Suzanne Walker and Sheikh Haikel

A photo shoot of the new 91.3 FM morning crew.

Beautiful Black and White Photography

Beautiful Black and White Photography from Smashing Magazine.

Le Petit Portrait - While I am away

I'm going off for more workshops in July. While I am away, Shin is going to do a petit Le Petit Portrait. Just for a couple of weeks. As you may know, she leaves for Chicago in September. For those of you who have admired her work, this is probably the best time to get your portraits done by her, unless you are willing to fly out to Chicago in the future.

The following terms conditions apply:


1) This promotion entitles every individual to a SINGLE 1-hour indoor portrait session from 14-25 July 2008.
2) The Client will receive 10 images of their choice, of which, 1 image will be chosen for minor digital re-touching and an 8" x 12" print.
3) Photo-shoot bookings should be done at least a week in advance, scheduled between 10am to 6pm on weekdays only.
4) The Client will receive digital files of images for personal use only and shall not sell or authorize any reproduction other than for personal usage. Terms and charges for commercial usage shall be negotiated separately with The Pond.
5) The Photographer shall own the copyright of all images created and shall have the right to make reproductions. The Photographer shall only make reproductions for his portfolio, samples, self-promotions, entry in photographic contests or art exhibitions, editorial use or for display within or on the outside of the Photographer’s studio. If the Photographer desires to make other uses, the Photographer shall not do so without first obtaining the written permission of the Client.
6) Confirmation of booking is based on a signed quotation raised by The Pond and payment is to be made upon completion of the photographic service.
7) No voucher may be combined with this promotion.
8) The Pond reserves the right to modify any terms and conditions without any prior notification to the user.

You can make enquiries at enquiry@thepond.com.sg

The Arts Fest and Existentialism

The arts festival is on in Singapore and the last couple of shows have been really thought provoking for me. On Thursday I watched a dance piece called No Direction, by a Japanese company called Nibroll. The show was comprised by vignettes of absurd situations, with people desperately alone but trying to interact and do things together. It seemed like people bumped into one another and somethings aligned physically, but were somehow unable to truly find a direction together. The show was quite humorous, but illustrated the deficiency of human interactions.

Tonight I watched 'Drift', a play directed by Dramabox artistic director, Kok Heng Luen. And this play was about people from two cities, Shanghai and Singapore, and how their lives intertwined over four generations. It was a wonderful piece of theatre, based more on process and the emotional experience. There was a narrative, but it seemed to be more a skeleton to hang the emotional experience, than a narrative that drove the play. In the play there were lovers who were separated due to ideals, mothers and their children, husbands and their mistresses. And a very enigmatic figure, actress Pat Toh, who just stood on top of a dais above the stage for the entire play, emotionless, perhaps like the blindfolded statue of justice holding a set of scales in one hand. This play was more melodramatic than No Direction, but it spoke of people's desires, dreams, fears, promises and fates.

Both performances caused me to reflect on the imperfection of understanding and communication. People are not really evil, in general, but our desires and the logic following our desires may cause us to hurt other people. And it also blinds us to the hurt we visit onto other people. This problematic life seems almost futile. But in my mind, I resolved that regardless of the imperfections, it is better to aspire to live well, to be true to myself and yet respect other people. One cannot stop living life because there may be pitfalls. And one cannot learn about life without making a few mistakes. And one cannot learn from life's lessons unless one is truthful and willing to learn, and to change. I must and do hope for progress.

With global warming, food shortage and an out of control price of oil, times do look bleak. But if we used less fuel, ate less meat, and did not consume so much, a lot of death and suffering can be alleviated. But it is inconvenient for us who have grown accustomed to a comfortable lifestyle. It is hard to make the connection, but our excess is paid for by the suffering and death of other people. We all have this wonderful ability to live in denial, ignore the reality. And even now, the reality is not just in some poor third world countries front lawn, the bad weather and expense of basics is on our front door, and yet we deny it. I guess that if we do live like an ostrich, our heads stuck in the sand, we do deserve our untimely demise. But still, I must and do hope for progress.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Sydney nude art inquiry dropped

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Sydney nude art inquiry dropped

My friend Sven introduced me to Bill Henson. And I like his work a lot. But there is such a fine line between art and abuse. Such questions were also raised about the work of Jock Sturgess. What is the intent of the work and it is abusing the trust of the subjects, i.e. children. I do know that the artist starving a dog to death is something that I would not condone. But the photography of children nude? Well, any nude is controversial, even of adults. We all have to figure these things out for ourselves.

