I have been experimenting quite a bit now, when it comes to photographing Argentine Tango as a dance.
It took me a while, but I think I finally discovered what is it that makes the dance so hard to photograph.
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Ever since I decided to stop taking landscapes to focus on my portraiture photography, I have been doing a lot of soul-searching.
What is it exactly do I want to achieve with my camera?
I had a few possible answers for that. I could leverage on the film resurgence to market myself as a film photographer and pick up some film work. I could photograph weddings in film. I could even shoot magazine spreads with my film. However, these were not the answers I was looking for.
Do I really want to go out and be someone known for shooting film? The answer is no.
I want to be that somebody who is well known for what he shoots. Apparently, being that somebody, has got nothing to do with film at all.
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After using VSCO film once, I arrived at the conclusion that I do not like it at all.
Don't get me wrong. VSCO film has its appeal to a lot of photographers out there, who wish to make their images stand out from the rest. I myself am quite a outspoken lover of that 'film look'. The only difference is that I use REAL film to get that film look while many others choose to go with VSCO. Again, absolutely nothing wrong.
Credit where credit is due, I think that VSCO film is one of the best film-simulators out there for people.
It just does not appeal to me as much.
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So I caved in to pressure from the missus to try out VSCO film presents and consider using it for my own wedding engagement photographs instead of film. After trying the presets once, I can only say that I don't quite enjoy using them.
In the next two posts, I am going to do this: I will post a set of images shot in film and in digital, adjusted with VSCO film presents. After that, I will give my final verdict about shooting film and using VSCO film presets.
The only caveat I would like to point out is that the negatives aren't exactly scanned to its best potential so color-wise, it might not be as nice as digital images.
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Three weeks ago, I was about to get on my car when I got distracted by loud noises at a nearby Malay wedding.
Without thinking too much, I whipped out my Hasselblad 503 CW and crashed the wedding, hoping to take some pictures. And I also completely forgot I had a roll of Ilford Delta 400 black and white film in my camera. It was simply not doing the colorful wedding any justice at all so I capped it at five frames.
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The idea of thought-process in photography is simple: putting a little more thoughts and effort before pressing that damn shutter.
In fact, people do it all the time, just that they are not acutely aware of it.
Street photographers, for example, are constantly sensing and thinking about their surrounding, waiting for all the right elements to come together to form a great shot. In other genres like portraiture photography, some people take that process one step further. Richard Avedon was said to sit his subject in front of a large format camera for one hour, where he kept quiet but 'talked' to the subject with his eyes. In that one hour, he took no more than four/five shots (at least that's what I'm told).
Last week, I brought the Contax 645 out on two occasions to experience the difference between film and digital.
While a lot has been said about film versus digital, I have never really been put in a situation where I could keep the camera constant. This means to say that I have never shot digital and film with the same camera at one go.
With my recent acquisition of the Phase One P21 digital back, this comparison is now possible.
Here are some shots, taken by the Contax 645 with Fuji Pro 400H film.
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I was never too hot about the Sony Cybershot RX-1 when it was first announce in 2012, partly because I see the camera's main usage lies in street photography.
Let's not forget about the crazy price tags of about SGD $4,000, will will deter many street shooters looking for upgrading options.
But fate brought me to the RX-1. You see, I randomly decided to have lunch at a Japanese restaurant. Coincidentally, I bumped into the Sony rep who was having lunch there as well. The best part - the RX-1 was originally assigned to street photographer Danny Santos. Turns out he was not available to try out the camera because of some work on hand so the camera ended up with me an hour later.
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Five years. That's how long I have been a Flickr member.
From taking snapshots of editorial models for portfolio to becoming a film aficionado, Flickr has pretty much seem me through my photography journey.
That is why, when Yahoo invited me to a walk-through and demonstration session of the new Flickr app, I was more than happy to attend.
Interestingly, even before I received Yahoo's invitation, I already had the app installed onto my iPhone. This was partly due to a photography peer who 'refused to see Flickr photos unless I show them via the new app' last December. Therefore I had the chance to play around with the app before then.
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Every photographer out there has some sort of photography-related resolutions for 2013 and I'm no different from them.
I do have some other resolutions for the year but I shall list my photography-related ones here:
1. Buy as little photography gear as possible. In fact, I am trying to make it a point to make no major buys this year. Right now, I have a Hasselblad 503 CW + 100mm f/3.5 CF setup as well as a Contax 645 + 80mm f2 setup. I hardly need any more new gear. If I ever need to use additional gear, I will try to borrow lenses rather than buy. The only exception to this rule is film itself.
2. Become proficient in manual focusing on the Contax 645, to the extent where I am ready to offer my services to potential clients. This probably applied to the Hasselblad setup as well.
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Hestheone on 
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