Midnight Tales

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  Survey Version 1.5

  Posted: 29-July-2008, 4:59pm CEST by Geoff

  
  
  
  Why do we always end up
  
  eagerly running for the train
  
  that's the most crowded of all?
  
  I'm not sure, maybe
  
  we're truly camera-shy.
  
  Surely it's not that hard
  
  to wait for awhile
  
  and get caught on video
  
  
  [Part of a much larger body of ongoing work, this short series was shown in print from June 2008 to July 2008 at the Singapore-based annual Month of Photography. All words and images here are my own original work - for once!]
• 

  Wang Yun Peng

  Posted: 26-June-2008, 4:12am CEST by Geoff

  
  A flyer for Wang's Halation Politics caught my eye when I opened my inbox this morning. The subject matter and concept of his series runs close to my own photographic interests at the moment (media, commodification, repetition and context). But Wang's treatment is so painterly, with tones so similar to Michael Roulier's night/twilight photos, that...wait a minute...oh shit, they are paintings! Whoa. (Click on the picture above if you don't believe me).
• 

  It's ridiculous

  Posted: 25-July-2007, 5:52pm CEST by Geoff

  
  1. "The hardest thing for Diane was trying to overcome her shyness, the nauseating feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever she had to ask someone to pose. She'd stop a man or woman who intrigued her by exclaiming, "Oh, you look terrific! I'd like to photograph you," and the person would hem and haw and ultimately consent because Diane seemed gentle and unthreatening. "I was terrified most of the time," she said. But terror aroused her and made her feel; shattered her listlessness, her depression. Conquering her fears helped her develop the courage she felt her mother had failed to teach her."
  
  
  
  
  
  2. "Ya, I'm scared as hell, but I'm not scared being scared...I'm a very afraid man [sic]. I have that in common with many, many photographers, I think. We are very shy, I am a very shy person...Probably [people] see the need I have for getting to know them. You know? They see that. Perhaps they feel, oh, we have to help this man. I don't know... ?we have to help him, he cannot fix this alone?...hmm? Because they are helping a lot. "...And you're thinking, and feeling, and trying to focus on what you want to do. Not just as a photographer, absolutely not, but as a human. And that is very very important because, if you don't feel ok, here, strong enough with self-confidence, you can't break through. And you have to break through, you have to open the door, go inside another room, to find a kind of reality."
  
  
  
  
  
  3. "It gives me both an invisibility cloak and an excuse for intruding into other lives. "I'm a photographer" is an open-sesame to places and people I would otherwise avoid. In reality, of course, you soon discover by experience that if you are genuinely interested in what's going on, then people become extremely friendly. One of the easiest ways to overcome shyness is to be a photographer."
  
  
  
  
  
  4. "I knew that the most powerful thing in photography is photographing people, specifically the face. Diane Arbus, August Sander....I just responded to those pictures and to avoid it would just be sad, so I had to confront it. I started out with kids because that was less threatening. I eventually worked my way up to every type of person. At first, I trembled every time I took a picture. My confidence grew, but it took a long time. I still get nervous today...It's ridiculous."
  
  
  
  
• 

  bleach

  Posted: 3-August-2007, 3:03am CEST by Geoff

  "My visit in some respects really restored my faith in what photography can do, and how it can bring people together, by experiencing the committment and energy of many Serbian photographers I met and spoke with on the trip, it was a very refreshing contrast to the navel-gazing, by photographers here and in the USA, who really don't know how lucky there [sic] are to have economic freedom . I met a Cuban photographer recently who said the only way they could print photos was to bleach newspaper in the sunshine, then beg to use the inkjet printers of some of the local NGO's to achieve a printed result. He had some of the most interesting work I have seen in a long time."
  
