Lines & Stripes

Lines & Stripes

Lines of a sketch,
Moving across the paper,
Flowing smoothly like a river.

Stripes of a painting,
Gliding as though on ice,
Perhaps making us think twice.

Lines & Stripes,
Coming together in peace,
To form a masterpiece.

– @WhisperedLullaby

This Use To Be My Playground serial – Dragon playground (2016)

Tonight I want to take you to another old school playground in Singapore – The Dragon playground. Located in Toa Payoh Lorong 6 right opposite SAFRA Club, it's one of the most popular and iconic of two large Dragon playgrounds. Make the jump to view the photos.

A Walk In The Garden

A Walk In The Garden
© 2011 Martin Liew Photography

The wavy form of the boardwalk in a garden that grabs your attention and leads your vision to the isolated light in the distant and beyond. In creating a strong composition to the minimal with stark contrast of one single light and heavy shadows, I want to create a strong sense of mystery and romance to the viewers. The night beauty in the garden.

One of the night photographs from my Dwell In The Night project which I'm still working on it. Announcement will be made here once all are ready for viewing on my website. Consider this as a teaser.

Photo info:

Shanghai TLR (aka Seagull) on Ilford HP5 Plus. Developed in 1:1 Kodak D76 for 10mins 24 seconds. Negatives scanned on EPSON V700 and further post in Photoshop.

Night Bridge in Retrospect

Good evening night dwellers!

Tonight I want to share with you an old night photograph I made twelve years in a park that I can't remember exactly. I can't even remember what gear I used. It could be Russian made LOMO Smena 8M point-&-shoot camera or Nikon FM10 on color negative film. No written record found.

What you see here are two B&W converted photos of the same wooden bridge in a park. The top photo is the original frame and the above one is cropped. Both are converted in Nik Collection – Silver Efex Pro 2. Personally I would prefer the crop version. What's your preference?

The main reason why I made this photograph is the light and cast shadows of the wooden railing on the wooden platform, that really caught my attention. The only mistake of my own negligence was the strong light flare on the top right frame. However distracting it was, I find it more appealing now and it somehow adds to the overall mood to the night scene.

I would love to visit this place again and look out for more prospective shots to made. By the way, do watch out for an upcoming blog post this coming Saturday night, in which I will be sharing another night garden photograph.

Good night and lights off!

This Used To Be My Playground serial - Elephant playground

Elephant playground (2012)

In mid February 2016, I wrote a blog showcasing night photos I made of a Dinosaurs playground in Toa Payoh. In continual of my photography project, This Used To Be My Playground, I visited the Elephant playground last weekend for the second time since 2012. Make the jump to continue...

Colorful Night Memento of Rochor Center

In 2011, Rochor Center along with its four colorful residential housing flats and shops, was announced for the Selective En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme, and has to make way for the construction of the new North-South Expressway (NSE).

Last weekend, I made a trip there to capture its "colorful" night sceneries. Make the jump for the night photographs.

Battleship Playground

Battleship playground @ Sembawang Park

This is one of the many modern playgrounds found in Singapore unlike those that are covered in my old school playgrounds serial. This is a huge "battleship" with interesting structures meant for active children to climb up chain ladder net, crawl through holes, slide down in the tubes and many other more climbings. Somehow adolescents and adults alike are drawn to this playground and couldn't help to try boarding the "battleship". It can be pretty tough and physically demanding.

I took the opportunity to do some light-paintings of this playground. There are 4 flood lights (2 shown in the picture above) around the playground and they are switched off at around 10:30PM which makes light-paintings more fun and easier. Below is one good example of playing around with the "bubbles" concept which I believe you readers have seen before in my past nocturnal work.

Instillation is a title I came up with after much experimentation with a new lighting technique a few years ago. In the context of Instillation, I want to enhance if not emphasize and insinuate more on the beauty of the night with involvement of human activities in different environmental conditions. The creation and juxtaposition of the "bubbles" requires the physical labor to create, as if the place is re-animated and being alive.

Here's another Instillation playground.

More on the Battleship playground.

This Used To Be My Playground serial - Dinosaurs playground

It's been a long time since I started out this mini project on Singapore's old school playgrounds. Paid a little visit to one of 2 Dinosaurs playgrounds in Toa Payoh. Make the leap to meet the dinosaurs.

