Skip to main content

Creating a photojournal - An Experiment

I have examined the photographs that I took during the Chinatown outing and I notice that I missed out the people part of it. I have few photos showing them either buying, price haggling, smiling or tourists being curious about this festival. With this learning, I want to prepare for the upcoming Chinese New Year, where I will be going home to Subang Jaya in Malaysia.

What will be the atmosphere be like before, during and after Chinese New Year? What are the key descriptions of the events? What will show that it is Chinese New Year versus a normal day?

Based upon these few guiding questions, I will see the following:

* My mother and mother in law smiling on seeing their children coming home to celebrate the new year with them. Portraits of them smiling both in color and monochrome could bring out this emotion. The pancake can do the trick or the zoom of 80-200mm; using the 80mm to create the bokeh.
* Children are happy receiving ang-pows (red packets) and the act of the out-stretched hands receiving it without showing the real folks should be good. Using the pancake at f2.8 may provide enough bokeh.
* The CNY decoration with the kids in new clothes could be another indicator.
* Night scene of fire-crackers - will require tripod or monopod at about 2 seconds may do the trick. Digital filter (starbust) could do likewise.
* Eating goodies but with the food in the background would be another.
* Photographs of food spread could be another.

Will continue to update this blog to capture my ideas.

CNY used to be an event to look forward to. It was a time where we had new clothes, got to drink Sinalco, Greenspot aerated water, which today is an everyday event. We had delicacy only during CNY. Today, you can go anywhere and have them. The significance has changed, and CNY is just another day, unless we bring back some of its tradition, such as the reunion dinner, the respect paid to our parents and relatives and firecrackers (which is still banned!). To me, the atmosphere is very muted, and hence as a photographer, I need to capture special moments that differ from the ordinary.

Wait and see what I can share after CNY.

Happy Lunar New Year of the Tiger, 2010!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tranquility (www.taoteching.org) Ch. 37 - a commentary

The Way takes no action, but leaves nothing undone. When you accept this The world will flourish, In harmony with nature. Nature does not possess desire; Without desire, the heart becomes quiet; In this manner the whole world is made tranquil. ---------------------------------------------------------- Is this a contradiction? Takes no action, yet leaves nothing undone? I think over this for sometime. I still have my doubt on my interpretation. But why be "right" when I can do what I want to do. In the corporate world, I notice a lot of "make work". The concept of being busy means that one is working to impress the boss remains a culture; albeit a self-deceiving one at best. I interpret this chapter as not doing unimportant or non-impactful things as the principle of work. The Way takes no action on many wasteful tasks. Instead, the Way concentrates on tasks that affect the environmental sustainability and ensure that nature will continue to provide for many generati...

More is Certain

I had been working on an acquisition over the last three weeks and it was the most tiresome experience ever. The target being a public listed company means that any news leakage will drive up the share price. The purchase price of a public listed company will carry a premium on the share price. In Asia, I noted that the premium given is about 10~15% but in the USA, it is between 20~40%! Just imagine, if you spotted a target and you buy into it, and you hit the bull's eye! You could make quite a bundle. Of course, your guess could be wrong, and if so, expect that share price to go down, when the news is announced. For those working on such a deal, expect tons of information to be provided to you, and most of this could be outdated. However the bank (usually) engaged to do the job wants to impress you with documents. After all, more means "we are doing something" compared to "less but quality stuff". So, I have to keep sieving lousy information, to get out what is...

Music from the Mind of a Chinese Maestro, Choo Hoey

I took advantage of the Keppel Nights tickets subsidy of 50% and took the family to attend the "Folklore and Legends" on February 20, at the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO)Concert Hall. It was conducted by Mr Choo Hoey (see photo) with a guest appearance of a young violinist, Mr Jin Li (see photo). I have never been inside the Singapore Conference Hall before, despite having lived in Singapore for the past thirteen years! It is located on Shenton Way, the financial street of Singapore, with a nice view onto the Marina Bay, which is seeing a lot of construction with new high rise office buildings springing up. Ah, this is Singapore, a land of little land but plenty of high rise buildings. This is my first foray into a Chinese orchestra, with Chinese musical instruments. These names are strange to my ears - gaohu, erhu, banhu, zhonghu, yangqin, liuqin, zhongruan, sanxian, daruan, konghou, qudi, bangdi and xindi. Some of these instruments are not known to me, because I do not ...