  - Quoted from Peter Marlow.
• 

  Local Business

  Posted: 7-August-2007, 5:05pm CEST by Geoff

  I thought I'd post something different for a change (at last!), something a bit more down-to-earth but also inspirational. Here are some interviews with this year's current batch of 2007 Nominees for the Spirit of Enterprise. I've listed only those I've had time to read (all who are professional photographers) but there are so many others there as well - a real treasure trove of stories for all those interested in starting out in business or finding the road bumpier than expected. In no particular order -
  
  
  Chng Eu Lee
  
  
  
  
  Sebastian Tan
  
  
  
  Geoff Ang
• 

  Photography and painting

  Posted: 15-August-2007, 6:19am CEST by Geoff

  
  Giorgio De Chirico, The Enigma of Arrival.
  
  
  
  
  Alex Webb, Mexico, Agua Prieta, Sonora. Cleaning a cafe. 2001
  
  
  
  
  De Chirico, Mystery and Melancholy of a Street. 1914
  
  
  
  
  Alex Webb, Puerto Rico, Ponce. 1990.
  
  Neither Webb nor de Chirico knew of each other's work to begin with.
  
  A part of me has been searching for a way to get into painting - really try and understand it, gut it and bring it back into photography. It can seem really intimidating, having to encounter the history of painting, but I figured this was as good as way as any to start. What fun! First steps.
  
  And it really helps, with understanding structure, colour, light and so on. I've finally begun to notice things, like the way doors and openings are portrayed. Why does De Chirico deliberately include open doors leading into receding spaces of light and darkness? Passageways to another world...?
  
  But aside from all this deconstruction of the images, the amazing thing (to me, at least) is how both artists project eerily similar feelings of melancholy and alienation through their own adopted medium of expression. And do it really well.
  
  One interesting (and perhaps even amazing) thing is that De Chirico passed away in 1978 - more or less around the same time that Webb (who claims elsewhere that he wasn't aware of De Chirico's pictures until someone pointed it out to him) was an emerging photographer beginning to use colour as a key theme in his work. So if you want to talk about kindred spirits...
• 

  still an atheist

  Posted: 20-August-2007, 7:56am CEST by Geoff

  
  If Reverend Billy ever comes to Singapore and sets up a chapter here I promise to drink nothing but tap water for the rest of my life.
• 

  Book List - 02/09/07

  Posted: 3-September-2007, 6:46pm CEST by Geoff

  Some art books consumed from the last two months :
  

  1. The Hasselblad Award 1998 ? William Eggleston

  2. Stranger Passing ? Joel Sternfeld

  3. The Nature of Photographs ? Stephen Shore

  4. Diane Arbus ? Patricia Bosworth

  5. Occam's Razor ? Bill Jay

  6. August Sander ? August Sander (Aperture)

  7. Diane Arbus ? Aperture

  8. The Shadow Chamber - Roger Ballen

  9. Untitled ? Diane Arbus

  10. Photographs ? David Goldblatt (still reading)
      

  11. Evidence 1944-94 ? Richard Avedon

  12. City Stills ? Ray K. Metzker

  13. Conversations with Contemporary Photographers ? Published by Nan Richardson (still reading)
      

  14. Representations of the Intellectual ? Edward Said

  15. Passing Through Eden ? Tod Papageorge

  16. True Color ? Mark Cohen

  17. Tutta Roma ? Martin Parr

  18. American Cockroach ? Catherine Chalmers

  19. 15^th Photography Awards of the Netherlands

  20. Interregna ? John Pilson (my personal favourite)
      

  
• 

  diCorcia on success

  Posted: 3-September-2007, 7:11pm CEST by Geoff

  "People who are the most successful have a sense that they are anointed. They are true believers in their own ability and what they are doing. They have total confidence. They seem to make judgements and move fluidly - this in combination with their own innate abilities - and in a way that does not reflect any hesitancy. A lot of other people seem to stumble through the process of getting things done in a manner that tortures them and those around them, but to the world seems a seamless factory of product. There are those two types."
  
  Quoted from here.
• 

  Ch'ng Yaohong

  Posted: 3-September-2007, 7:27pm CEST by Geoff

  Yaohong has been busy making some interesting photographs while juggling studies, part-time work and god knows what else. And he now has a nice new website and blog to boot, check them out.