The story of your day

“Sometimes the mist of our time clouds our eternal perspective. Never doubt you are part of the story of your day.” – Lisa Bevere

I saw this quote on Lisa Bevere (@lbevere)’s Instagram. It really spoke to me. And kind of assured me about my doubts, especially when I feel overwhelmed about the mundane and personal frustrations. Been thinking a lot about the stories we live with our lives. Think about this: on your grave there will be two dates – year of birth-year of death. That little “-” is the story you and I live. I’ve been asking myself a lot about the choices i make, and whether my story will be worth retelling. I want to be part of a big story worth telling.

The edit: I was hunting around in a secondhand bookstore for a rare storybook. Spotted this perfect moment of a young man enjoying his book. I’ve had it in my phone for a while, and no edits seemed to work. I added a subtle overlay I made myself, and exported from my Android to my iPad to use Over, some hand-drawn typography and some iOS apps. I thought the photo worked with this quote. Added something from the ElementFX app to further illustrate the point.

from Instagram: http://instagram.com/p/ZVSDZ4senA/

Unusual exposure

A company that manufactures acrylic contacted me about using some of my photos. Yes you read right.

Turns out that they were involved in manufacturing the acrylic for the S.E.A. Aquarium and wanted to use some of my photos in a press release. It was a real surprise to be contacted through this blog.

I supplied a couple of photos for a small fee, and they were very professional about working with me. I’m very pleased for the unusual exposure overseas. This motivates me to keep shooting and blogging, and also submitting my work for more overseas photo festivals.

You can read the whole news release here

Meet Zac

from Instagram: http://instagram.com/p/ZHr8EcserM/

This is Zac enjoying the smell of coffee at a tiny coffee joint called Nylon. It’s one of those cool finds in the neighborhood. Zac’s an old friend I haven’t seen for years and bumped into, serendipitously, a couple days ago. Turns out he just started working in this area too. Great to hang out over good coffee and catch up on life. He says this year he wants to go back to making music and is looking forward to seeing his first child in August.

The Moeraki Boulders in New Zealand

Monochrome abstract

From Instagram: typography

Working with no overlays and more typographical elements in this one.

from Instagram: http://instagram.com/p/Y7QXY4Mesa/

From Instagram: attack of the fake birds

Tina, an Instagram friend of mine in Germany shot this picture and I edited it.
I liked the odd-looking trees and the birds around it. I decided to make the scene more dramatic and added clouds and even more bird silhouettes.

I can’t find the original photo but here’s the earlier version before all the birds joined the party:

And this is the final edit:

from Instagram: http://instagram.com/p/Y1ZvIZMeth/

The Android Editors team

Bang. It’s official. I’m now part of Android Editors, @Droidedit on Instagram – an international team of mobile photography artists curating and promoting mobile photography and artistry done on Android devices. I’m really happy for this opportunity to highlight Android artists on Instagram. Android Editors has been very supportive of me and the photos I’ve been producing on my phone, and being a part of this team will help me to grow and produce better mobile art, as well as learn from others.

At the same time, I’m also exploring opportunities to teach mobile photography in classroom settings in photography schools in Singapore, so we’ll see how that goes. 

You can read my interview on AndroidEditors.com here – I shared my thoughts on mobile photography, and also explained how I edited the above photo. 

From @kairos_catcher on Instagram

from Instagram: http://instagram.com/p/Yw8CniMetW/

A DIY analog camera

Just discovered that April 28 is Worldwide Pinhole Day. I love shooting film, and collect film cameras. Naturally I got pretty excited about the idea of building your own film camera so I decided to give it a shot. 

I found the instructions on this lomography site (click this link for a pdf version of the instructions) and figured it would be easy enough. The challenge was finding a used film canister. I went to a few photo developing shops in the neighborhood, and asked if they had any. From the weird looks I was getting, you’d think I was asking for unicorn horns. The staff at two out of three shops I went to didn’t know what I was talking about.

Eventually, a lady at the third shop found some in the bin and grudgingly gave them to me. 

I sat down with the instructions, and The Autumn Film playing in the background (No pun intended, they’re just my favorite band at the moment). After two hours of cutting, measuring and copious amounts of black tape, here’s the finished product.

Any suggestions on what to name it?

The big question is whether or not it will produce any photos worth looking at. Stay tuned.