I was thinking I should have a short explanation for my portfolio design..

Well.. I decided to keep everything plain and simple as I want the focus to be only on the photos themselves and nothing else. Therefore, I decided to use a black and white theme with only text in relatively more formal fonts.

What do you think after viewing this series of photos? Did you find the similarities in these images?

I hope that it is not difficult to see that all the photos are taken of reflections off buildings or other man-made structures. And, they are framed in special way. Not to show the beauty with nice compositions and everything. The focus was to confuse!

My Concept: “When Reflection confuses.”

When looking at this photos, what are you looking at? The building? The exterior of the building? The things that is being reflected on the reflective surfaces?

I believe that these images somehow confuses the actual object that you see in real life. Only at certain timings and weather conditions, these reflections are being made visible to us and gives us a different visual experience.

Truly hope that the photos convey the concept that I’m trying to tell!

#1: Perspective

Does Haji Lane looks like that to you? Well behind my dslr, Haji Lane is this beautiful =P

#2: Close Up

I was placing eggs into the fridge for my mum one day and I found them really cute as there were two types of eggs of different colours and size. And tada!

#3: Zoom Shot

I went Fullerton Hotel for a birthday dinner not too long ago and I always liked the lighting of this “tunnel” that leads us from the hotel to Fullerton One. And I was inspired to take a zoom shot here as I always felt that the zoom effect gives the action of charging forward in a direction and I thought that a tunnel would look interesting if the subject charges into it.

#4: Metaphor of a Smile

Always loved cakes especially cheesecakes that brings bright smiles to my face. I chose this photo as the berries on top looks like eggs and the circumference of the cake from this frame looks like a smile.

#1: Shallow Depth-of-field – Focus on Foreground

This was taken during a birthday photo-shoot assignment which I picked up on a weekend. The event location had pretty bad lighting and I was using an external flash throughout. This small vase of flower caught my attention when I was testing out my lighting and I really liked how it stood out from the background.

#2: Shallow Depth-of-field – Focus on Background

An activity that photographers do all the time: showing others what they have taken. The focus in this photo is on the digital camera that was showing an image previously taken of the viewer herself.

#3: Deep Depth-of-field

I previously used this photo as my perspective photo, but I find it rather suitable to show deep depth of field as the foreground and background are all in focus.

#4: Freeze Action

A lucky shot seriously. It was like a perfect moment that I could have missed if I wasn’t in a shooting posture. The small boy’s arms were too weak for him to swing from bar to bar and he tried to swing back and forth but fell almost immediately into his father’s arms. I felt that it was quite a heart-warming moment.

#5: Motion Blur

I did not change this photo as it was rather interesting and much appreciated by people who saw this, so I just cropped it so that the focus would be on the motion blur in the mixer.

#6: Panning

I was trying panning shots in a roundabout and it was really a good spot as many vehicles were circling around at speed that were still manageable.

#1: Line

Final -

Previously, the photo that I took has a rather weird composition and does not really show the concept of “lines” directly. Thus, I decided to find something that is more clear and direct. In BTC, I came across this flight of steps that were narrower than usual. Lines formed by the steps were clearly shown and the some dirt on the steps makes the composition of the photo looks more interesting. I like it simple, plain and direct to the point.

Previous attempt -

#2: Shape

Previously, my photo looks more 3D than 2D. Therefore, I chose to frame my new photo such that the building surface looks flat and conveys the idea of shapes through the rectangles of the windows on the building. The small greenery on the top left of the photo adds colour to the photo, making the composition interesting.

Previous attempt -

#3: Form

Previously, my photo looks more like “Shape” instead of form. As it was raining on the day of my photo shoot, I managed to capture this leave with water droplets on it. I love the composition of the photo.

Previous attempt -

#4: Texture

My previous photo was shoot in 18mm and I had to re-shoot it. However, I decided to change my subject as many people had shot photos that are almost similar. Thus, I decided to try something different. In this new photo, I try to show the contrast between 3 different textures that can be seen from this particular frame.

Previous attempt -

#5: Colour

My previous attempt was quite a failed attempt as Black and White is not considered “Colour”. My new photo has 3 main colours: purple (umbrella), green (grass) and orange/brown (roof). Other than these subjects, the background are of plain white or grey colours which makes all these brighter colours stand out and show the visual quality of “Colour”.

Previous attempt -

The Flambé moment

This photo was captured when my brother, a prospective chef, cooked a tiger prawns dish with wine. The scene had to be captured in split seconds as the flames gushes out only at the exact moment where the flame comes in contact with the wine.