Mount Imbiah Battery (Part Two)

Good evening fellow night dwellers! This is the second and last installment of Mount Imbiah Battery nocturne serial. Make the jump to view.

Last Days of Commonwealth Drive Old Estate

In 2008, Block 74 – 80 in Commonwealth Drive in which the area is also known as Tanglin Halt, were announced for the Selective En Bloc Replacement Scheme. Residents and business occupants have since moved out of the estate to replacement flats and/or business units. Also referred to by most older generations/Pioneers, as Chap Lau Chu (10-storey houses in Hokkien dialect), the now vacant blocks will soon be demolished and all that will be left of them will be dust and some of former residents' memories.

I paid a short visit there last Saturday night and here are just 3 night photos I made. All flats are inaccessible where metal gates are installed at all the staircases and the old vintage elevators are all long gone.

For more detailed information on this place, you can visit the following websites.

• Tanglin Halt – Where the Trains used to Pass by

• Parting glances: Blocks 74 to 80 Commonwealth Drive

• Commonwealth Drive's One Last Block Party

• The Empty Flats of Tanglin Halt

• Tanglin Halt Estate

The Water Tower of Wessex Estate

The Water Tower of Wessex Estate

An old abandoned water tower situated on a little hill top in the neighborhood of Wessex Estate, Portsdown Road. Pink cellophane paper on a neutral white LED video light lit underneath the tower for 30 seconds under a cloudy night sky.

Cable Car Display (Defunct)

A defunct cable car is seen displayed in the backyard of a 1930s Ebenezer Chapel located in Dempsey Hill, now home to The White Rabbit – one of Singapore's leading classic institutions since its opening in 2008. With an average exposure time of one minute, a few strobe pops were fired in the cable car interior; one with a yellow cellophane and the other with red. Some cool white LED fill-in for the foreground and shadow details.

Wooden Cart

A wooden cart is displayed in the premise of Loewen by Dempsey Hill. A stack of three 10-seconds exposures in Photoshop to attain this night photograph. Strong neutral white LED light on the wooden cart at 3 different angles, and background was lit by the hanging red and blue colored LED lights on the tree.

Night Summer House

Another medium form i.e. on 120 medium format color transparency film, was made and will be posted soon.

Photo info:

Apple iPhone 6 Plus on default mode Square format and post-processed in Snapseed 2.0 and color-corrected in Photoshop.

Here's one made with Nikon D300 on Tokina 11-16mm UWA lens. A minute and a half exposure of available ambience from the warm street lights. It was a windy night, cool breeze with passing by clouds which form that motion blur in the beautiful night blue sky. Some adjustments made in Photoshop to attain this satisfying result.

Luminescence

Luminescence

Last night I revisited an old place on impromptu. An old place where I first discovered back in mid 2010 and I did many night photography here. I even brought Master Night Photographer, Troy Paiva here in Oct 2010 when he first visited Singapore. Now this place has been renovated and redeveloped.

I had the great pleasure exploring the whole place which is named Loewen by Dempsey Hill. Located where the military hospital used to stand, Loewen by Dempsey Hill has transformed into an education and lifestyle destination offering restaurants, pottery classes, art classes, chocolate-making classes, programmes for children, and more. More info on Loewen by Dempsey Hill here.

Troy came back in late July 2011 and we found ourselves back to this place where we had never explored the year before. We had a group photo shoot here, too.

Last night I made some digital night photos in Loewen Cluster area along with my TLR camera on Fujichrome Provia 100F. Four more frames to complete this second roll and one last roll to go. I'll post the best results once I got it all ready.

Coming back to the night photo shown above, I wanted to expose this night scenery of an emitted pale blue light in a room on Provia but just couldn't decide. Hence I picked up my iPhone 6 Plus and made this shot in square format to see how it looks like. And surprisingly I like it.

I like it for its simplicity, warm and cool light collided. Most of all, the sense of tranquility along with the available ambience lights and casted shadows of tree leaves set against the building. All elements that made this night photo so romantic, if not poetic. With that said, I will certainly return with my TLR camera for a few exposures.

Photo info:

Apple iPhone 6 Plus on default mode Square format and post-processed in Snapseed 2.0 and color-corrected in Photoshop.