Wedding web sites updated

Ron from Eye-deas is in the process of updating his web site. And Wan Sheng from Feldberyl has updated his web site!

What can I say? These guys are great wedding photographers. It is so nice to see the great images Ron and Wan Sheng are producing. Along with Kuang and Eadwine, these are the guys I recommend to the wedding enquiries that I still get once in a while.

I guess some people will ask me if I miss wedding photography? The honest answer is no. It is a stage I went through but it does not challenge me now. At least not in the form that it is practised in Singapore.

Leibovitz, Nachtwey and more

This has been a good and busy year for me. But in my spare time, I have been trying to educate myself. In fact it feels like I put the cart before the horse. I learned the practice of photography before learning the history and theory. I am not sure how useful art critique theory is to me, but listening to great photographers talk about their process and thoughts, is very interesting and insightful to me.

I have heard some not so nice things about Annie Leibovitz, with regards to her work and personality. But she has taken some of the most iconic images of our collective memory. I missed the screening of her documentary at the Singapore Film Festival, but managed to get a copy of the DVD off Ebay.

American Masters . Annie Leibovitz | PBS

What is striking for me is that Leibovitz has an early history of image making. Her parents were constantly taking photographs of the family and making videos. She started working for the Rolling Stones magazine when it first started and they kind of grew up together. Leibovitz's style then was more photo journalistic. And then her work became much more stylised with Vanity Fair and Vogue. And then she met Susan Sontag and became lovers. And she was urged by Sontag to add depth to her work. I think it is interesting that Leibovitz is able to conceptualize and orchestrate iconic magazine covers, but the work that she highlights in her latest collection, A Photographer's Life, a large portion of it is personal, of her family and Susan Sontag. There are also iconic portraits and images, but loads of real personal stuff. And I think this is what makes her a great photographer. The ability to be a superb craftswoman, and the concurrent ability to be human. I love this concurrence in Avedon, Penn, Watson and Elledge.

Another documentary I watched was War Photographer. I don't know why everyone says that James Nachtwey is boring. I know he speaks deliberately, but I think his intensity is compelling. I admire his courage and determination to bring to light all the atrocities from around this world. Above all, I admire his humanity, his desire to bring to the consciousness of people caught up in the Capitalist consumer society, the suffering of others. I personally could never do the type of war photographer work. But I am shamed by the superficiality of my own work. I want to work on projects that has more social consciousness. Pretty is not good enough.

I find it hard to reconcile the various parts of my photography. I shoot corporate portraits to pay the bills. I love beauty and make images that are basically eye candy. And I want to make images that speak about the human existence. I am not smart enough to reconcile these needs. I will try and do them all.

I am also reading Dialogue with Photography - Interviews By Paul Hill and Thomas Cooper. So much insight by so many great photographers. The photographers interviewed do tend to be contemporaries or are influenced by Alfred Stieglitz. This idea of equivalence keeps cropping up. I have never heard of it before. But here is an interesting introduction. Stieglitz actually had a series called Equivalent.

And I just bought Edward Weston's nudes. A beautiful book. But what struck me is that such a giant in photography was actually poor most of his life. Apparently, Ansel Adams was not rich either. Once again I have to remind myself that photographic excellence does not equal financial wealth. My own personal strongest work, has little or no financial value. At least not now.

I feel that there is so much to learn and absorb. There is so little time. It is so easy to take a picture nowadays. Our cameras are so powerful. But it is so hard to make a worthy image.

Month of Photo Asia

Month of Photo Asia

There has not been that much run up publicity to Month of Photography this year. The web site is now up. Check it ou.

Communication Arts Annual and The Artful Nude

My photographs of the new Lasalle College of the arts have been included in the Communication Arts Photography annual. The rest of the images were posted here. It is nice that my long term relationships with Singapore Dance Theatre and Lasalle College of the arts are giving me the opportunity to shoot such images.



