Travel, Landscape, Nature, People, Fine Art and Mobile Photography by Hendra Lauw
His name is Mohammed Hanif and he is my stranger no. 17.
Hanif came from Karachi, Pakistan about 9 months ago to work at his uncle’s carpet shop in Arab Street. He is now in his mid 20s. Sound familiar? That’s because Hanif is the older brother of Arif, my stranger no. 16. I met Hanif when I went back to the shop to give Arif his photos that I took one week ago.
Here are the two of them together.MORE +
I am back with my 100 Strangers Project after a long break. And here is my stranger no. 16.MORE +
Images shot two weeks ago in Joo Chiat. The morning low angle sunlight created nice shadow and highlight effect on the shop door and the cyclists. Shot with Olympus E-P3 and Minolta MD Rokkor 50mm f/1.7.MORE +
I finally went to visit this place after knowing about it for few years. It’s the last surviving kampong in the modern mainland of Singapore. The place is very accessible. It’s off Yio Chu Kang road, near the Church of St. Vincent de Paul and it’s already surrounded by high rise apartments and landed houses. Not sure, how long more it will stay this way.
I met a nice gentleman, Pak Jumadi, who was cutting a fallen tree and was kind enough to tell me a story of this place. He and his family moved there about 50 years ago. He was only 12. Though he does not live there anymore, he still comes to visit his mother, who does not want to move out, when he is free. He told me a little story about this place. In the 1950s, it was called Kampong Selak Kain. In Malay, it means hitching up one’s kain or sarong. Sarong is a piece of cloth (kain), usually worn by the Malays, wrapped around the waist and it usually covers the legs till the ankle. The place was flooded quite a lot in the old days, hence the people living there had to hitch up their kain or sarong as they waded through the flood water. The place used to be a swamp, hence it’s also called Kampong Paya sometimes.
Buang Kok was actually the name of the narrow street (Lorong) there. In the photo above, you can see the old street sign, Lorong Buang Kok 1954, which the resident there keeps. 1954 was the old postal code of this place. Singapore has had six-digit postal code system now.
He invited me to sit in the veranda of his mother’s house and drew a map and explained to me about the place. Lorong Buang Kok was about 2.5 km long, he said. In Malay, they call that distance 2 batu.
This house, according to Pak Jumadi, was already there when his father moved to this place. It could be the oldest house there. Nobody seems to live there anymore now.
And this used to be a big fish pond, he said.
That’s Pak Jumadi in his yellow rubber boot that he wore when he was cutting the fallen tree.
He politely declined when I asked if I could take his picture, but he said I could take picture of his back :)
I may visit this place again when the weather is dry. I would like to get into one’s house and have coffee with them. Enjoy the rest of the photos below.
I brought the Fuji X100s out to shoot in Little India late last night and spent few hours there till past midnight. This time I set the camera to shoot in RAW + JPEG mode. All the images here are the JPEG files, straight out of the camera. No post-processing other than resizing them for web usage. All were shot at ISO 6400 except for two of them.
Enjoy the photos. MORE +
I rented the newly released Fuji X100s last weekend and had only few hours to play with it. But, that’s enough!!! Enough for me to rent it again today! Will play with it again some more. For those who are interested in renting camera and lenses in Singapore, visit this Camera Rental Centre near Clarke Quay.
So, that’s me shooting with the Fuji X100s near the construction site of the Jalan Besar MRT station. I managed to draw the attention of some people walking there.
All images here were shot in RAW format and then converted to JPEG with almost no post processing. I cropped two of them and converted one to black and white. I actually shot it in black and white but I don’t know why it’s showing in color when I downloaded it.
First impression? MORE +
Shot with iPhone last Sunday night near the construction site of the Jalan Besar MRT station.
I was making my way to the Bugis train station from Bencoolen when it rained that night in September last year. I stopped in front of a shop, took shelter from the rain and started taking panning shots of people walking with their umbrellas and shopping bags above their heads using the Hipstamatic app on iPhone 4s. The ‘film’ and ‘lens’ combination was John S Lens and Blackey SuperGrain black and white film. My favorite Hipstamatic combination for black and white images. What’s your favorite Hipstamatic setting for black and white shots?
Enjoy the rest of the images below.
Playing UNO at home. Photos plus her own handwriting. She wrote it using the WACOM stylus and tablet.
I had no idea that where I stood when I took the photo above, one evening in December 2005, would become a shopping mall, hotel and one of the two Singapore’s first casinos. Slightly more than a year after I took this photo, the construction started in February 2007 and the rest is history. From June 2010, the site has become the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, The Shoppes and Casino. It’s Singapore’s first Integrated Resort at Marina Bay.
Men in black walking along the promontory at the Marina Bay. Shot with iPhone 4s, Hipstamatic app, John S Lens and Blackey SuperGrain film.
Thian Hock Keng temple is the oldest and the most important Hokkien temple in Singapore. Its construction started in 1839 and was completed in 1842. In 1973, it was gazetted as a national monument.
Image was shot last night on iPhone 4s using the 645Pro app. The Jpeg file that came out from this app was 8MB! Enough details for Jpeg.
iPhone 4s shot using SlowShutter app and converted to black and white using Noir app. Taken at Singapore Changi Airport early this year.
Rush hour at the train station, shot with iPhone 4s using an app called SlowShutter. Converted to black and white using an iPhone app called Noir.
