Portrait of a Beautiful Girl II
Portrait of a Beautiful Girl II
After much thoughts and much thinkings. I have realised that when I'm finally done with landscape, still life and maybe some semblance of sports photography. I would finally just like to end up doing portraiture shots. Simple black and white facial portraiture shots. And that would be my personal benchmark in photography. Given that I have the technical mastery to do everything manually. Down to metering and exposing manually. The photojournalistic personal benchmark of mine, that I have to at least touch. Would be to able to completely cover an entire wedding's worth in pictures on a manual camera - SLR, dSLR or rangefinder. That's me.
Perhaps there will come a time, where I can have the blessed opportunity to have a one to one session with every single person I know in my life. To just do raw portrait photoshoots. That's all. I'm not really concerned about the camera or the color (since it is black and white). I am more interested in the final picture, as with the capture of emotion. That would be very nice indeed. To me, I would say that it is easy for anyone to be a good photographer. Just use any camera. Take 100 pictures. I'm sure that out of that 100 photographs. 1 will be at least good. Above average. Or maybe even outstanding. I put plenty of "above average" photos on my blog, yet one must understand. For every one picture I put up here. There are hundreds taht are rejected and thrown away. For a casual photoshoot of 150 pictures. I can come back with only 3 above average images that catch my eye for a longer period of time than normal.
Anyone can be a good landscape photographer. Just wake up at 5a.m. Go to East Coast. And take pictures of the Sunrise. More than enough. Or get a tripod and expose for car streaks at night. Anyone can do that. Its when it comes down to pure artistic vision, pure creativity and of course, the necessary human interaction does one skill really shine. There and there - equipment is a non-issue. I would say that anyone who waits at the right time at the right place and with the necessary basic understanding of exposure and camera settings can usually end up with a decent wallpaper type of picture for all to see. Its when it comes down to the capture of pure raw emotion in portraiture that I find the particular challenge alluring.
I'm not a good photographer. And I chose not to make an issue out of it when people say that my pictures are "good" or "nice". They aren't. Just surf over to pbase.com and check out the popular galleries. Now that is GOOD. And that is a standardised benchmark. Those pictures require a powerful creative vision, very strong technical mastery, and pure passion to power. I would highly recommend the Canon SLR Challenge Gallery on pbase to be an understanding point on what I'm trying to express in words such that only pictures suffice to make a proper impact. Every photograph there is literally - "very scary". And even though Nico and I constantly lament that "there is nothing to photograph" in Singapore. Time and time again we are proven very wrong by a certain Mr Lim, who is my favourite Singaporean photographer on pbase.
Personally, I tend to find photoshoots with regards to portraits and portraiture in Singapore pretty much cliched. You take a group of guys who own all the fine glass and expensive camera bodies. Pair a group of them up with a hired model (read: Pretty Girl) and they take pictures. Touch up here and there. And ta-da! "I'm a great portrait photographer!" This is nonsense. Portraits should be about the capture of the emotion of a person. The expression and exposure of an outlet of the human body and soul. The picture should essentially reveal about the personality, character and nature of the person in a glance at black and white level. It is not the outer look that I am interested in. It is in the revealing of the inner heart that is truly important. And that is what truly matters.
I personally notice that a VAST majority of Singaporeans are extremely scared of having unglam photographs of themselves. There is nothing to be ashamed about the fraility and imperfections of our human natures. That is just... us! Like I said, I think it would be wise that on a fixed day each year, perhaps the 1st of January. Perhaps on a birthday. Each of us take one portrait photo of ourselves. And develop or have them printed out and archived somewhere. Maybe after many years and a dusty collection of pictures later. We will laugh, cry, chuckle and smile at the past images of ourselves. Each of us change just ever so slightly each day. But put a photo of ourselves at regular intervals of our lives over a long stretch of time, and maybe it will be easier for us to visualise the change that other people see in us.
Everyone wants glamour shots. Too much fashion inspired photography. Artificiality in itself and it its essence. Make overs and high end magazine cover photoshoot looks are good and have their niche purpose. Yet they are meaningless. There is no point having a thousand touched up and well-lighted and well-poised pictures of ourself, if not even one of them can express and reveal the heart of who we truly are. That's the beauty of portraiture. It is about the revelation of our inner soul. The pure expression of our inner selves in our outer shells. And its beautiful everytime. Being a Christian, I always believe that God creates all people wonderfully and they are all beautiful in His eyes. No matter what the world might say.
