Ngee Ann Photographic Exhibition 2006

'Lurking...'

© 2005 Martin Liew

'Under The Flyover'

© 2004 Martin Liew

'Quiet Alley'

© 2005 Martin Liew

'No Parking'

© 2004 Martin Liew

Ngee Ann Photographic Exhibition NAPE 2006

This was the second year Ngee Ann Cultural Center has organised such mass group exhibition where they called on all local photographers, young and old to participate so as to promote photography as an art form and encourage more people to pick up photography as a life-long hobby. They are organising this event annually. I was told that they have confirmed in organising early next year in March but no exact date yet. Well there might be changes later on. Who knows? If you're interested in taking part, do watch out for their island-wide advertisement in local photography magazines and posters in all major photographic stores. I took part for the second time this year and four of my night photographs were selected for the exhibition, as shown above. All photographs were made with an old twin-lens reflex (TLR) camera on 120 medium format films. They are selected from my Nite Projekt series which I'll put them up on the next post.

As for next year's exhibition, I'll submit some of my best nocturne photographs (in color) which I will be uploading here soon. Do drop by often for more updates.

Eye é City 2005

Eye é City 2005:
A Visual Account of the Last 24 Hour of 2005
2005年岁末二十四小时人文记录

This was the fourth year of Eye é City. Through this project, the organiser encourages the documentation of social changes, recorded through photographs on the last day of the year to form the collective memories of Singapore from the eye of ordinary individuals. While for the past few years, they have had being collating photographs of amateurs, novices and professionals alike, and showcased them at exhibitions and in publications. Last year they also invite Secondary School and Junior College students to join in this meaningful event which they hope to see Singapore through the eyes of our young future leaders.

It was my first year participation in this event. It was a fun and fruitful day on 31st Dec 2005 Saturday. Six months later, on 12 June 2006, Monday, I received 2 emails from the Organising Committee. One stated about the launch of photo-book and photographic exhibition which will be featuring the 100 B&W pictures selected for the photo-book. Here the details of the event:

Book Launch cum Sharing Session
新书发布与分享会
Date: 8th July 2006, Saturday
Time: 2:30pm - 5:00pm
Venue: National Library Board, Central Lending Library @ Basement 1
100, Victoria Street

Exhibition Period: 01 - 31 July 2006
Opening Hours: 10am - 9pm

A talk (in English) by Mr Lee Tiah Khee, Chief Photographer of Lianhe Zaobao, has also been scheduled for you on the 29th July 2006, Saturday at 3.00pm at the same venue. Everyone is most welcome with their friends or colleagues to attend this talk to gain some insight on photojournalism.

All above mentioned events are free admission.

The second email is a good news for me. It stated that one or more of my submitted photographs was/were selected to be printed in the photo-book and for the exhibition as well. As a compliment, I'll be receiving a copy of the photo-book. This is really exciting for me! Awesome!

I'll post the selected photograph here on that actual day. Watch out for it!

'Lurking...' #3 《另途之期望》 三

'Lurking...' #3 《另途之期望》 三

'Lurking...' #3 were taken on 02 Feb 2006. As part of the series, #3 have a different perspective of Life. #3 symbolizes leadership and self-improvement. With every single step on the stairs, one learns the Way of Life and be a better Man who leads and guides others to attain their own Life achievements.

'Lurking...' #2 《另途之期望》 二

'Lurking...' #2 《另途之期望》 二

'Lurking...' #2 was taken on 15 Jan 2006. As part of the series, #2 has a different perspective of Life. Individual's fate differs but when it comes to the end of the road, we are all the same. #2 symbolizes to those who lead a well-to-do and luxurious lives as the many lights from the lamp posts shown in the picture.

'Lurking...' series 《另途之期望》 系列

'Lurking...' series 《另途之期望》 系列

After making many successful B&W nite pictures, I'm proud to know that I have a representative series of work and I titled it 'Lurking...'. Yes I have it in Chinese titles too. It's pretty much in metaphors about Life. It's still ongoing and I'm planning to have a series of 12 monographs. So far I have 3. More coming soon.

'Lurking...' #1 was taken on a Friday night dated 18 March 2005. I walked past this underpass towards Fort Canning Park. Upon reaching the other end of the underpass tunnel, there's a 2-way divergence. In front of me, one spiral stairs to climb up and on my right, a low steep curvy slope path with 2 high walls on each side, both leading to the same destination.

I took a walk to the latter one, walking up & down, looking & observing the area. Finally i found myself back to the starting point and set up the camera at a lower angle. I took 2 bracket shots of different angles. This is the 2nd exposure with the best result.

I like this shot becuz the curvy pavement leading to a right angle turn making you think what's behind there. There's some mysterious impact that makes this picture much interesting and appealing. Just in Life, one will never know nor predict the future, as in this case, what lies beyond the other side of the path. Life's path is never be straight and smooth as there are highs and lows and many other obstacles where one has to learn to overcome it with great courage and strength. As one moves along the way, one may lose his/her ways and this is when that light from the lamp post, which symbolizes hope and future. It guides us through our lives.

DWELL IN THE NIGHT

Quiet Alley

DWELL IN THE NIGHT is a personal photographic project which started out in late 2004. The objective is to capture the cold and calmness of the night where time and space standstill. The scent, the climax, the beautiful night vision, and the most neglected night scenes send off the sentimentalism or nostalgia value of one's own feelings to his/her surrounding environment.

Some mysterious combination of feeling light and the smell of an unrecognized plant bring back to some men the sense of childhood, and of future hopes, and to others the sense of something which has been lost and nearly forgotten.

DWELL IN THE NIGHT, by its very nature, is a subjective study. It may covers or touches on a wide aspect of night photography but howsoever, every single picture made that captures the very moment at that time and space which are intangible enough (I hope) to interlink them together.

Therefore DWELL IN THE NIGHT is opened for interpretations...