A quote from Paolo Roversi

My studio is a rectangular room with a high ceiling, old wooden parquet flooring, and a large window facing north. It is like a tiny theatre with an empty stage, a space to be filled, a time yet to be invented, a proscenium where everything is possible, no trick disallowed, where neither seasons, nor days, not hours exist. Here all temporal boundaries dividing live and imitation, reality and fiction, dissolve. Like any art worthy of the name, the most brazen lie can evolve into surprising and seductive truth. The furnishings are modest: two stools, a carport, some chairs, two or three lights, and an old blanket, which is my favorite backdrop. It can be a wall, a road, a field, sky, night, fear, wind… a screen for dreams. The studio is not only in this room; it is anywhere I put my camera on my tripod and my tripod on the ground, liberating my heart and mind. The studio is far more than a workplace or a tool of my trade. It is above all a state of being and feeling. The studio is everywhere. It is the corner of my mind. I have a very mystic and spiritual approach to photography, which I can't explain, and I don't need to. I like to keep things unrevealed, I like sometimes to lose myself into the indefinite. That often happens to me along the path of beauty, without every truly understanding where to proceed, and the further I manage to see, the deeper the mystery becomes. Photography goes beyond the limits of reality and illusion. It brushes up against another life, another dimension, revealing not only what is there but was is no there. Every photograph is an encounter, an intimate, reciprocal confession. I like long exposures to allow the should all the time it needs to rise to the surface, and to let chance have its way. Always, photographs surprise me; they never turn out quite the way I imagine they might. Every photograph enters the world as a sign of hope. It is late, very late. Everyone has left, and a strange silence has descended. I wander aimlessly around the deserted studio trying to bring some order to ideas and objects, but the natural and permanent chaos exerts its power. I put on my jacket, turn out the light, and close the door. But where does the light go? Silence… Darkness is the light's silence.

Paolo Roversi

Variegated Realities

A project by Students from Nanyang Technological University.
20-25 February 2010


http://afexhibitions.blogsome.com/2010/02/12/variegated-realities/

This exhibition is on on for 5 days! But it is worth seeing to see what thoughtful and engaging work is about. I think the photographers, who are young, can do with more living. But I like the honesty in their work.

There is an exhibition on at Orchard Central, which I think will appeal to the mass audience, but I found really boring. Pretty pictures, but forgettable.

Daniel Murtagh, photographer

Daniel Murtagh, photographer

I Wish..

Image by Saul Leiter

I got a thank you postcard and a gift of a Saul Leiter book in the post today. This is from Joyce Ho, a photographer with a love for plants. Last year, I had talked to her about some questions she had about work.

I do not know why, but young photographers have started to look to me for advice. And quite often, it is about how to survive as a photographer in Singapore. This bothers me, because I have not figured a way to survive in Singapore as a photographer unless you like commercial work, wedding or photojournalism. Oh yes, you can be an art photographer and teach too. But photography in Singapore is not for the faint-hearted. As easy as it is to buy a camera and call oneself a photographer, living off a camera is hard. Yes, it is possible if you really are truly the top of your field and can market yourself effectively. I know a few good photographers who are sinking in Singapore because they are not willing to market themselves or have not found someone to market themselves.

I was talking to my friend Chris Yap about that. He simply told me that if people wanted to earn a living from photography, then they are in it for the wrong reason. And it struck me, that it is not for me to get people to survive in this tough circumstance. The photographers that survive do it because they love it, the live photography, they breath photography. I have very little advice for working in Singapore, beyond polishing one's photography and effectively marketing yourself. In this age of photographic democracy, one needs to work like a dog to distinguish one's self. If the practices of a photographer is uneconomic, then the photographer will not remain a photographer for long. Just so you know, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Diane Arbus, all legendary names in photography were relatively poor in their lifetimes. There are a handful of commercial photographers like Avedon who made a decent living from their work, and some German school art photographers that command incredible amounts of money for their images. But it is like the lottery, we idolize the winner, but there are thousands and thousands of people who did not win the lottery.

