This post comprises of 2 photography trips to Chinatown.
Tues, 25 Jan 2011
Wei & me wana mit up in the afternoon at Chinatown for our pre-chinese new year photoshoot. However the thunderstorm at noon thwarted our plan & we tot ... that's it! Both of us were restless & prayed that the rain would stop soon. By 4+pm, i finally saw a glimpse of hope when white clouds & blue skies appeared outside my window! Hence, both of us dashed down to Chinatown immediately!
~Hop Hop~ into the bunny year!
When Wei reached at 5+pm, we began our stroll from Pagoda Street. We did a number of close-up shots of the CNY decor stuff lining outside the shops. While we were busy focusing our cams on some items outside a shop, an uncle scolded us & rudely told us to back off! Fine! he could have juz tell us nicely rite? As it's a weekday, it's not too crowded at the bazaar. There's not much of unique stuff here & thou Sg's CNY bazaar is probably uncomparable to the other chinese cities such as china, hk & taiwan... I still tried my best to look out for interesting angles.
One of my preferred shots was at the melon seeds stall, where i did a close-up from the side... there's really a wide variety of melon seeds wo! Then, i suggested we walked to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple to shoot the hanging lanterns filled wif wishes of the temple-goers... timing was perfect as the passing shower had stopped & I could see a light blue sky again! A blue sky is such a rare sight these days due to the incessant rain across the island!
Next, as we walked thru' the lanes, I saw an elderly aunty buying the traditional cantonese 『八寳』~ 'EighT Treasures' of 'sugary preserved snacks', wif a selection of winter-melon, thin grated coconut, water-chestnut, lotus root, ginger, lotus seeds & lime... each having an auspicious meaning which traced its origins to the Kangxi Emperor era. After some research, i found a HK article in chinese explaining it. The sight of this reminds me of my childhood, where my granny would buy some during the festive season & i simply love the sweet winter-melon (糖冬瓜)!
Wei & I ended our session at the juncture which had a stall selling preserved waxed ducks & chinese sausages... Also caught sight of a stall peddling veri pretty Rabbit designs red-packets! Din achieve many satisfying shots today thou... But we were glad we made good use of the 2hrs of fine weather as it started pouring while on my way home!
Sat, 29 Jan 2011
Time breezes thru' the consecutive stormy days...and i wonder if i would be able to mit up wif a new grp of foto enthusiasts fr my 50mm interest grp. I was glad the rain stopped juz in time! Again, dashed down & met up wif the instructor/organiser ~ francis. Supposedly to have much more ppl, but due to the storm...there's only a total of 5. A drizzle broke out again when we started ... it was quite difficult to navigate the lanes filled wif people & tentage. In-between the tentage, there r strings fastening the canopies tog & hence we gotta walked bending low... For once, i discovered the advantage of being short! haha!
I only whipped out my cam after some distance & luckily i got a lens hood for my zoom lens! It certainly helped to protect the lens fr the rain but the body was splashed wif raindrops :( Erika even had a rain-cover for her cam! haha! This time round, i found angles that i did not discover on my 1st trip. Perhaps the rain gave me some inspirations? keke! I also attempted some portraits shots which i rarely do.
The best view is on dad's shoulder!
Juz at the click of my shutter, the dad turned around! My fav portrait shot of the day.
"Rain or Shine, I'm selling my balloons!"
年糕 ~ Sticky Rice-Cake
usually an offering made to the 'Kitchen God' to sweeten his mouth before
he report abt how the family performed in the past yr.
There's a particular stall which attracted many shutterbugs as it displayed traditional chinese paper-cuts wif auspicious words... I managed to re-do a few shots here. After circumventing the lanes a couple rounds, francis brought us to a '秘密基地' to do some aerial shots of the streets & surroundings. By now, it's dusk... and yes, we were still shooting in the rain! Over here, it's a totally new perspective for me & I din even bother to set up my tripod... but was glad to achieve some shots i wanted.
When dusk falls...
Aerial Street View
Finally, we strolled over to the overhead bridge above the Chinatown MRT. While standing around, i chanced upon the nice reflections on the puddles... yeah! Later, i saw a man selling some colourful spinning wheels on the bridge & wanted to take a shot of the wheels...guess wat? The man told me in mandarin, "wat's there to shoot? wait ah, u all go post them online!'' Haiz, not as if i wana shoot u ah, uncle! Finally, did the final shot of the street decor, which displayed the not-so-cute bunnies! (I find the bunnies look fierce!)
雨天的意境
Glad that I went for the outing despite the rain, i managed to get better pics this round & the portraits shots left a deep impression on my mind too.
