Jack of two trades – master at both

Being a photographer and being a businessman are two totally different careers. As different as chalk and cheese or as night and day. We rarely hear that photographers are successful in selling their photographs on the Net by themselves without depending on their stock agencies, their publishers or their agents who do the marketing while the photographers do what they know best – taking pictures.

However Dan Heller is different. He is a fulltime photographer and I admit he is very good at it while at the same time he is very successful in selling his stock photographs all by himself on the Net without depending on any stock agencies. Besides he writes comprehensive articles on stock photography business strategy and market observation in his blog. On top of that he has published several books on photography and photography business.

Doesn’t it sound interesting my fellow photographers?

Feel free to visit his website that contains plenty of his images around the world (at last count he claims it contains 450,000 photos!) and his blog. I promise you it would be worthwhile.

Composition Guide #2: Reflections

Shooting reflections is favoured not only by amateur photographers but also by professional shooters. More often than not reflections add interest to the picture which also show the photographer tries to be different in composing his/her photograph. At times it conveys a message or tells a story just by using reflection.

The way reflections result totally depends on the type of surface the image falls on. Just like how an image is produced by a filter. While a mirror would normally produce a reflections just exactly like the original image the water surface or glass would alter the colour, shapes, appearance and even size of the original image and produce interesting reflections. Reflections can be captured together with its source image or more interestingly it can stand alone as a subject especially when the reflection has gone beyond recognition and becomes abstract-like and impressionistic pattern. The possibility is endless, the only limit is the photographer’s creativity.

Behind the Gare St. Lazare by Henri Cartier-Bresson wouldn’t have been so special without the reflection of the jumping man. Without the reflection we wouldn’t know that his heel did not touch the water surface yet at the “decisive moment” Henri Cartier-Bresson clicked the shutter. And in case you are not aware Henri Cartier-Bresson didn’t shoot using a camera with 8fps shutter speed but it was a 35mm Leica manual camera fitted mostly with only 50mm lens. Such is the classic example of the decisive moment as claimed to have been coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson himself although at a later part of his life he admitted he never coined such phrase.

Fully symmetrical image horizontally is always preferred for landscape and it always proves to be a successful formula. This method is frequently adopted by one of my favourite landscape photographers, David Noton, whose reflection shots in his landscape works are nothing but breathtaking. Meanwhile Andy Long has some enlightening tips on shooting reflection here. And Russ Burden shares some good tips on shooting reflections in nature photography here.

There is also an article by John Harvey concerning reflections which is considered as part of compositional aid.

If you feel like browsing some sample reflection shots, don’t hesitate to view the past Apogee Photo Contest with the theme Reflections.

I admit I am also fond of shooting reflections no matter it is architecture, landscape or portraiture.  Almost always there are reflections anywhere you shoot, so use it to your advantage and no harms experimenting.  Here are some of my favourite reflections shots:

A horizontal shot with symmetrical composition, half containing reflection.

Here the prime subject is the reflection itself which looks like an impressionistic painting.

Reflection of my wife in the mirror captured while she was busy shopping for headscarves.

Intan on her wedding day.

A little different kind of reflection of the Malaysian flag resulting from diffractions of light by water drops.


A bride mannequin and the reflection of old shophouses.

A Malay bride, Nana, in the mirror just after being made up.

The Asy-Syakirin Mosque in KLCC area and its little reflection from the nearby pool.

MBPJ Photography Contest

MBPJ is holding a Photography Contest in conjunction with the first anniversary of Petaling Jaya City. The closing date is 30 September 2007.

The entry form can be downloaded here or here.

Photography in Malaysia by Malaysian Internet Resources (MIR)

Photography in Malaysia by MIR is another Malaysian efforts in putting Malaysian photography scene on the map. MIR’s Photography in Malaysia is one of the rare websites that provides vast resources covering various topics on anything related to photography. It is like a photography one-stop-centre and it is the pride of Malaysian photography community.

The special traits about MIR’s Photography in Malaysia is it is being maintained generally by only one person, the same person who founded it way back in 1997 out of his love for photography. It is now among the most prominent websites that have become a reference site for photographers around the world. Despite his high-profile website its founder chooses to remain behind the scene and stay low profile. He prefers to let his works do the talking. However you can take a peek at his brief biodata here.

