Back when I just started photography as a hobby in Singapore, I used to consistently shoot strangers in the streets of Singapore. I would try and come up with personal projects that would push me out of my comfort zone (as if shooting in the streets weren’t challenging enough). One of these projects was my…
When the Singapore government put the nation on lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic, the first thing that came to mind was “I need to hit the supermarket and start stocking up.” The second thing that came to mind… we’re gonna be stuck at home with the kid – 24 hours a day, 7 days a…
Sit back, relax, and just witness faces of strangers as seen in the streets. About the project: I often encounter faces that make me look twice; faces that stand out in the crowd without trying; faces that are out of the ordinary. They range from the exquisitely beautiful to the strangely wonderful. I started to…
Singapore is a beautiful city that’s host to a multicultural population resulting to a variety of street destinations each having it’s own vibe and experience. This is what I tried to photograph in this series of streetscapes. My early influence has always been street photography – capturing the day-to-day as it happens in the streets.…
I took in cycling as a hobby around 4 years ago. I started from riding solo in the parks, to drafting and pulling with a group on the roads, to joining a couple of races overseas… I was undeniably hooked. We would do warm up rides on weekdays, and try to unnecessarily drop each other…
Portraits has always been my favourite to photograph. Every face, every personality needs a different approach depending on how they look, how they feel, who they are, and where they are. On top of that, there’s the push to getting a portrait that has that umph. I think a good portrait should make you look…
It’s been a long long time since my last blog post… around 2 years. My apologies for this, I’ve been crazy busy with client shoots. I’m not complaining though, busy is always good, right? Anyway, in the next few weeks, I will regularly be coming back to this blog to post some of the interesting…
Singapore is such a multifaceted place that you can’t help but see and feel the diverse energy of the crowd as you move from one place to another. From the central business district’s suits and high heels, to the shopping centre’s young fashionistas and clueless tourists, to the heartland’s homey aunties and uncles. This is…
Last year, I was working on a personal portrait project called Familiar Faces where I invited people I’ve met here in Singapore, people who have helped me with my photography one way or the other. I was able to photograph a total of 41 awesome people, and I figured one of the best way to…
I got to photograph Adelene a few weeks ago when she visited Singapore for a quick vacation from her dance studies in London. I met her around 4 years ago when I was collaborating with an online magazine where they asked me to photograph dancers for their next article. I figured, to make the images…
I started shooting here in Singapore around 6 years ago, and since then I’ve met a number of interesting people who have helped me out with my photography, ranging from entrepreneurs, creatives, talents, and fellow photographers. Just last year, I started a personal project where I invited these guys for a portrait shoot – all…
I was invited to try out the Nikon Df for a couple of weeks to see what I think about it. I knew it received a lot of backlash from the online community when it was released, most thought it was all form and no function. But there was one thing that really piqued my…
The last time I photographed portraits of strangers in the streets was around 3 years ago. Since then, I’ve been busy doing candids, studio shoots, and commissioned work. And as the recent exhibit is wrapping up, I’ve been wanting to go back in the streets and add new faces to the project. Then just recently,…
One of the images that are on display in the Don’t Smile exhibit is a collage of 105 non-smiling faces, all of which were photographed through a studio setup in tcc in a span of 3 Saturdays. This involved an open call for faces… and all they had to do was look in the camera…
Ever since I started photography, it has always been a dream to have my photographs printed up large and posted on the wall. Just last week, that dream came true with the Don’t Smile! Photo Exhibition, my first solo show featuring images from my Portraits of Strangers project.