This image of Jeffrey Tan and Mat Noor has been selected to be in The Artful Nude exhibition at The Center for Fine Art Photography. The biggest kick for me is that the exhibition is curated by Kim Weston, grandson of Edward Weston.

Once again, I have to thank the people working at The Pond that have helped me take these images.

The Pond Team - A parting shot

I have been very fortunate to have been working with some really great people this year, and it is good because there was a lot of demanding work. But all good things come to an end. Good people will find their own path. Thank you for helping me get into two annuals and two overseas exhibitions this year. And there have also been two local exhibitions this year. Its been jam packed.

On the far left holding the color chart is the intern from Nayang Technological University, Darren Tan. He is studying film but wants to be a photographer. Thank goodness he came on board because I am working on creating video sequences for a dance show in September for choreographer Kuik Swee Boon. I learned as much from him as he did from me I think.

Holding the focus card is Anvin Hoo. My digital assistant for a year and a half. A product photographer in his own right, this guy really shifted a hell of a lot of pixels for me while he was here. Although he got to meet and shoot some really attractive dancers, he was disappointed that I never ever got any interns that looked like Fiona Xie or Jade Seah. Unfortunately for the photography scene he is leaving it and moving to interior design. We just don't earn a lot of money in photography. And if he wants a girl like Fiona or Jade, he needs a job that has a lot more cred. It was his last day today. Good luck Anvin, with getting the glamorous girl. I'm sure earning the money won't be as difficult, muahahaha.

Then there is me in the middle with my arty farty lomo LCA.

On my right, holding the foundation and brush, is my Studio Manager Shin Lim. We both interned in Chicago for Paul Elledge and we both worked our asses off. When she said she felt like coming back east, I offered her a job. I knew that she has already experienced a high pressured, top level studio. She is a great portrait photographer in her own right. She is creating a stunning series of hair portraits on my studio floor. If you think you have a great head of hair, you should volunteer to be shot by her. I think she is going to be big in the future. Fortunately for her, but unfortunately for me, her boyfriend proposed to her. She is engaged and moves back to Chicago in October. I'm going to miss her helpful eye during shoots, but I think she will have a lot more opportunities in the states than she will here.

On the far right, holding the model release, is my office manager, Abby Chua. This wonderful woman, is the only left brained person in the office. But don't let that fool you. She is also a musician and composer. She keeps the office in order and fortunately, she is staying for the foreseeable future. I'm going to have to work hard to keep her for as long as I can.

I do have an intern in the second half of the year to replace Darren. She is a photography student from Nayang Technological University. But I am looking for a new studio manager. I'm looking for someone who is passionate about images and can work independently. There is no glamour factor in my studio. You have to love photography.

World Press Photo Interviews

World Press Photo Interviews

It is so interesting finding more about how other photographers work. And I find that the photographers that are interviewed, even if they are not articulate, are full of interesting ideas.

Singapore, a friend indeed to Burma - Business - Business - smh.com.au

Singapore, a friend indeed to Burma - Business - Business - smh.com.au

It is interesting to see that we have such close ties to the Burmese junta. With respect to earning money, should we deal with blood money?

Climate change barely bothers wealthy, polluting nations: study | Green Tech - CNET News.com

Climate change barely bothers wealthy, polluting nations: study | Green Tech - CNET News.com

We all don't want to know. But in the end, it is like having blood money. Our comfort, is paid for by the suffering of others.

European Sketch Book

2902 Gallery
Old School
11 Mount Sophia
Block B, #B2-09
6th – 18th May 2008
Opening Hours: Tue -Saturday: 11am – 8pm, Sunday: 1pm-6pm, Sun - By appointment only
For General Enquiries: Email: info@2902gallery.com or call 6339 8655

If a painter sketches with a pencil, then a photographer captures the moment by selecting a portion out of the whole scene and created a new dialogue of its own. Be it wandering through the streets of Europe or setting up within a studio, Tan Ngiap Heng has demonstrated the relationship between the creator and the subjects are both intrinsic &dialectic.

Presenting 2 bodies of works, Pulse is a body of personal snap shots taken in various parts of Europe, and absorbing the culture and street scenes where great European photographers like Bresson and Doisneau used to roam. On the other hand, Tuscan Portraits reveals a distinct voice of the creator and yet preserves the essence of each person.