At MIR’s Photography in Malaysia you can find various topics related to photography. Let me break it down here for your easy browsing experience in case you get lost in its oceans of information. The contents in the website can be divided, inter alia, into:

• Back to basic – it is about shutter speed, aperture and ISO thingies
• The vast resources on practically all cameras and lenses of the popular brands in the market, you name it they have it. You will find its description even more comprehensive than the manufacturer’s user manual itself
• Free Trade Zone for second hand photography equipments trading
• Portfolio of some selected Malaysian photographers, either pros or amateur. (I am honoured to be in the list here)
• Specially dedicated page for photojournalism
• Thoughts & Opinions on photography
• Collection of good photos that win the favour of mir that warrant special pages
• Landmark series
• A cornucopia of links – photography and non-photography related

The rest is for you to take your own sweet time to browse through. It is not meant to be a website that you can finish reading in one day. It is designed to be a reference source and a one-stop-centre that every photographer should bookmark for his/her future visit from time to time.

Do enjoy browsing MIR’s Photography in Malaysia and let me know of your experience since I am also one of its voluntary co-editors for several sections in the website although I admit I haven’t done much lately, sorry Mr Foo!

Of Patterns and Bold Colours

If you feel disappointed for not being able to take any worthy picture after one day of looking around for your ‘decisive moment’ or chasing ‘the magic hour’ while lugging your cumbersome camera on your shoulder and you really feel like packing up your gear, don’t give up yet.

You may not look close enough and zoom in on patterns and bold colours that are potential worthy pictures lurking everywhere. They are just ready to be captured by photographers who care to look at ordinary things beyond their face value. They can even become abstract art that may grace some finest art galleries, who knows?

And shooting pattern and bold colours resulting from ordinary things around you is also fun because sometimes you never expect it to be interesting until you view it later.

Here are some of my photos of pattern and bold colours that I would love to share with you. It may not be award-winning ones but I am glad to keep them until they may be replaced with much better ones in future.

A pattern formed by various magazines displayed at a mamak sundry shop in Kelana Jaya.

A fully symmetrical pattern produced by a fan palm tree (traveller’s palm)

Bananas at a roadside stall I found on the way home.

What attracted me most to shoot this picture is the pink window against striking bold orange wall. I found this in Kuala Besut.

I entitled this photo “Scarlet against Violet”

Multiple colours, shapes and sizes of the schoolbags form an incongruous pattern here. The inclusion of a walking lady is just to add human element as well as to break the pattern.

The tone of green, the blue hull of the boat and its curve are what prompted me to click the shutter.

A Travel Log by David Atkinson

Have you ever seen colour photographs taken in the 70s but still win admiration from photography enthusiasts worldwide up until today? No I am not talking about photographs in Magnum website, LIFE or National Geographic website. Neither am I talking about any works done by a professional photographer.

These photos were taken by a truly amateur photographer who, on his way to find his family roots, ended up discovering various interesting places in his journey before he eventually reached his destination – his ancestors’ motherland – one year later.

Do read the travel log belonging to David Atkinson. Besides his photographs another interesting part is the way he wrote his travel log is just like the way we blog nowadays – the facility which was not yet available at the time he constructed his website.

Do enjoy reading and especially viewing his awesome pictures.

Composition Guide #1: Figure and Ground Flip

Many photographers and photography gurus came up with various theories and guides to composition in photography. Some even resort to mathematical solution as if good photography composition could be achieved just by religiously adhering to their formula. To me composition should not be restricted to any hard and fast rules that have to be followed all the time and neither can it be based on a set of fixed formula.

To shoot good pictures one doesn’t need mathematical acumen or technical prowess. Although in modern time nowadays it takes convoluted algorithmic calculations to produce a picture in a digital camera, it is taken care of by the digital camera. The composition job is still totally left to the photographer no matter how sophisticated the camera is (that’s the reason why we find some photographers with the highest-end camera take lousy pictures but that doesn’t warrant a blog space in our discussion here).

Photography is subjective just like any other form of art – one’s masterpiece could be just a crap to another. Even Henri Cartier-Bresson who is highly regarded as a master of street photographer and looked up to by photojournalists as the father of photojournalism was not spared with severe criticism by his host of critics and cynics. To his cynics Henri Cartier-Bresson’s shots are just mere snapshots. On another note, Steve McCurry of MAGNUM who shot the world famous portrait of an Afghan refugee girl with piercing eyes was once quoted as saying “Rules in photography are just baloney”.