A other [failed] attempt at it:

The flames were rather huge in here and I really liked how the flames formed up. However, the photo wasn’t in focus and I had to re-shoot it.

[Just for fun] The dish turned out to be like that:

Looks delicious? =D

Deforestation is an alarming environmental issue for many people especially nature lovers, however, there are people who see these forests as sources of wealth. The concept is to show that the many different views of people can have when they look into the same issue.

The photos that I used:

For the class assignment… Class Exercise 7 – Exhibition Marathon

Exihibition Excursion – SIPF

1. In the exhibition, choose one or couple of work that inspired you. Explain why.

Museum Anatomy by Chadwick & Spector

[credits: http://bumbumbum.me/2010/11/02/chadwick-and-spector-museum-anatomy/]

I was particularly inspired by the confusion caused by the position of the human form. With the much detailed and carefully placed drawing that is covering the complicated human form. It is difficult to decipher which body parts is the human form made of. I would think that the art captured in the photograph itself is inspiring. I felt that the framing of the photos further enhances the confusion that it is causing.

Fade-Away by Kris Vervaeke

[credits: Cheryl Ho]

I found this set of images particularly interesting as I never thought that someone would go around graveyards to take photos of the photos on tombstones. The state of these pictures on the tombstone were faded due to wear and tear over the years. Such photos convey a lot of meanings and emotions waiting to be realized by viewers. When I saw this series of images, the concept of “time” hits me. Time sorts of brings away many thing. As time goes by, people gets old and body deteriorates. As time goes by, memories fade, and so do these photos fade. Though they fade due to different causes but the main push factor behind is definitely time.

2. Observe how photographers convey their concept/idea through their chosen media and subject matter. Choose one series of work that you think the photographer has effectively convey his/her concept  in his/her work.

Captive Landscapes by Daniel Kukla

[credits: Cheryl Ho]

Just by looking at the series of photos (without looking at the description), I was able to understand what the artist was trying to convey. He captured many photos of “nature” being imposed on concrete walls (with hints such as windows or doors) and such places are most probably found in zoos where they are trying to construct habitats for animals. The action of containing nature in man-made spaces conveys the strong idea that humans put in much effort to link themselves to the natural environment in the real world. However, it is contradicting as we are destroying and replacing what is naturally at a location by building houses, zoos, enclosures. These photos motivated viewers like me to think about the actions of humans in preserving the environment. Are our actions right?

3. Observe how photographers present their work (i.e. choice of framing, hanging etc.). Choose one or a few series of work that you think the photographer(s) has effectively present his/her/their work.

Landscapes and Figures by Massimo Vitali

[credits: Tan Sin Yee]

I remembered very clearly that this series of works were placed in a small room that was sort of isolated from the other art works. The four images were huge and they were placed 2 (completes 1 full picture) by 2 (2 separate pics) facing each other. There was a white bench in the middle for the viewers to take a seat when viewing the photos.

I really liked how the images were being presented in this case as the photos taken were of deep depth of field. His intention was to show the landscape with many human subjects that were involved in different activities at the beach. The huge size of the images made it possible for viewers to look at the smallest details and get an idea of what the human subjects are actually doing. There is so many things going on in each picture, a viewer would take a lot of time to check out the whole photo and this is when the bench comes into place.

Therefore, I really felt that his work was well-presented in a very comfortable environment for viewers to effectively view his work.

A taste of appropriation.

Caption:    There would have been MINE —-diamonds from Africa

We were given the object: Jacuzzi. Thus, we decided to express our views on the gap between the rich and poor. As we felt that ‘Jacuzzi’ has a connotation of being high-class and also “for the rich” kind of enjoyment. And then we thought, filling up the tub with just water would be too boring. What can we used to make this connotation even more hush and crude?! So we eventually came up with the idea of using diamonds as their form and colour would “look” some what like the bubbling water in the tub.

At first, we wanted to portray a rich man enjoying himself in the prickly diamonds in the tub and having african kids looking in from the outside. However, we were timely reminded by Jing that it is a much too conventional way of showing our idea. Instead, we changed the rich man into a African kid to show some irony in this photo. Lastly, another thought struck us. Isn’t there a multimillion diamond company that is known to be getting their diamonds from Africa? A little research landed us with the answer: DeBeers! How can we not remember? We felt that labeling the diamonds with the brand there brings out our idea even more.

Playing with different lightings! I took a series of photos in class. I was particularly interested in colour cast as it’s really challenging. We tried a bit of front lighting, bottom lighting and tried really random directions too. Sadly, we didn’t really get to use the reflectors in class, hopefully there is chances next time.