----

After Dance Me Through The Dark in February, I was not expecting to have another exhibition for at least two years. But I was invited by Gwen of 2902 Gallery to put up an exhibition of my European photographs for a Kraft corporate event. 2902 graciously allowed me to put up the images for couple of weeks. Some of you may have seen some of the European scenes in the section entitled 'Pulse' in Citylink Mall, but the section of Tuscan Portraits are from my last trip to Tuscany. And if you are interested in the direction of my work, I think that the Tuscan Portraits is a good indication.

There has been no run up time to build up publicity for this exhibition. Please help spread the word. Thanks.

PDN Annual and Fotoseptiembre

My dance photography is continuing to bring me luck. My work for the Keppel Corporation calendar has been accepted into the Photo District News Annual under corporate work. The PDN Annual will be published in May. I have to thank Ian Foo, the designer that did such a great job with the layout.

And also some of my images of Sakura and Zhou Lin, have been accepted into the Fotoseptiembre Photo Festival in San Antonio, Texas.

I get this feeling that my work is appreciated more overseas than it is in Singapore. I need to get out of this island more.

Aperture Magazine | Phillip Jones Griffiths

Aperture Magazine | Phillip Jones Griffiths

This is a wonderful tribute to Phillip Jones Griffiths and has a great interview with him. What is important to me is that he is not just a photographer, but that is such a passionate humanitarian. In this age of global consumerism, where large companies are profiteering from the demise of our planet, Griffiths' words strike a deep chord.

Interview with Brad Bird

interview Pixar Brad Bird - Innovation lessons from Pixar Director Brad Bird - Strategy - Innovation - The McKinsey Quarterly

My friend Marilyn sent this article to me. It is so inspiring. It gives me a lot to think about too because I am no longer a lone wolf working for myself. I have spent a lot of time nurturing my own growth. There are some interesting ideas here on nurturing a creative team.

You will have to sign up for the Mckinseyquarterly to see this article, but it is a free sign up and worth it I think.

Professional, personal, passionate

I have been working pretty hard since the new year, thank goodness. It was scary at the end of last year as there was almost no work for three months. I seem to have turned a corner in the professional career. And then I was on the faculty of shooting home 2008 and I witnessed the personal struggles of the attendees and it made me wonder about my own personal work. I have been thinking about separate things, how can I be professional without losing my soul? How do I work on my personal vision without being self-indulgent? How are these two aspects related?

One of the participants from Shooting Home said that she enjoyed the course. She liked the photography that she did and said that she would rather not do photography professionally as commercial work would not be as fulfilling. I cannot see how to reach the higher levels of photography without being a full time practitioner. I may not be shooting personal projects, but I am practicing my craft daily. When I first started photography professionally, I was lucky that some interesting subjects modelled for me. But at that stage, it was about the basics of photography. Instead of making creative explorations, I was grappling with camera settings and lighting. In my professional work, this is something I grapple with daily. I am forced to know my equipment intimately. So when I do a personal project, I can focus on the creative exploration, not the basic equipment issues. So by being a professional photographer, I am not always doing creative work, but I am constantly honing my craft. I think that it is much harder to achieve creative heights if I am not seasoned with my equipment.

In my personal aesthetics, I like beautiful things. I struggled for a long time learning how to make beautiful images. And there is nothing wrong making beautiful images in itself, but I come to acknowledge the superficiality of beautiful images. I know some beautiful work can bring the viewer to places that they have not been to before. But I am leaning towards work that has an inner beauty, a beauty that is not immediately apparent. I think that there is beauty in truth, even if that truth is superficially repulsive. Like the horror of war photography, somewhere in the horror, is the hope that the truth revealed will lead to a change for the better. It is in my nature to shoot beautiful images and I will continue to do so. But to only shoot beautiful images would be self-indulgent, a continuous variation on a theme. At a point, it almost becomes a hollow repetitive exercise. I am challenging myself to break down this wall holding me in my comfort zone. I need to try new, more challenging photographic processes and subjects. I want to do work that is more than an aesthetic or conceptual exercise. I probably need to change the way I lead my life to start creating more engaged work. I need to constantly put myself outside my comfort zone, and forget about past success. And it is also not about looking for future success, it is simply about the journey of discovery. Sometimes as humans, we get attached to past success and simply repeat ourselves. But it means that we stop growing. Ultimately, the goal is personal growth, and photography is only the tool, success only a by-product. So I constantly break down old walls, to build new walls and then break down the new walls to build even newer ones. That is not just life, that is truly living.

