Welcome to my humble sharing of my photographs, the thinking process, tips, ideas and opinions I had when I was conceptualizing, creating and capturing the shots. I hope you will benefit or find meaning in some my sharings. I am always learning how to take better pictures, and am very open to receiving constructive comments to improve my images. I hope you will like my page and visit often and sha
re your comments and feedback. Thank you very much! And have a great day ahead…
My relationship with photography
I have received so many questions about my photography history. How I got started, what will my first camera is and so on. So instead of answering individual questions, I have decided to write a short introduction about my relationship with photography. I started taking photos in secondary school, and there was a very very long time ago. I was very encouraged by friend and classmate who highlighted to me time and time again that I seem to have an eye to frame pictures. When I finally decided to heat on his advice, I started to save for my first film SLR camera. I started reading about what to look for in a camera that was within my limited budget. I was really ambitious then because I wanted to buy one camera body, one lens, one flash and one camera bag. My total pricetag came up to $600 plus. And I was seriously feeling the pinch, having to save so much for a Minolta X 300, a tamron 35 to 105 mm lens, a Nissan Flash (not Nissan Sunny) and a very cheap camera bag. I felt I was very lucky to have bought the Minolta X 300. It is an aperture priority and manual exposure camera. And I learnt many things from this camera. This camera is very special because it was the camera that won me my first photo competition within three or four months after picking up photography. Winning in a school photo competition accelerated my enthusiasm and fuelled my interests in photography. And as they say the rest is history. So that was how I got started. A few key milestones:
I sold and upgraded I Minolta X 300 for a Nikon FE. The Nikon FE me some more prizes in photo competition.
12 months before I was due to serve my nation, I started to scan whether I could serve my nation as a photographer or photojournalists. This experience was another milestone in my photography history because:
I compiled my first photography portfolio. I had my first interview for a “job” or rather in this case, to serve my National service as a photographer or photojournalists. And I became the first National service photojournalists in public affairs, ministry of defence – Pioneer Magazine. This was an exhilarating experience for me. Just in case some of you are wondering, I did complete my basic combat training and I was assigned to a combat unit. But after being in combat for seven months, I was reassigned to public affairs to take photographs and write stories. At that point I was shooting slides and was shooting an average of seven rolls of slight pictures everyday. I had to assignments daily. And I've thoroughly enjoyed myself. When I completed my National service, I was given an opportunity to consider a scholarship through Singapore press Holdings to study photojournalism in New York. But I declined because there was a bond for eight years that starts after I have completed my studies. I continue my studies and use photography to fund more so my expenses. I am thankful and feel that I'm very fortunate because I was able to secure freelance work with Singapore Press Holdings and metropolitan publishing house. When I started working, I decided to put photography aside to focused on my career. And soon I realised and eventually put it aside for close of nine years. I return to photography at the advent of digital photography. An digital photography was in its infancy. I was using both a film camera, and I purchased my first digital compact camera. A simple point-and-shoot with an optical zoom of 18 to 180 mm lens cost me close to $2000 in 2001. I was disappointed that Nikon was slow to adopt and embrace digital technology. Canon was ahead of Nikon and was fast to introduce its first digital SLR camera. I think it was a two megapixel camera. :-)
Overtime, my upgrades was from the Canon compact camera to the Fuji film S2 pro, after using it for 3 1/2 years it was replaced with Nikon D200, and that was subsequently replaced with the Nikon D3. Today, I am very passionate in photography. I still employed many of the old school techniques and approaches to photography. So please feel free to drop me questions about photography feedback about my Facebook photography page. Thank you very much for stopping by!