The purpose of my photography is not to make money, it is because I have images in me that need to get out. I do not take pictures, pictures take me, I am like an instrument. But to enable for the images I make to come out, I find some way to survive. And it is not glamorous, and it is not easy. And always, it is an intensely personal journey, something that cannot be taught. So at the end of the day, all I can be is like an alcoholic, sharing his story with others in Alcoholics Anonymous. All there is is to affirm that photographers before me have walked this difficult route, my own route has been difficult, and it is on par if a new photographer has a difficult route. But the rewards, the sights that a photographer is privileged to see, is beyond the wealth that money can buy. And I find that if photography is used to make human bridges, the relationships made are more comfortable than any material comfort.

Photography is secondary to living

Photography is secondary to living

This is an interview I had with the fotoflock web site.

After ten years

I am still looking forward and that tends to make me dismiss all my work that has come before. But someone has asked me about my work and I had to look back at what I have done. And I guess that I am happy that I took these photos.

Photographic Exhibitions in Singapore in January

There is a lot going on in terms of photographic exhibitions this month.

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To begin with there is a photography of German Dance Photography at the Goethe Institute.It is interesting how German photographer's work always looks more raw and technically simple, but actually is of the highest order.



Movements Frozen in Time. An Exhibition of Dance Images

Photo Exhibition
14.01.2010 - 27.02.2010
Monday-Friday 9am-6.30pm
Saturday 1pm-6pm
Goethe-Institut Singapore, Art Gallery
163 Penang Road #05-01
Winsland House II
Singapore 238463
Free admission
+65 67354555

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I have not seen this yet but I really want to before it ends. This is part of the M1 Fringe Festival.



Last Meals
by Jonathon Kambouris
07.01.2010 - 24.01. 2010
5.45am - 12.15am
Esplanade Tunnel

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This is a nice and fresh exhibition in a new exhibition space. Apparently this is an exhibition of six photographers who are showing their work for their first time. It includes award winning photographers Elaine Lim and John Heng. The other photographers are Fusheng, Genevieve Ding, Nicholas Foo and Wong King Leong.

I met the curator, Nicholas Foo, who is new to photography but very enthusiastic. He calls himself a noob and has his work on the wall too as the owners of the gallery asked him to put up his work. He tried shooting dinner for the photographers who were gallery sitting, Fusheng and King Leong. I passed him a paper napkin to soften his flash. Amusing yeah?

Anyway, I enjoyed it because the images were fresh and unpretentious. I hope to see more work from these photographers, including the noob curator!

my|4-walls: more than just a photo exhibition



17.01.2010 - 21.01.2010
Muse The Art Gallery

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Objetifs is having the regular student exhibition, BUD. Some of my students from the Portraits as Drama class have the photos up. Well done boys and girls.

BUD
14.01.2010-12.02.2010
Objeticfs Centre for Photography and Filmmaking

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I guess that since I am plugging other people's exhibitions that I should plug my own. I have a mini exhibition of male nudes at a gay bar, Does Your Mother Know. It is 10 photos of dancer Robert Mills who was until recently dancing for Singapore Dance Theatre. The exhibition is on till after Chinese New Year.

Paolo Roversi

I have been waiting for Paolo Roversi's web site to be up for a long time. And it finally is. Paolo just takes some of the most beautiful photographs.

Go to www.paoloroversi.com.

At this time

I have not been blogging much in 2009. I would like to have done more and have more to share, but the last year was a year of pleasantly getting by. The biggest change came at the end of 2008 when I let go of most of my staff. 2009 just drifted by for me. I did continue shooting for performing arts groups and families. The highlight being the photography for the Genee International ballet competition. I also rented the studio out. That was a blast when the British Council staged An Interview with Adrienne in my studio. And I also rented the studio out to Steve McCurry to run his workshop during the month of photography. And I taught quite a lot in 2009. The highlight of the teaching was having a noise apprentice, Guo Jie. I saw something special in the way he sees things and I hope that I managed to help in connect that seeing with life more.