I want to be able to take pictures of the people that I meet in my life. Whether they be close friends, or mere associates. It doesn't matter. We are all human and everyone of us expresses a distinct personality. It would be a privilege, a blessing and a particular honor to have large square black and white prints of the facial portraits of my friends, family and people that I know. I'm talking about pictures that are one meter by one meter in size. Yes. BIG, black and white pictures. Its in the raw beauty and the revealing flaws of our human imperfections and nature that makes every portrait beautiful and unique. Look at all the pictures from fashion photoshoots - its the same bland things over and over again. Pretty leggy model decked the season's finest (accessories optional) in a few stiff artificial poses. And that's about it. Everything is often so touched up its fake. Having lighting experts and chosing suitable human member arrangements only add to the illusion that we humans try so hard to conceive in a strange reality that is not tapered by practicality and honesty.
Oh well. I guess that's what I felt like saying. I and its strange that I only blog or write down things well only when I feel strongly about it. Other than that, I couldn't care less on many other issues and things. For starters, I would like to thank Lynette for being ever so gracious to lend me the usage of her FujiFilm FinePix S2Pro Camera. The S2Pro an excellent camera when it first came out a few years ago. It has almost perfect auto-white balance as well as reproduces the most realistic skin tones compared to any other camera on the market. Not to mention that it can selectively retain certain bright highlights that would otherwise be blown out by even the best Nikon and Canon cameras on the market.
Lynette's a good friend of Cherie! Yes! She is the very nice girl whose father taught me mathematics in ACS Barker when I was in Secondary One almost eight years ago. Well, in her ever so-nice fashion, I had the blessed opportunity to meet up with her in person after such a long time. Time really flies. Not only that, at the same time, she was so kind to allow me to snap a few portrait shots of her as well as to post them online. So I would really like to thank her once again. =) In any other words, this last picture is my favourite. Because it is a little bit nearer to my goal in portraiture photography - to reveal the inner heart of a person. I certainly hope the picture expresses and reveals to all those to glance upon it a little peek and glimpse into her personality and character. Does the phrase "very nice" come to mind?
After much thoughts and much thinkings. I have realised that when I'm finally done with landscape, still life and maybe some semblance of sports photography. I would finally just like to end up doing portraiture shots. Simple black and white facial portraiture shots. And that would be my personal benchmark in photography. Given that I have the technical mastery to do everything manually. Down to metering and exposing manually. The photojournalistic personal benchmark of mine, that I have to at least touch. Would be to able to completely cover an entire wedding's worth in pictures on a manual camera - SLR, dSLR or rangefinder. That's me.
Perhaps there will come a time, where I can have the blessed opportunity to have a one to one session with every single person I know in my life. To just do raw portrait photoshoots. That's all. I'm not really concerned about the camera or the color (since it is black and white). I am more interested in the final picture, as with the capture of emotion. That would be very nice indeed. To me, I would say that it is easy for anyone to be a good photographer. Just use any camera. Take 100 pictures. I'm sure that out of that 100 photographs. 1 will be at least good. Above average. Or maybe even outstanding. I put plenty of "above average" photos on my blog, yet one must understand. For every one picture I put up here. There are hundreds taht are rejected and thrown away. For a casual photoshoot of 150 pictures. I can come back with only 3 above average images that catch my eye for a longer period of time than normal.
Anyone can be a good landscape photographer. Just wake up at 5a.m. Go to East Coast. And take pictures of the Sunrise. More than enough. Or get a tripod and expose for car streaks at night. Anyone can do that. Its when it comes down to pure artistic vision, pure creativity and of course, the necessary human interaction does one skill really shine. There and there - equipment is a non-issue. I would say that anyone who waits at the right time at the right place and with the necessary basic understanding of exposure and camera settings can usually end up with a decent wallpaper type of picture for all to see. Its when it comes down to the capture of pure raw emotion in portraiture that I find the particular challenge alluring.
