun out, for instance (late in the evening) or normal activity in what appears to be the dead of night. There is a progression here from the active to the inactive and empty; the difference is in the presence or absence of people – not the light. I admit it was difficult to resist a cliche or two, but for the most part, I stuck to the brief…MT

This series was shot with a Pentax 645Z, 55/2.8 SDM and A 150/3.5 lenses.

Photoessay: The boats of Venice

March 12, 2015 by Ming Thein

Endless repetition

Venice is a city of water. Perhaps the city of water. And in such a city, a boat is a necessity, not a luxury – today’s photoessay is a little celebration of the the Riva, a tribute to the workhorse vaporetto, a nod to the cruise liner that dwarfs the city it arrives at, and a grudging acknowledgement of the ubiquitous gondola. They’re so ubiquitous that it’s near impossible to make an image of Venice that doesn’t have one in it somewhere, in some form – whether literal or represented only – and even more difficult to have that image not turn into a cliche. Enjoy! MT

This series was shot with a Pentax 645Z and Ricoh GR.

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Filed Under: On Photography Tagged With: boats, canals, italy, medium format, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photoessay, photography, thein, venice, water

Venetian cinematics and time-lapse

December 18, 2014 by Ming Thein

I’ve been making cinematic stills for a while now, and have had this niggling feeling that they felt too static – after all, cinema implies motion. Sure, it’s possible to capture a pose of dynamic imbalance in a subject where they’re clearly caught mid-step or similar, but that doesn’t always work if the subject isn’t moving much (but obviously isn’t completely still, because humans normally never are). This series is an experiment to do blend motion, mood, and above all, the idea of intransigence and just passing through – which most of the people in Venice are doing.