What links professional work to passionate personal work, is attitude and discipline. Irregardless of the work being professional or personal, one has to always put heart and soul into it. It is not just brute effort, but creativity as well. One never knows when something professional becomes personal and vice versa. As hard as it is, I try never to take a job simply as work. I take all work as an opportunity to hone my craft. I also try not to be so attached to my personal work that I am unable to constructively critique it, to see what works and does not work about it. Always, and I mean always, striving for the best outcome, and still acknowledging the shortcomings that inevitably occur. One point to note here though, the shortcomings are not something to get depressed about. Nothing is perfect. Shortcomings are simply pointers to how we can do things better in future. It is the journey and the growth that is the most important.

Porcelain Education

There is a store near my office that sells porcelain figures. I was attracted by a large Mao Zi Dong figure amongst the buddhas and taoist figures. Sitting on a shelf in the back was an educational porcelain. I was surprised to see this amongst religious figurines, but the shop lady told me that these figurines were given to young newlyweds in China. How interesting!

Backing up the New Mac Book Pro

I have a windows partition on my new mac book pro and I think about backing everything up so that I will have a quick restore plan if anything happens to the hard drive. Time machine is nice if I want to retrieve files, but it is not so convenient if there is a hard drive failure. I will have to reinstall the OS on a new drive before I even do a restore.

So this is what I am doing. I bought a 250 gig hard drive in a firewire casing. I use winclone from Two Canoes to make an image of my windows drive. The image is compressed and only takes about 4 gigs. I put this windows drive image and put it onto my Mac desktop. Next, I used carbon copy to clone my Mac Drive to the 250 gig hard drive. The 250 gig hard drive is bootable. I am actually writing this entry with the OS being run from the firewire drive. You use boot camp to choose the fire wire drive as the boot drive.

If the hard drive fails, I will install a new hard drive, use carbon copy to reinstate my Mac OS, and then use winclone to reinstate my windows partition.

Both Winclone and Carbon Copy Cloner are donation ware. You decided what to donate. You don't even have to donate if you don't want to. I donated US$10 per program.

I will still use Time Machine for file backup.

Shooting Home 2008 - Tough Love

This year I was on the faculty of Shooting Home, the Objectifs course for photographers hoping to turn professional. The course was less about technical things though than becoming more connected photographers. There were practical classes, but the core of the course was a self-proposed project and nightly critiques by the faculty. The faculty this year were Brian Van Der Beek, Francis Ng, CJ Sameer, Wee Kheng Li and me. Deanna Ng was a junior faculty. It was an intensive course and the faculty were brutally honest with the students. We were not trying to be nasty, but we tried to get participants to re-look at what it meant to make images as opposed to taking pretty photographs. I think most of the participants hit huge walls and managed to somehow break at least part of the walls down. It was a draining process for everyone. But the results were satisfying for me. A lot of participants learnt that photography is not just about technical craft, but personal investment in their work. And this is one thing I really would like more creative people in Singapore to understand, personal investment.

Congratulations to the participants for enduring the grueling course. The journey continues.


Joseph Nair, a past participant helping out on the course.


Deanna as a wandering ghost faculty ;)


Me just before a critique session.


Emmeline, Brian, preview guest, Ulla


Bee Hoon (in green) and her daughters


Jean hugging her mum who came for the slideshow


Mulyadi and daughter


A last chat after the course

It was a good interaction. Don't take photos, make images, be human. Peace.

Up to my eyeballs

Rehearsal for the Anderson Junior College Dance Show



Packing up after a shoot for Singapore Dance Theatre



Location shoot for People's association.

I am sorry that blog postings have been slow. I have simply swamped with work, which is good. Here is some behind the scenes shots.

Karel Veprik

Karel Veprik

Just blown away.

Professional Photographers Association (Singapore) Spotlight

I have an article on my photography at the Professional Photographers Association (Singapore). :) You can view it here.

The Book Delayed again

This is turning out to be more difficult than I anticipated. There were printing issues with the first print run of the Dance Me Through The Dark Book. The printing issues were solved in the second run but the pages were damaged. So I am now looking for a new printer and I am unable to estimate when the book will be out. I hope that it can be all sorted out within a month.

