Stories from Malaysia
Another routine visit to the weekend flea market in search of old photographic material. One of the sellers had a small plastic box filled with old photographs. Most of them were vacation snapshots, group photographs at schools, a series with a Chinese master demonstrating some sort of martial arts movement, photographs of a plywood company …
Every print at the point of creation is a precious object. Even if it is not for it's potential as a photograph that is to be treasured and admired, the paper alone is a tangible object that is the result of a lengthy process of creation in itself. Working prints are a means towards an …
It's always exciting to get back into the darkroom, especially when returning from a trip with a few rolls of freshly exposed film. My recent acquisition of an automatic 35mm film camera has really freed me from fussing about focus or exposure while doing documentary work. Everything flows faster now, and I can afford to pay …
What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than browsing through a box full of abandoned memories at the flea market in Amcorp Mall. These old photographs are usually sourced from family albums, where the prints are stripped out and packaged to be sold individually. In light of how everything remotely old is being sold …
As someone who deals almost exclusively with fragments of the past, a favourite past time of mine is to look for old photographic negatives and work on extracting the images. Some time last year, my dear friend Audrey kindly loaned me a collection of her father's negatives from the '20s for me to work on. …
As the world moved forward into 2018, I made a quiet trip to the past. Such is the joy of working with items that belong to a different age. These negatives must have been from the ‘30 or ‘40s (rough estimate). No markings of any kind to indicate the manufacturer or production date. Only one …
I frequently make the mistake of not writing about my work. Here’s a brief guide on how I produced an 8 meter long print from my Portraits of a Monsoon series. I’ve been told that it is the longest photographic print ever produced in the country. This essay explores some of the technical and …
Continue reading "Portraits of a Monsoon: Making the print, part 1"
On the 28th of February 2013, the one coffeeshop I've always loved visiting in Kuala Lumpur, Sin Seng Nam, goes into retirement after 85 years of operation. I arrived relatively late, 8.30am to be exact, to find most of the seats already filled with the regulars. I found an empty table upstairs and made camp …
Continue reading "Sin Seng Nam: The end of a very long chapter"
“Itu orang semua sudah lari. Semua sudah kosong." Ah Heng lives in the 2nd room on the 1st floor of the 4th block of the Tuanku Abdul Rahman Flats, or more famously known as the abandoned Pekeliling Flats. Built in 1967, it was one of the earliest housing development projects in the city, home to …
