Stories from Malaysia
After a speaking engagement at a conference, I was happy to find a bit of time to drop by the National Museum of Singapore. I was particularly interested in visiting the exhibits on the rainforest and trees, and somehow drifted towards the permanent exhibit on the history of the island state. The museum should commended …
Quite happy with my recent purchase of a small booklet of prints from the weekend flea market. I was only interested in the first 7 or so photographs but there was no way to purchase them without tearing the booklet. The negatives were unfortunately nowhere to be found. One booth had a small box of empty …
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 …
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 …
Continued from Part 1 Scanning There were several problems here. All I had was a flatbed scanner (Canon 9900F) which came with both 35mm and medium format film holders. None of them worked as designed. After much frustration and tests, I learned that I had to place the film flat on the glass to get …
Continue reading "Portraits of a Monsoon: Making the print, part 2"
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"