I'm not a good photographer. And I chose not to make an issue out of it when people say that my pictures are "good" or "nice". They aren't. Just surf over to pbase.com and check out the popular galleries. Now that is GOOD. And that is a standardised benchmark. Those pictures require a powerful creative vision, very strong technical mastery, and pure passion to power. I would highly recommend the Canon SLR Challenge Gallery on pbase to be an understanding point on what I'm trying to express in words such that only pictures suffice to make a proper impact. Every photograph there is literally - "very scary". And even though Nico and I constantly lament that "there is nothing to photograph" in Singapore. Time and time again we are proven very wrong by a certain Mr Lim, who is my favourite Singaporean photographer on pbase.
Personally, I tend to find photoshoots with regards to portraits and portraiture in Singapore pretty much cliched. You take a group of guys who own all the fine glass and expensive camera bodies. Pair a group of them up with a hired model (read: Pretty Girl) and they take pictures. Touch up here and there. And ta-da! "I'm a great portrait photographer!" This is nonsense. Portraits should be about the capture of the emotion of a person. The expression and exposure of an outlet of the human body and soul. The picture should essentially reveal about the personality, character and nature of the person in a glance at black and white level. It is not the outer look that I am interested in. It is in the revealing of the inner heart that is truly important. And that is what truly matters.
I personally notice that a VAST majority of Singaporeans are extremely scared of having unglam photographs of themselves. There is nothing to be ashamed about the fraility and imperfections of our human natures. That is just... us! Like I said, I think it would be wise that on a fixed day each year, perhaps the 1st of January. Perhaps on a birthday. Each of us take one portrait photo of ourselves. And develop or have them printed out and archived somewhere. Maybe after many years and a dusty collection of pictures later. We will laugh, cry, chuckle and smile at the past images of ourselves. Each of us change just ever so slightly each day. But put a photo of ourselves at regular intervals of our lives over a long stretch of time, and maybe it will be easier for us to visualise the change that other people see in us.
Everyone wants glamour shots. Too much fashion inspired photography. Artificiality in itself and it its essence. Make overs and high end magazine cover photoshoot looks are good and have their niche purpose. Yet they are meaningless. There is no point having a thousand touched up and well-lighted and well-poised pictures of ourself, if not even one of them can express and reveal the heart of who we truly are. That's the beauty of portraiture. It is about the revelation of our inner soul. The pure expression of our inner selves in our outer shells. And its beautiful everytime. Being a Christian, I always believe that God creates all people wonderfully and they are all beautiful in His eyes. No matter what the world might say.
I want to be able to take pictures of the people that I meet in my life. Whether they be close friends, or mere associates. It doesn't matter. We are all human and everyone of us expresses a distinct personality. It would be a privilege, a blessing and a particular honor to have large square black and white prints of the facial portraits of my friends, family and people that I know. I'm talking about pictures that are one meter by one meter in size. Yes. BIG, black and white pictures. Its in the raw beauty and the revealing flaws of our human imperfections and nature that makes every portrait beautiful and unique. Look at all the pictures from fashion photoshoots - its the same bland things over and over again. Pretty leggy model decked the season's finest (accessories optional) in a few stiff artificial poses. And that's about it. Everything is often so touched up its fake. Having lighting experts and chosing suitable human member arrangements only add to the illusion that we humans try so hard to conceive in a strange reality that is not tapered by practicality and honesty.
Oh well. I guess that's what I felt like saying. I and its strange that I only blog or write down things well only when I feel strongly about it. Other than that, I couldn't care less on many other issues and things. For starters, I would like to thank Lynette for being ever so gracious to lend me the usage of her FujiFilm FinePix S2Pro Camera. The S2Pro an excellent camera when it first came out a few years ago. It has almost perfect auto-white balance as well as reproduces the most realistic skin tones compared to any other camera on the market. Not to mention that it can selectively retain certain bright highlights that would otherwise be blown out by even the best Nikon and Canon cameras on the market.
Lynette's a good friend of Cherie! Yes! She is the very nice girl whose father taught me mathematics in ACS Barker when I was in Secondary One almost eight years ago. Well, in her ever so-nice fashion, I had the blessed opportunity to meet up with her in person after such a long time. Time really flies. Not only that, at the same time, she was so kind to allow me to snap a few portrait shots of her as well as to post them online. So I would really like to thank her once again. =) In any other words, this last picture is my favourite. Because it is a little bit nearer to my goal in portraiture photography - to reveal the inner heart of a person. I certainly hope the picture expresses and reveals to all those to glance upon it a little peek and glimpse into her personality and character. Does the phrase "very nice" come to mind?
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