To all those people who have ordered the book, my apologies for the delay.

Exhibition Ended

The exhibition ended today and it has been taken down. Thank you everyone who visited the exhibition. I do hope that this exhibition will continue in some way though. I will have to see.

The books arrive this week. I will put up purchase details soon.

Start-up lets you fix focus after snapping the shutter | Underexposed - CNET News.com

Start-up lets you fix focus after snapping the shutter | Underexposed - CNET News.com

Dance Me Through The Dark closes on the 28

Yes. I am plugging my show. But it is the best exhibition I have ever done. So if you have not seen it, please see it before it closes on Thursday the 28. And if you have seen it and enjoyed, please ask your friends to go.

The books should be ready for sale by the end of the month. Thank you to all the people that have made orders of the books and images. You will get what you ordered.

Cheers!!

How to manage a crisis, any crisis | Steve Tobak's views on dysfunctional corporate behavior - CNET Blogs

How to manage a crisis, any crisis | Steve Tobak's views on dysfunctional corporate behavior - CNET Blogs

A good read for anyone.

Dance Me Through The Dark Book

There has been a delay in the printing of the book unfortunately. Copies of the book for sale should be ready by the end of the month.

However, if you place an order for the book at the exhibition gallery, there is a 10% discount of the regular retail price of $100. Payment is to be made in full by cheque. There is a browsing copy of the book at the exhibition.

I know that the books should have been launched on the 13 Feb. But if you already like the browsing copy, you can be sure that the print and bind quality will be even better when it is finally ready. :)

Dance Me Through The Dark Media Coverage

Interview on Dansing.org web site (Click here)

Interview with June Chong in the Straits Times (Click here)

Podcast of interview with Mabel at Lush 99.5 (Click here)

Interview with Shereena Sajeed of Radio Singapore International (Click here)

Interview with Mayo Martin (Click here)

Dance Me Through The Dark Opening

I am so very happy with the way my exhibition turned out. And the evening was a real celebration. Thanks to all the people who came and the others who sent their well wishes.




Chihiro, Na Ri and Hai Ying visiting the show.



Juliet Pang singing a fantastic jazz set for me.

I need to go sleep now. More in days to come.

Many Pathways One Mission

Many Pathways One Mission is a book published by the Ministry of Education. It has come out without much fanfare but to me it is a significant book for Singapore photography. The photography is produced by Wesley Loh, a very good friend on mine. In this book, the way the portraits are taken and the way the images are treated are intense. For once, in a government book, people are not make to put on fake plastic smiles for the readers. I think that the book comes across as more thoughtful and believable. As a nation, we have to get over superficial happiness and care enough to look seriously at what people are saying with their images.

If you have time, go to borders and look for this book and flip through it. think about why it does not look like other Singaporean publications? And see if you find this more believable than all those fake photographic smiles we get as propaganda.

Polaroid closing instant film factories - Yahoo! News

Polaroid closing instant film factories - Yahoo! News

Some of Paul Elledge's most memorable work was done on Poalaroid materials. Same with Paolo Roversi and Joyce Tennyson. Nothing quite looks like images shot on Polaroid material. And even though Polaroid film is a niche product, the writing is on the wall for film in general. I wonder how many more years before film passes on too?

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Ella and Zul says "Rats... Where?"

Happy Chinese New Year folks.

Chestnuts Virgin

I am sad to say that I did not watch the first ten installments of Jonathan Lim's spoof fest, Chestnuts. I have been really busy with the exhibition and work and did not make plans to watch Chesty Nutty Bang Bang. But I bumped into the production manger, Kheng Kiat at Bras Basah Complex and was reminded that the show was going on at the drama centre in the national library. I just happened to have time that evening and decided to loose my chestnuts virginity. And I never thought it could be soooo good. I must admit that at times it got long and a bit boring, just one bang after another bang. But there were many times I was in hysterical ecstasy. :) I have worked with almost all the actors on stage and have taken photographs for so many of the productions they spoofed. It was just hilarious.

Come on baby, do it to me one more time!! Waiting for the next big one Jonathan!

Do you feel like Dilbert? I know I do sometimes.