‘Chaos’ and the…Souls!

Its wierd having the same word tossed about you within 24 hours of the time.

‘Chaos’.

I was chatting with Manoj, a fellow flickerer and admin about stocks, our group, everything under the sun (which had to be on a sunny day of course), when we came, stumbled in fact, upon photography. And we strolled to the topic on my photographs. I’ve started around 2 months ago, and had changed my style many times, which means that my present styles might not be there forever however enthusiastic I might be about them.

Chaos, wierd, my pictures are described as chaos. I laughed at first, you know, if I laugh inappropriately at something, it means that I don’t know what to react to.

Eh, strange, but true. Under the facade of minimalism, I feel a strange tension in the picture, like of a cold war getting along. Like the picture on the previous post, as with this picture I took today.

Different pictures, of different places, different people, but the feelings are all the same.

Browsing around my earliest pictures, I found this one.

Peace and chaos rolled into one. But there’s the same tension over that.

The Calm before the Storm.

Well, just a little silly ‘oh-my-goodness’ ’self-actualization’ post, don’t really like to post these nowadays but well, I have to this time!

So, I’m trying to say that, (yeh, do tell me if I have not tried hard enough!)

No matter how one’s styles have changed, the main ‘feeling’ in it is the same.

If a person’s pictures are not genre-defined, its ‘feeling-defined’.

Well, I do have to think about ‘Chaos’ more. Now, I believe that one’s pictures bear one’s souls. Now, if that’s really true, things can get..

SOULS FOR AUCTION!!

SOULS SHOWING IN GALLERY TILL THE 31ST OF OCTOBER!!

SOULS ON DISCOUNT!!

I SEE SOULS HANGING ON THE WALL IN THE TOILET!!

PRINTED SOULS OR ELECTRONIC SOULS?

Sometimes things can get This dispassionate!

This photo and ahhh, just sorting out my thoughts in the meantime!

Went to chinatown today, since I had a day off from school to register my IC.

This picture looks so old, so much like the 50s.

I recently took to the method of framing a composition and waiting for someone to walk by and strangely, for most pictures, the first person who passes fits the picture.

And my camera with its slow slow slow (rather irritating) shutter speed also strangely contributed to making a ‘right’ picture. See, I clicked the shutter when the lady was at around the first stool, it only registered when she was over at the third stool– but the composition (I feel) looks so much better at the 3rd!

The Ironies of Life for lucky fella like me :\

gah, so many things happened today at school when I was not there. Let me sort out my thoughts.

1) I left 2 sets of pe shirts and shorts under my table when our class was moving to another classroom (and I was not there!). THANKS SHOUYU for helping me to pack!! Thanks sooooooooo much!!

2) YEEHERNG!! I didn’t bring your birthday present yesterday and I can’t give it to you today!! So sorry!

3) Moot Parliament debate motion: (Sucks, the Jerk, zk, the coin was obviously against him when he tossed it!) Motion was something about Singapore not having a freedom of choice and we’re OPP. Can’t believe it, I have to be politically correct this time. (MINDEF, don’t come knocking on my door for this, please).

4) I HAD TO TAKE A MATHS RETEST, IF I FAIL IT, I CAN’T TAKE MATHS ANYMORE NEXT YEAR AND SO ON!!!!!!

The school is so unsupportive of art students!

Loads more, shiat, I can’t remember!! Gotta run though, piano teacher’s coming!

Schizophrenia

Ladder, steps, plug, electrocute, ladder, steps, climb, jump.

Where is it? Where is it?

Woman, wind, flash, woman, wind, blur, $1, $1, woman, wind, fly.

What’s happening? What’s happening?

Water, deep, blue, water, ice, water, straw, drown, swim, drown, swim, drown, dead.

Help! Help!

Daggers, eyes, daggers, eyes, pierce, daggers, penetrate, daggers, eyes.

What’re you doing? What’re you doing?

Corner, forced, corner, dead, corner, strip, kill, Checkmate.

yh: Its raining on my side, I hear the rain.

zt: yeah, like this— drip..drip..drip..