With the world financial crisis, the feet have been knocked out from under the photographic industry. This is not an independent thing, photography all over the world has been undergoing a democratic revolution, moving from the domain of specialised professionals to the ubiquity of everyone taking photos on their phone, the computer or their mp3 player. Being a professional photographer, with the exception of the top end commercial photographers, is an extremely difficult way to make money. I went back to being a freelancer for personal reasons, but if I had kept my company large in 2009, I would have been forced by circumstances to let my staff go, and the whole experience would have been much more painful. As illogical as it may sound, 2009, without a major plan, without large corporate shoots, was the best financial year for me. Lots of people look only at the potential earnings, but forget the overheads. Without large overheads, lower paying jobs, teaching and rental all add up. So I have found a way to survive in this environment. And I have freed myself up to pursue my own vision.

The greatest challenge before me is not a financial one but a personal one. I have been inspired by Anders Peterson to live life more, and not live life behind the camera. But my life is mundane, and the pictures are not that compelling. I do think though the photos that I have been taking with my iphone have their charm. The challenge for me has been how to live life better.

Although 2009 was not a hectic year, I still had too much to do. It was hard to find space to re-orientate myself. This year, 2010, I am making a personal dream come through. I am taking 8 months off and traveling overland to London. I am already sure that it will be a unique journey for me and it will be a wonderful experience. But I think the point of the trip is not to find new vistas, it is to find myself.

This is what I think that the world community has to do too in these extraordinary times. Instead of going back to the old paradigm of capitalist consumerism, which is leading us to an irreparable environmental crisis, the world needs to find in self again, in community and in simple pleasures of life. I hope we find ourselves, before we are lost for ever.

Between Heaven and Earth by Cristina Garcia Rodero

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/between-heaven-and-earth

I cannot embed this video because it is too big. But it is beautiful.

Miru Kim's Underground art

Demonstrations from Portraits as Visual Drama

I teach a lighting course for Objectifs called 'Portraits as Visual Drama'. Here are a couple of demonstration shots from my last course. Yes, the fun crazy last course.

"Living with..." set up

So we were at Vivocity last night setting up the "Living with..." exhibition. The exhibition looks good if I say so myself.

Living with...

An Arts Against Aids Photographic exhibition
20-29 Nov 2009
Vivocity
South Avenue

This is a project that I have been working on for since the beginning of the year. And finally there will be an exhibition of photographs of people living with HIV. It has been an enriching experience. And I think that there is a nice range of photographs by eleven different photographers.

I have to thank AFA for giving me this opportunity to work on this project. And I also need to thank the photographers that helped out with teaching and mentoring, Hui Fen, Hui May, Maye-e, Terence, Luke and Bryan.

The photographer demonstrates

Caught in my demo mode. I was shooting for a new line of yoga wear named Om Republic. The model is Ginny Gan, a dancer from SDT.

Thanks Irvin for catching me unawares!

Todd Hido

Landscapes, interiors and nudes. A walk through the mind of Todd Hido.

Naked without an iphone and other thoughts

I have not been posting many new entries for about half a year now. This is because I am in transition. I downsized my photography business and became a freelancer. On the career front, I have been working for various arts groups and doing personal portraits and this has turned out well for me, meaning that I am finanacially viable. As for personal work, I have been trying to find a new direction. I want to find a project where I learn more about the lives of other people. To this end I have been working with various organisations to teach photography and also to meet different people whom may be interesting to photograph, but nothing has really come up yet. But I have been reading and learning a lot and the iphone has become a very interesting means of self expression.

After being a professional photographer for so many years, picture quality has always been an issue for me. I never thought that at 2 megapixel camera on the iphone would be a sufficient tool for me and the initially the images coming out of the iphone tended to be washed out. However, the program Camera Bag changed my entire viewpoint of the iphone camera. There are several filters in Camera Bag but the one that I like the best is called Helga, which replicates the effect of a Holga camera. The results from the Helga filter is a square image which vignetted and the contrast increased, the results are simply lovely. The usefulness of such a camera was still in question because I did not know how well the images printed. I printed some test images onto A4 paper and was blown away. I suspect that I can also print my iphone images onto A3 but for the type of work that I am shooting with the iphone, A4 is actually just what I want. Those people who are my friends on Facebook will know that I am obsessed with iphone photography, I have uploaded about 700 images there. On flickr, you can see a small selection of my iphone images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngiapheng/sets/72157622141813198/.

