2011: The year in review

For the past couple of years, I made myself review my year in terms of my photography and highlight the good and the bad. I think everyone should start to do this, either review of the work you’ve done or the achievements you’ve made. At the end, you’ll learn from it and eventually improve.

So here goes mine,

 

Urban exploration

As some of you might have noticed, the trend of this blog have always been around urban exploration. (Sorry, no pretty photos of flowers and sunsets here). All in all, I made more trips and discovered more urban decay sites for me to photograph last year. In fact, I still have some in the archives and even some rolls that aren’t developed.

I won’t go down into the details of why I like to photograph these places or what make me do it, but it’s good to say that enjoyed it and hopefully I can continue this (though urban decay are a scarce these days)

 

Global Battle of the Bands finals 2011

I’d never expect myself to photograph a concert but when given a chance, I did not hesitate and jumped to it…with a film camera. Obviously I don’t have a digital camera so what better way to experiment a little and shoot a rock concert with film. It was an enlightening experience. The energy of the whole thing was overwhelming and to my surprise, most of my shots came out.

It was good trying new things and pushing myself to the limit with my equipment. You never know what you can achieve if you don’t.

 

 

F64.org takes off

F64 was an idea that another friend came up with, roughly in 2006/07 but due to other commitments, it was delayed. After some talking and renewed interest, we decided to start the whole thing and see how it goes.

It has been up and running since early 2011 and to date we’ve had 3 B&W developing and printing workshops, we’ve collaborated with various local lifestyle coupon companies, got featured in an online magazine, helped many new photographers to source out B&W materials and equipment, offer our services to develop and print B&W photos and recently we set up our Etsy shop to sell our prints and other home made items.

It was a great year for F64 and it was nice to see new photographers embracing the craft of B&W photography. Needless to say, it won’t be a success without two of my colleagues, Aqmal and Syariff.

We’ve got more activities, workshops and other events planned out for 2012 so keep a look out!

www.f64.org 

 

Arts for Grabs

If you are familiar with the local arts scene, you know that Arts for Grabs organized by The Annexe Gallery is a very popular arts bazaar in Kuala Lumpur. This year we’ve participated in 3 out of the 4 times they had it.

As part of the F64 set up, we sold prints, films and our cyanotype kits. We promoted our services which received a number of enquiries after the event.

Hopefully we will get chosen for the future ones.

 

Sold my print!

This isn’t my first print being sold (the first was in the PhotoMalaysia exhibition in 2008) but it is the first one that someone bought while browsing through my blog and photos.

At the end, I printed this image of the abandoned couch on Ilford MG IV pearl paper and send it off to a nice lady in Canada :)

 

Alternative photography

I’m not quite sure why but my interest in photography seem to be going backwards. First traditional B&W and now to even older processes like cyanotypes.

These are easy to do and with a 4×5′ negative, it’s even better. There’s something really surreal about seeing contact prints in blue.

 

Large format photography

I had the Linhof large format for some time but hadn’t really used it. But this year I made more photographs with it. The whole process of using a large format camera is different from any other cameras I’ve used and it took some time to learn how to use it properly.

Now it’s one of my favorite cameras to use.

 

Past, Present, Future

What topped the year off must be this. Back in October, I had three prints selected for an abstract photography exhibition at The Print Room, called 10.

The prints were taken with a large format camera and printed on Ilfords latest paper, the MG Art 300. The show went on for a month and it will head to the China House gallery in Penang sometime in February/March.

A photographers work is never complete until the image is printed and hung. Looking at your own images on a computer screen doesn’t cut it. Once you go through the motion of selecting your photographs, printing, mounting and framing then you’ll understand and appreciate your work.

 

So, that’s about it for my 2011. What’s yours?

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• 2011
• abstract
• Arts for Grabs
• black and white
• cyanotype
• darkroom
• f64
• f64.org
• film
• global battle of the bands
• large format
• photography
• workshops