As we were planning our wedding last year, friends would often jokingly ask me “So… will you be photographing your own wedding?” I thought: of course not, that would be close to impossible. But shooting our own pre-wedding photos was a different story. There would be a lot of limitations to work around with, but…
Lately, I was looking through my archive of street photos taken from the past 3 months. As I browsed among the sea of non-keeper shots, I occasionally came across photos where the subject was looking straight at me with a certain disconcerted look. I thought maybe it would be interesting to put these together into…
I love shooting in the rain. If it’s a weekend and it’s raining, you’ll probably see me with an umbrella on one hand, and my camera on the other, walking (sometimes running) around Orchard Road taking photos of strangers as they run from one mall to another. Often times, it’s an adrenaline rush for me.…
Stranger #77 was one of the most strikingly beautiful face I’ve photographed in my Portraits of Strangers project. So when I decided to do this “Strangers Revisited” project, she was an obvious choice. And when Atika agreed to do a photo shoot with me, I was so ecstatic yet pretty nervous at the same time.
I’ve always wanted to dive into portraiture, and my previous Portraits of Strangers project served as my personal transition from candid street shooting to portraiture. Looking back at project, I later decided to create a new series of photo shoots by revisiting some of the strangers I photographed. Thanks to my facebook page, I was…
I love shooting strangers under bad weather. And for a while now, I’ve always wondered how it would be to shoot bad weather at night. I could only imagine how dramatic the shots could be with the combination of heavy rain and the night lights. Just a few nights ago, I’ve had the chance to do just that.
Every time I’m out in the streets, I would often encounter faces that make me look twice… faces that just stood out of the crowd without even trying… faces that are by no means ordinary. They range from the exquisitely beautiful to the strangely wonderful. Sometimes I would try to steal a shot without being…
I miss shooting in the rain. It’s been a while since I last walked around in heavy downpour, holding my umbrella on one hand and my camera on the other. I miss it so much that every time rained and I’m stuck in the office, I can’t help but think of all the bad weather…
I was walking along Orchard when I saw her walking towards my direction. She was wearing a simple one-piece dress, and was quite tall almost towering over most of the people around her. I wasn’t decided yet if I wanted to shoot her, but as I got closer, I knew I had to – she…
I was looking forward to shooting a lot of portraits of strangers in the 3-day weekend we just had here in Singapore. But due to time constraints brought about by personal chores, I wasn’t able to go out on my usual 3-hour jaunts of just wandering around and looking for great faces. Instead, I just…
Weekend after weekend, I would walk around Orchard Road until I see a good spot with good light and good people traffic. The wait was hard, but spotting the right subject was easy – they would just so naturally stand out of the crowd and almost demand attention. I imagined myself a paparazzi taking fashion photographs of beautiful people walking nonchalantly in the streets.
I was standing in the middle of one of the heaviest rain I’ve shot on. As always, I was drenched from waist down and I kept my camera as close to the umbrella as possible. I’ve been waiting and shooting for about 30 minutes shooting here and there, but I haven’t really seen anything peculiar… until I saw a woman from afar wrapped with a shawl walking gracefully towards my side of the street. She just stood out from all the others who were equally rushing to shelter. It’s one of those moments when I thought “I HAVE to photograph her.”
Once in a while, I get to capture a photograph that makes my heart leap. A “keeper” that would be part of my few photos that I would be really proud of. This is one such photo.
Last September 2009, Fleecircus and I started a project to create a collective portrait of the different personalities you can find in the streets of Singapore. Equipped with 2 cameras, a mounting board, and a bit of determination, we walked around Orchard Road, picked out one face after another, and asked if we could take their picture. “It’ll just take 5 seconds” was our usual excuse. Some said no, but most said yes. We did this every saturday for two and a half months, and now we have 446 faces at 5 seconds per face.
I’ve been shooting street for almost 2 years now, and looking back at all my “keeper” shots, the feeling when I took each and every one of these photographs is still pretty vivid in my mind. I may not remember the settings for the camera, but the thought process I had at the moment of…
I’m a weekend photographer, and I used to always stay at home and sulk whenever it rains on a weekend. I figured: the light’s no good, my gear could get wet, and the streets would be empty. There wouldn’t be anything worth shooting. I’d complain in the forums whenever a weekend goes by and it’s…