On a recent trip to Europe, even though I was carrying around the very competent Olympus E-P1 around with me, the raw mood produced by the iphone was what I wanted time and again. There were times where I wanted to take an image full of detail, under low light or needing a longer lens (the iphone is effectively a wide angle lens) where I took out the E-P1, but 95% of the time I was whipping out the iphone. In its basic control, its direct response to a scene, there was an immediacy, a freedom that let me take personal images as I was living life. I was not 'stopping' my journey to take the photograph, making an image with the iphone was part of the exploration, part of the journey.

Now I am back in Singapore and I am in reservists. And as I am not allowed to bring in a telephone with a camera to camp, I feel naked. There is something missing for me. Which brings be to the next point.

I have heard some people comment that photographers are not really 'there' in a situation, that instead of experiencing what is happening they are pre occupied with the photography. And there is truth in that. I mean, what are people doing touring 10 countries in seven days. How does a person interact with a country or a culture in this short space of time? In this situation, what is a photograph? Is it an experience or is it a trophy, a tick on some travel checklist? So there is obviously a case for photography becoming a barrier to a exprience. And the irony is that one can become more and more involved with the technicality of photography, the sharpness, the amount of detail, and in this become more and more detached from the situation, the experience. As Anders Peterson puts it, a photographer hides behind his camera.

I think that my experience with personal photography right now comes from a different place. There still is commercial work where the camera is a tool for creating images to a brief and in that sense is impersonal. But I am a visual person, that is how I primarily interact with the world. I am constantly looking at things, seeing shapes, color and light. The outside visual experience has an intense impact on my emotions and my emotions has a strong impact on how I interpret outside visual experience. I am intensely curious by everyman, the daily concerns, the daily communications, the joy and pain of living. As a human, part of a small group of life who has self-conciousness and cognisance of death, I try in my own way to reconcile life and death. I am interested in how others traverse this journey from cradle to grave, the lows of human depravity, the highs of human potential and the spectrum of experience in between. So for me, what I see is a constant search for evidence of the human experience. Photography is much more than a visual token for me. It is the way I interact and interpret the world. And writers do this with their writing, musicians do that with their music, artists do this with whatever medium they work in. The sum of an artists' work is not and should not be the craft in their art. An artists' work should be the sum of their thoughts, their lives and their expriences. Good craft enables them to express all that in their art work. And good art will not just prompt the audience to appreciate the craft, although there is a portion of that, it should be a life changing experience for the audience in some way. It is the sharing of human experience.

So other than my iphone pictures, I have not been taking many photographs. But this does not mean that it has been an empty time for me. I have been going for French classes, I have been meeting various people and I have been reading. Recently I have read the biography of Diane Arbus, 'Why God won't go away', 'Norwegian' Wood by Harukami, 'Outliers' by Malcom Gladwell and I am in the midst of 'The Stuff of Thought' by Steven Pinker. I have been visiting galleries and not only enjoying the artwork of great artists, but also learning about what motivated them and how they lived their lives. And at this point, living life is what is important. Personal photography is not an end in itself, it simply is part of my life.

Quotes from an exhibition

I went to an exhibition at the Leopold museum and saw these wonderful quotes.

For him, there were no empty hours, no hours that were mere bridges spanning to richer ones ahead, and nothing that lay worthless along his path, nothing he could pass by as a stranger. All things had turned their countenances towards him, were there for his sake, and he was incapable of detaching their fate from his own.
And more than that, he had only sought himself in all things and in all things only found himself.

Richard Beer-Hofman, The Death of George, 1900.

