Penang: The Pearl of the Orient

this is an entry i never got around to composing. in an attempt to revitalize the blog, i thought it apt to start with this trip up north to the Pearl of the Orient about a year ago.

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George Town oozes with heritage, and the locals are proud to commemorate them. walk down a random alley and a mural painted on old peeling walls greet you. there is this charm to be found in these old dilapidated buildings - maybe it is the urban dweller's recoil from all the new shiny anonymous buildings that loom above the Kuala Lumpur skyline. lanes, alleyways, old peranakan mansions, and dingy shophouses stake their claim to the glorious splendour that is old George Town. i wander about trying to absorb the antiquity and the authenticity, like a tourist in a foreign land. frozen in time, yet moving forward with the times. seventy-five years down the road, will the shiny buildings of Kuala Lumpur be gazetted as heritage sites? will microcosms like George Town be able to resist the tidal wave of development? will the murals painstakingly crafted by Ernest Zacharevich stand proudly as they once did?

but we move along - from Armenian Street, to the Esplanade, to Bishop's Lane, and back. like the passage of time, George Town and its people feels like it will move with the times. a new generation will venerate the heritage and fight to preserve it for more people to experience and appreciate. as long as people come back and tell their loved ones the beauty of this piece of history, so it shall remain in the collective consciousness that we are nothing without our roots.

book and camera

another year came and went, and 23 still remains as a footnote of my photography endeavours. 2015 sees no major upheavals, other than the premature reacquisition of some sort of groove. all in all, gigs were attended, trips were made, photo walks were carried out, basically the bare minimum of activities a photography enthusiast performs in order to actually be arsed to take some photographs. to be fair, 2015 wasn't my most active year in terms of photography, although i try to sustain the enthusiasm with minor solo photowalks and social obligations that don't quite spark any fires, but keeps the ember going for now. at least it gives me reason not to let the EOS 6D sit in the dry box collecting mould.

towards the third quarter of 2015, i decided to make a photo book that doesn't involve me gifting it to somebody else. photo book crafting is interesting because not only does it force you to re-evaluate your photographs, but it also gives one a sense of direction when it comes to taking photographs. it goes without saying that i take my photographs willy nilly without so much as a thought about a unified theme, colour scheme, shape, or even subject (though i admit, i do like taking photographs of subjects from the back). compiling photographs for Fraulein was simple enough - it was a straightforward photo book of a particular person, maybe it gravitates on the border of portraiture and gravure. however, there needs to be a flow and transition between the photographs. one does not simply jump from one non sequitur to another. some form of logic should be applied. for the most part, Fraulein fortunately doesn't require as stringent as the requirements of a logical flow to fully appreciate the work. but it got me dwelling on how photo books require a lot of thought in its construction. flipping through hundreds and thousands of photographs is no laughing matter. one may be hit with a temporary wave of nostalgia at first glance through some old photographs, but upon realizing that a more satisfying flow could've been achieved had one taken a particular photograph in an alternative manner, it becomes incredibly frustrating.

admittedly, i find that composing a photo book to be such a wonderful process. nostalgia aside, being able to dig through the "rejected" lot and bringing them back to life by slipping them into the context of their "ascended" brethren is satisfying beyond words. i started making photo books some number of years ago, but solely for gifting - as a gesture to people i am closed to. printed photographs go beyond a social media post and the likes and comments that entail it. you own the photographs, and they remain private within the realm of which you wish to present them. for 2016, i hope to compile more photo books - one that will be as personal to me as the photo books i gifted to the ones i love. among the thousands of material i have, there has to be some sort of serendipitous theme, or setting i could cultivate and keep in mind for future photographs. it gives my photos a purpose - and that really excites me. i guess what i'm lacking at the moment is a sense of self-fulfilment, and a sense of accomplishment. Fraulein, and the many other photo books i've made were indeed achievements of their own, but to make a personal book i truly am satisfied with will be a triumph.

photographs deserve more than just being stored in hard drives and online albums, they need to tell a story on their own. here's hoping that i'll be able to tell a story i want to tell with my photographs.

Helios 44-2 2/58 pt. II

the Helios 44-2 2/58 is probably my most underutilized lens in my repertoire. difficult to manually focus in the night time, but it produces incredible bokehs if you're willing to work for it (and by working for it, i mean taking several shots until you get the properly focused shot). prior to my residency in the realm of manual film photography, the Helios generally stayed in the dry box on account that i simply wasn't digging it as much as i thought i would - only taking it out a handful of times for some half-baked experimentations. manually focusing through the dim viewfinder of my EOS 400D means i get wrongly focused shots half of the time, plus the general narrowness of a 58mm lens in a crop sensor camera meant that this was ultimately a purchase for novelty's sake.

fast forward to 2015 - a little more seasoned in the manual focusing department thanks to my year in film photography, a full frame arsenal in my bag, and a deep sense of ennui all culminated into my digging out the Helios from its premature resting ground once again. it is as how i remembered it - still a bitch to use, especially in low light. that being said, when the shots came together, the results leave me incredibly satisfied. the shallow f/2 depth of field takes some work, but once you make the correct focus, the pictures come out sharp, though there is a hint of softness in the focus. generally the pictures have a layer of grey tint that softens the images, and when focused directly into a moderate light source produces a sort of "light leak" which occurs at the center of the photograph. the light leak - useful as it may be for certain aesthetics - can be rather frustrating at times, though it can be easily circumvented if one reduces the exposure or adjusts the position of the light source. being a non-native lens, proper exposure may be a little bit tricky as intentionally over- or underexposing may unexpectedly produce correctly exposed images, i've also taken pictures when the exposure is accurate as represented by the camera's exposure meter. makes for fun experimenting if you're generally up for it.

some years ago, another lens captured my imagination - the Helios 85/1.5. following the images down the rabbit hole ultimately led me to the Helios 44-2, and film photography in general. looking back, the Helios was meant to be a permanent fixture for the EOS 500N, though that camera wasn't as long lived as i expected it to, no thanks to the Flexaret VII - a minor distraction that completely overshadowed the prowess of this Russian lens. maybe i'm just going through yet another photography equipment phase, but judging by the first batch of photographs, it feels like i'm getting out of a photography funk i've been enveloped in since the end of 2014. but that's for the next entry (if i ever get to it).