Photography & Self-Reflection

Photography use to be a skill. An art form that relies heavily on the skills and ability of the person wielding the instrument. It was based on the person capturing the picture to be able to foresee events and understand lighting conditions before being able to properly set his/her camera to take the photo in a desired effect.

These days photography is all about a persons ability to understand certain words in English. In other words, you really only need to know how to read to work a camera. Technology has made it such that people don't have to learn so much anymore to know how to work a professional camera. Instead, they buy one, test it out a bit, read the manual, figure it out somemore, and then run along calling themselves a professional photographer.

I admit I fall into this new generation of pseudo photographers.

All it takes these days to become a name in photography are the right tools (A big professional DSLR, big professional lenses and Adobe photoshop)and a bit of luck shooting a few big names.

A story was related to me once about how this professional photographer took up a part-time teaching job at a local college, and in his own words "Not for the pay but to give back to the community". Such is the level of modesty that in order to properly give back to the community we need them to know it beforehand?

This photographer was becoming quite the prominent figure in Malaysian photography and shot to photography stardom when he got the chance to shoot Siti Nurhaliza's wedding.

Photography has sold out. It is no more an art form of subjectiveness based on individual creativity but has become something that people can look at and say "You're doing it all wrong!" Since when has art ever had a right or wrong? Who's to say what piece of art is good and what is bad.

Photography is nothing but another business. Why? I think because Chinese people became so involved (Just kidding).

No more is the skill of wielding a camera enough. These days what it really takes to become a REAL photographer is based on how much money you make doing shoots and who hires and where your pictures have gone and at the end of the day, who you know.

There are very few photographers left out there who do it for the passion. I'm talking about real passion. Like Mr. BrainWash (MBW) with his video camera passion.

I'm glad I know at least one even if I'm a sell out.

Hang Zhou, China

Hang Zhou, China. Famous for its ginormous (Unless you're a marathon runner you might find it rather difficult to see everything in a day) West Lake situated a close 4 to 5 blocks from the city, with plenty of tourist attractions and heritage sites speckled all around it.

A modern and booming city of China naught but an hour's train ride from Shanghai on the bullet train, fully equipped with plenty of malls, nice hotels and plenty of night markets and street bazaars to keep you occupied when not sightseeing.

This busker had the brilliant ingenuity to strap a huge speaker to the back of his moped acting as an amplifier for his guitar. Thats not all he had, if you look closely he also had a mixer for it! All powered by a small car battery.

Oh yes, he sang really good too.

I spotted this on the way back to my hotel. If you pronounce it wrong it actually says Cibai (Ji Bai) Group! For all of my non-Malaysian readers out there, that actually means pussy in a Chinese dialect (Hokkien). HAHA

Grade A Green Tea leaves of Hangzhou. Famous for its green tea, Hang Zhou has a local legend about a Dragon that lives in well and this well contains not water but green tea.

The Shanghai Clock tower of the building where they use to have horse races. Refurbished now to be Shanghai's Museum of Art. A must see that showcases local Chinese talent of the highest respect.

Old before New.

There's a park (The People's Park) in Shanghai filled with these little ads. As much as China has developed and become a major economic power in the last couple of years, many traditions are still apparent throughout. These are actually ads for arranged marriages. There are even agents who sit around all day to attend to interested "customers".

Shanghai Grand Theater. It was so big it took almost forever to walk around it.

Everybody see's the tall, shiny, glass buildings in China's fast-growing economic hubs but what a lot of people don't know is that those buildings were only build as a facade. A clever and quick solution to quickly develop, hiding behind them in little alleys houses and residences of what use to be China all over.

The Chinese Museum of Traditional Medicine.

A little isle in the West Lake.

A favorite Chinese past time. Mahjong in the park.

An elderly group of Chinese people were actually spending their time just chilling out and singing old songs in the park, like kids do these days with guitars.

This has got to be one of the best, most cost-efficient brooms I've ever seen. It's made out of leaves and twigs and basically dried up stuff from plants and covers a whole lot more area than do conventional brooms. Talk about innovation AND going green at the same time!

The 7th Penang Island Jazz Festival

The 7th Penang Island Jazz Festival.

Amazing stuff and I'd have to say it was worth spending RM60 on a ticket. Although it really wasn't worth spending RM80 on 5 bottles of beer.

PelBo....

This band played a cross between jazz and rock and they did it all with a vocalist, a drummer and a TUBA. Yeah get that.

They were awesome.

The vocalist bears some resemblance to Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries. Their sound too.

More next time...

Photographer POSE of the Year

Mag's hard at work

Long OverDue

Back in the day this is what cool was. In fact, it still is.

JUICE 8th Anniversary @MOS, Euphoria

So Juice turned 8 years old last Friday and I was there with my camera just to check out HypeEmBeats representing Pestle & Mortar Clothing on decks!

Got to watch some pretty cool performances too and even one smashing best dressed competition in relation to the theme "Space Invaders". Pestle & Mortar was even represented by Ethan Curzon up on stage for a nominated best-dressed!

Pestle & Mortar Clothing @KLue Urbanscapes

Its been one hell of a week and most definitely one hell of a weekend as we prepared for our first ever sales to the public at the KLue Urbanscapes 2010!!!

We had so many things to get ready we hardly had enough time to sleep! Working day in day out from our temporary office (Hugh's house) just trying to make sure everything is settled before the big day.

This is Bam Bam...the pug we use in most of our shoots. He belongs to Hugh's brother.
Thats us slaving away.....right up until 6am.
We brought in a crew of 2 girls. One fluent in Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin (My girlfriend - Amanda) and the other a financial whiz (Hugh's Girlfriend - Juelle), to help us out with efficiency.
Manda rocking out to our Lorong Haji Taib design.
Thats the CEO of PrimeWorks! Big thanks for the support!
This is what we started out with. Good sales that day turned most of this out. We had little left to take home which was a pretty awesome thing considering how far the hike was to the car.

People came thinking we were selling Pizza at first!
Thats Edmund taking his picture with celebrity blogger Ringo