I will never, and certainly never under this administration, participate in an official exhibit... I want to free myself. I want my freedom back from all these unedifying and ridiculous matters which only keep me from my work. I want to stand up against the cavalier way artistic matters are dealt with by the Ministry of Education in the Austrian state. Every opportunity is taken to discourage real art and real artists. Only the weak and the false get sponsored. We need a clearly defined separation. The state has no right to act like a patron of the arts when its hand-outs are paltry, nor does it have the right to dictate what gets exhibited and under what terms. Its only duty is to act as intermediary and commercial factor; otherwise it is to leave all matter concerning artistic initiatives completely to artists. The civil servant has no business in the art schools..."

Gustav Klimt commenting on how his paintings for a university hall were rejected in 1905

Meaning is found solely by him who seeks it.
Into one another flow dream and waking,
Truth and falsehood. Certainty is nowhere.
We know naugh o others, nor of ourselves.
We are forever at play - he who knows that is the wiser!

Arthur Schnitzler, "Paracelsus", 1898

The awareness of visions is not just a state of mind
in which one realizes and perceives things,
but a state of mind where conscience perceives itself.

Oskar Kokoschka, "On the Nature of Visions", lecture 1912

What is important

I just finished reading the biography of Diane Arbus and her life is so fascinating and tragic. But it highlighted the truth of how difficult it is to have a career in photography, or arts in general. The biography revealed how difficult it is for even established photographers to make living. But what struck me was a statement she made to her students in the last class she taught, "Nobody is going to love your pictures like yourself".

This statement is so close to home for me. My dance photography has always been in an uneasy niche. It is too polished, too technical to be in the realm of art photography. It is too raw, too instinctual to be commercial. The pursuit of dance photography has been a solitary pursuit for me in Singapore, only appreciated by a small group of people who love dance themselves.

And now, as I search for new horizons in my work, I have been working on personal research. I have been trying to search for a greater insight into the life of everyman, to create the work that would demand the attention of other people. But in this pursuit, I have not been successful. It could be early days yet.

However, what appears to be an insignificant toy in photographic terms, the iphone camera, has been an obsession with me. The iphone does not take good photos in general, the exposure and contrast is off. But when images are filtered using the Helga filter in a program called camera bag, the iphone images mimic the effect of a Holga camera. And the images print very nicely onto an A4 piece of paper.

On a certain level, the images that I take on the iphone are eye-candy. With respect to the drama of human existence and its tragedies, the images are insignificant. But for me, the iphone has become a constant companion, a way for me to comprehend, interact and transact with the life I live. My iphone photos are a very personal vision of my life. And in as much as I am a human, an everyman, these iphonographs reveal my honest alchemy with the world in which I live. So I lead a relatively good life, at the present moment with personal strife or danger and relatively sedate, but it is my life. And I am absolutely enjoying the beauty, the humour, the textures of the things that I have been fortunate enough to come across. Like a friend told me recently, I do not need to be a drug addict to take good photographs... or in other words I do not need to lead a dysfunctional life to make art.

I do appreciate more and more the life I have and I live it more intensely. But I am beginning to realise that I cannot, should not and will not court the forbidden or the dangerous, just to take more impactful photographs. It would be well and good if I did live a life full of human drama, but to purposefully, unnaturally, add drama where there is none, would be deceitful and self-serving.

Even with its limited appeal, I am proud of my dance images. And even if some of the images that I now take on my iphone seems too pretty and superficial, I must protest that they are still the results of my relentless, dogged pursuit of life. And as I make no apologies for living my life well, I will also make no apologies for the overt prettiness of my images. For if you look at all of them, you will see that as a whole, I am constantly exploring what it means to be alive, what it means to grow old and die, what does it mean to remember living and what does it mean to forget.

So often photographers are under the illusion that they choose the images that they take, but the truth is that the images choose us. One photographer may love another photographers work, but each photographer will still have his or her own way of taking a photograph.

So to me, Diane Arbus was so right to say that "Nobody is going to love your pictures like yourself."

Analogue appeal in a digital age

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Analogue appeal in a digital age

The rebirth of Polaroid film? I love dreamers.