Backlight January 30, 2007
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21:00:43, Jan 29th 2007, SMU T-junction
Official Opening @ Campus Green January 22, 2006
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The Official Drink of the SMU Official Opening
Five years old. Four years in the making. Three years since I really got close to you.
Entry of the SMU Colours
Yesterday was your coming out bash. Debutante Ball so to speak. Our Prime Minister was the Guest of Honour, along with the Minister of Education and his Deputy. The former minister who was instrumental in your birth was there as well. As were many former students who struggled so hard to make you what you are today.
I love SMU
We were there for so many pivotal moments in your life. The first Patron’s Day, Halloween on the rooftop and the 2004 orientation camp in your grounds. But these were inextricably linked with the Bukit Timah Campus. We bidded farewell to that last year, and celebrated our move here with SMUve. Now, we celebrate the new chapter of your life in the city.
I am leaving you soon. Letting go is going to take a while. But I will never completely go away.
Pictorial Philosophy January 19, 2006
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People ask me, why do I take pictures?
To express myself, I reply. I cannot draw, I lack strong vocabulary to say what I want in the exact nuance and adequately and I only have no lack of imagination. I see a moment of beauty, and I capture it.
But that’s not creation, they argue. You are only saving what someone else has made.
There are many angles to the same scene. Minute changes of perception has impact beyond their size. Lines that bring focus onto your subject, perspective to give depth, and colours to give texture. That is just for the composition. There’s shutter speed to control motion, aperture for depth of feild, both in conjunction for light levels. Finally, there is the actual moment of photography, where a child smiles, a bird takes off, a stray beam hitting the water.
I take pictures to take satisfaction in a job well done.
Deceleration January 12, 2006
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Looking back on all my old photos, it seemed to have hit a plateau as far as creativity is concerned. This was brushed off as lack of inspiration early on but the slump is getting a bit too hard to ignore.
Wonder when did taking pictures became a chore; something that had become more of a mundane event than the carefully crafted capture that I can be proud of. Photography was a form of expression for me then. To say how I feel about an ordinary object, scene or person, and make them special and beautiful in the way unique to every photographer using the tools of light, angles and depth. To share with another person your work, critiquing each other’s technique and posing for each other.
Inspiration? Africa did not inspire me the way it did five years ago. Technique? No improvement whatsoever. Feel? ‘Lost that loving feeling’ is more like it.