However photography composition has various guidelines that photographers can choose to follow or break just to make the composition more pleasing. Guides are not necessarily to be followed all the time. In fact breaking it sometimes makes the picture look better. But in order to break the rules we have to know the rules first. Don’t we?

One of the composition guides that I found interesting is figure and ground flip. I first found out about this in a book entitled Designing A Photograph written by Bill Smith. Bill Smith is a commercial photographer who shoots mostly for giant corporate clients and for various ad agencies.

Figure and Ground Flip is not only about having foreground interest in your composition, but also about juxtaposing the foreground against the background in such an interesting manner which theoretically will hold viewers interest and make them look at the picture longer.

It suggests that if the foreground is interesting although the subject is normally in the background the viewers will first look at the foreground. When a viewer looks at the foreground, the foreground now becomes the Figure while the subject at the background is now the Ground. Subsequently the viewer’s eye will travel beyond the foreground and stop at the subject in the background. And now the background becomes the Figure while the foreground becomes the Ground.

So the theory is if a picture has interesting foreground with appealing subject in the background the viewers will keep shifting their views from foreground to background and move back to foreground again and may again move back to the background. Hence the term Figure/Ground Flip performed by the viewers. And this subconscious act will hold the viewers longer to look at and enjoy a picture.

Michael Fullack the founder of Apogee Photo who has more than 25 years of photography experience also wrote something interesting about Figure/Ground Flip in his interesting Gestalt Theory series.

Finally I am pleased to share with you some of my attempts at Figure/Ground Flip in my pictures below.

Click here to see a larger picture.

Click here to see a larger picture.

Click here to see a larger picture.

Comments and criticism are welcomed.

Zainal Abdul Halim – A Reuters Photojournalist

Mention Zainal Abdul Halim, the name would surely earn respect and admiration among Malaysian photographers in general and Malaysian photojournalists in particular. Zainal Abdul Halim, a Reuters photographer/photojournalist is a well known and respectable figure in Malaysia especially in the Malaysian photographic fraternity. He is a classic example of a success story for a self-taught photographer.

 

Zainal Abdul Halim

Having started merely as a hobbyist, he eventually landed a job at The Sun (A Malaysian Daily) as a photographer and was promoted only 6 years later to the post of Chief Photographer.

From being a chief photographer at a Malaysian local daily he made a further progress to secure a job at Reuters as one of its photographers in Malaysia – the job which only remains a dream to most of the photojournalist wannabes. Another Reuters photographer in Malaysia is Bazuki Muhammad who also blogs here.

Read a two-series online interview with Zainal that I did in 2005 for Lensamalaysia.com while he was in Saudi Arabia as he was stationed there for about one year.

Do enjoy viewing his awesome photojournalism works in his brand new website here.

Happy reading and viewing!

My maiden blog entry

Welcome to my photo blog. Since this is the very first entry in this blog, allow me to introduce myself. I am just an amateur photographer. Photography is my ardent pastime or shall I say my passion, having started falling in love with it more or less 4 years ago.

You might ask me what made me fall in love with photography, right? I wish to thank kodak.com for opening up the whole world of photography to me through its earlier version of website, not the current one, which had various topics, tips and tricks on photography catering especially for beginner as well as for intermediate photographer.

I don’t know whether you still remember or you have ever come across its earlier version of the website with its black background as opposed to the current one with white background. Frankly, I still prefer its earlier version with black background, apart from its design and cosmetics, its contents was also more comprehensive and more detailed. Kudos to Kodak for coming up with such a brilliant idea in arousing interest in photography in its readers and visitors. I believe I am not the only one who were inspired by its informative and educational contents.

Inspired by kodak.com and later by plenty of other photographs and photographers on the Internet I bought my first SLR camera Nikon F80 which was the highly popular model at that time among photographic enthusiasts.

Barely 2 months after getting the SLR camera, I had my first taste of achievement. A picture of my son was chosen as Photo of the Day by guess what? kodak.com website. You can still see its archived page here. (Please choose the date of 22 September 2003 and the particular page will appear).

The chosen photo of my son, Danial, while he was one-year-and-eight-month old.

Having my photo published for the first time by the very same website that instilled interest in photography in me and that inspired me before was like a dream come true. I was ecstatic as my photograph was recognised and included among those pictures that are given the honour to appear in the front page of Kodak website for one whole day. Well, at least at that time when it was barely 2 months since I first started picking up an SLR camera.

That was how I began my journey in photography.