——————————————————————————

I’ve been wanting to write something about this picture, but till now, I don’t know if I even conveyed what I wanted to convey. zk was right, its just this feeling in it and when I asked him what was it, he said he doesn’t know. I don’t know too.

Do you know?

The Litmus test for Direction

The way to find out if you’re in the right direction or not (poetry/literature/photography/painting) is that will you be shaken by your own words, will you be drawn in by your own pictures– if you are a viewer or a reader.

This question is rather hard to answer, it looks easy. I asked a few of my flickr mates this question– Which picture will you favorite in your own photostream if you were a stranger looking at your site?

Well, if you do have a clear sense of direction, you should have one, not two, three, or none.

But of course, it might not be universal and I should hesitate a little after using the word ‘should’, but I do think it’s a pretty good gauge.

When I asked myself that question that day, I had none. I was a little exasperated.

The next day, I made the ‘Line’ picture, picture of a row of chairs seen from top..And it was the one.

Bugis street and Little India– plus, the Tripod Bearing Crew!

Went to Little india accidentally today, yeh, accidentally. I was wandering around Bugis, planning to hang around the library and just wander about bugis street. But somehow, my camera brought me there (alright, it sounds highly improbable, like the case where this gal you read when you were 3, was chasing butterflies and got so caught up that she was lost).

Well, Deepavali is coming soon and its getting hot over there in Little India.

(the quality sucks over here, but let’s make do, you can see it somewhere on flickr if you desperately want -.-)

Its really heartening to see crowds of humanity, instead of the usual hums and bums (is it bums?) of the co-existence between robots and robots of a higher order. Forgive my words, I’m currently not branded sane.

Walking around Bugis street, I got a huge culture shock! Not about culture, but TRIPODS!

ALL AROUND!!

Guys with side-swept hair, thick, black-rimmed glasses, tee-jeans-sneakers combo, looked the same, lugging huge tripods around, parked them in an invasive stance around an elderly woman in wheelchair who was feeding pigeons, she seemed to have an emtional attachment to them.

My attention was drawn by the number of Tripods around of course (man, they look serious. one point down.)

I popped in and a few of them gave me a few curious stares (which I saw in one of my pictures of which I took). You see, I was not interested in the pigeons, but rather the TRIPODS Crew. They’re so interesting, ahahahaha, and of course, I was planning to blog about them later.

Later I found out that I was perhaps blocking their view by standing opposite them– but they should be aiming for the ground, not high up eh? Like this guy, what a pity, the pigeons took flight just when he was shifting his tripod, but I got it!

Aha, with a battered point-and-shoot in its half-life!

I guess I looked like a noob in front of the 20cm-long-lens-bearing-crew. But that made me feel rather good. I don’t think my pictures would get juxtaposed against a SLR-taken picture and be pointed fingers at. My silly pride.

The old lady was soon very angry with the tripod-bearing-crew. She shouted at them and told them to go away. I dunno, but I think if they had not had those TRIPODS, this would never have happened. But they seemed to be in a reverie (I was too, when taking pictures), didn’t notice, and the lady beside me whispered to me, strange,” She don’t want them to take pictures anyway.” and walked off. heh, I was unnoticed!

Sometimes being Serious makes one look Creepy.

But of course, if Tripods are necessary for your pictures, of course you should carry it with you (I’m not against it by the way!). But the effects they cause to one’s subjects are of course, inarguable.

I’ve conquered my ‘fear’ for street photography by not exactly conquering it. It just goes away when you take more of them.

Line (picture inspired by Candida Holfer)

Inspired by Candida Hofer, a german photographer who does ‘architecture of absense’.

Her photos are grand. Remember yeeherng, the book I showed you at the national library?

This was taken from the top of the open top dance room (from my school) and the white area is the parapet from which I was standing.

The scene was unarranged.

Poor quality on wordpress again, you guys can check it out on flickr if you want (don’t think so? haha)

I think my pictures are taking on the path of minimalism -.- ..alright.. Or is that a path at all?? lol.

My results sucked, sucked, sucked. But I haven’t feel it sink in yet, its still a fantasy to me.