fotograf by imran

Cold Morning at the Roundabout

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:30 +0800

Water flows from a canal into the awaiting sea, carving a stream only visible at low tide.

This is Changi Beach.

Still Alive

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:46 +0800

My photoblog went offline last February. It was then hosted on a friend of a friend's server. For reasons only known to him, he went MIA and we couldn't get hold of him through the usual channels. Curiously, the site came back online last September but only for a few days. By then I was at wit's end and the thought of starting all over again was too daunting to even think about. A few days ago, out on a whim I emailed him. Surprisingly, he replied and after a few exchanges he brought the site back up again. I managed to retrieved the essential files and migrated to a reputable datacenter in the States where it is now hosted.

Thanks to the many who asked. Sadly, I don't have much to post even after the long hiatus. I do have plenty of commissioned works but I'm hesitant to put them up because it just doesn't fit the personal nature of this blog. That said, I'm just glad that it's back online again for good, so I will try my darnest to post regularly.

Also, you may find me on Facebook as I've started to use it more often now (Yes, I'm rather slow in these whole social network thingy). I've uploaded a selection of the blog's photos in an album as I think it's great platform to share information. Tutorials are something I've been meaning to do for a long time, so if you got something to ask.. e.g how an effect was achieved, where was a photo shot, equipment used, etc.. just fire away over there. Most of the techniques are outdated by today's standards I guess, but it could a be great starting point if you are new.

Hazmee helped out in this fun shot. We had to rush because we were more keen to capture the magic hour scene that was fast approaching than me scrawling words in the air with a torchlight.

Have a great year ahead.

KTM (Redux)

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:07 +0800

I know, it's a reprocess of an older image I posted 3 years ago. I didn't like what I did to it then so I had another go at the image. It's funny how we see things differently through the years.

It Will Rise From Over There

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:44 +0800

Yield

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:53 +0800

Have a great year ahead :)

Light Chaser #2

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:30 +0800

Tampines Quarry Lake, taken sometime last year.

In other news, I'm having some problems calibrating my monitor. If you are on the lookout for a new display for photo editing, you might want to stay away from the Dell 2709. It's quite hard to get the colors right on this one and I've been at it for month. I might just ditch it and pick up a smaller Apple Cinema Display instead.

State of Mine #4

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00 +0800

Thank you for your thoughts and comments in the previous posts.

You might have seen it on the telly when F1 came to town a couple months back. The Singapore Flyer is the latest centerpiece in Singapore's ever-changing cityscape. Standing at 168m, it is currently the highest observation wheel in the world, soon to be surpassed however by the Beijing Great Wheel in 2009.

An easy way to shoot a scene like this with a high contrast film, is to expose for the highlights. This will result in a silhouetted image. But I wanted to preserve some details in the shadows. You may not be able to see them at this resolution but there's a whole lot of details in there, which I think will look pretty cool when it's printed big.

To achieve this I took readings of the highlights, shadows and one of the buildings on the far right as midtone. I just then have to ensure that the shadows and highlights are within 2 to 3 stops from that zone. I used 3 pieces of Neutral Density filters to control the exposure. A center ND filter is screwed on to reduce vignetting. To coerce the highlights to fall within the film’s latitude I mounted an all-important hard grad ND filter. This filter was rotated 45 degrees counterclockwise. Lastly a soft grad ND filter is stacked for good measure. It’s also crucial for the rightmost part of the image to be correctly exposed because I needed it to provide a visual balance to the composition - which is the main reason why the filter was rotated as such.

State of Mine #3

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:46 +0800

Facing south at dusk, this was taken at Toa Payoh in central Singapore. The brown-colored building on the foreground is the headquarters of the Housing and Development Board. 5 kilometers towards the horizon you can probably make out the Singapore Flyer and city skyline awash in last light.

I've stared at the weather satellite maps the entire day before venturing out. The skies over Sumatra were clear and that means something may happen due west. What I didn't expect was the storm coming from the east. Waiting for good light over here is like opening presents from your office's Christmas gift exchange. You know you're going to get rubbish but you are somewhat hopeful. And sometimes you receive something which you are not quite sure what to make of.

State of Mine #2

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:30 +0800

These are the heartlands of Singapore. The numerous buildings are low-cost public housings or HDB flats as we locals call them. From Toa Payoh to Woodlands, you are looking at almost the entire northern half of the country. Neighboring Johor is visible on the horizon.

(Note: This is a re-post because the previous one had funky distortions as TVS mentioned. I reckoned the film was not loaded flat. This was shot a frame earlier.)

State of Mine #1

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:26 +0800

Thanks for the comments in the previous posts.

This was taken at dawn from the top floor of an apartment building in Telok Blangah. The cluster of buildings on the foreground is a public housing estate, something you won't see in travel brochures but is a common feature in the heartlands of Singapore. Hugging the horizon is the city's skyline, which according to Emporis, is the 5th most impressive skyline in the world. On the far right is the Port of Singapore. Due to near-field obstructions, about 30% of the image was cropped away.

If you were wondering why the aperture was set at f5.6 or why the exposure is precariously low-key, it's because this one's a flukey. As the camera and tripod were carefully perched on a ledge 40 stories high, I fumbled and accidentally opened the shutter for a whole second. Oddly enough, out of the 4 exposures (one 6x17 capture exposes about 17cm of 120 film so a roll of film can only yield 4 exposures) this was the only one that came out 'ok'.