Clifford Pier Red Lanterns

Clifford Pier in Singapore, an art-deco building built in the 1930s, was at that time a landing point for ocean-going passengers, and is being re-developed.  Since December last year a new restaurant has opened inside.  I have walked by there several times on my pre-dawn walks looking for 'night light' photo opportunities.   I have been intrigued by the red lanterns that have remained lit even after Chinese New Year, and now I know why--they were originally hung from the pier to guide the new arrivals, and thus the pier was known in Chinese as "Red Lamp Pier".  

I also made a hand-held black & white image looking through the window of the restaurant at the interesting repeating semi-circular shapes of the decorations on the floor and in the wonderful arched trusses of the roof.  

It is great fun to find such interesting subjects so close to our home in Singapore.

Singapore Flyer & Esplanade Skyline in Early Morning

Early this morning, before sunrise I setup my tripod on the walkway along Esplanade Drive bridge looking out towards the Singapore Flyer. In all three images you can see the Singapore Flyer in rather minimalist lighting, as well as the sharply angled obelisk(?) of the outdoor concert stage. The other two images are a wider view of the same scene, and are a second, more subtle example of the 'lights on/lights off' motif that I captured a couple weeks ago over at Boat Quay (hint: compare the lighting under the trees along the promenade in the two images).

Singapore Skyline

On Saturday morning I went to the promenade in front of the Esplanade and set up my tripod looking out at the early morning skyline around the Fullerton Hotel and the financial district in Singapore. There are very few people out at 6 AM which makes it a very enjoyable time to be out with a camera taking photos in public landmarks like this. The Canon 5DMk2 is able to do very clean night lights images like this at ISO 1600 and requires virtually no editing of the RAW file.

Reclining Figure by Henry Moore, in Singapore

I walked over to the OCBC headquarters building on Chulia street here in Singapore early this morning with my DSLR and tripod and made some images of the large bronze 'reclining figure' by Henry Moore.  I have photographed this installation a couple times before, but this was the first time with the 5DMk2 and I decided that it would be fun to do a lowlight image at this spot.

I made about 22 images and selected 2 to edit and post.  My 'in-house' creative director (i.e., aka my spouse, Hideko) suggested that the vertical version of the front view was the most pleasing, and I decided to follow her advice.  I went with a horizontal version of the rear view, however.  I also concluded that the color versions look better than the black & white, so color it is.  The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east by the time I framed up the second of these two images.

These two are both single images, not multiple exposure combined into an HDR.

CNY Lion Dance at Work

We had a Chinese New Year Lion Dance at my office here in Singapore this past week and I brought the 5DMk2 to in to take a few photos of the event. The sound of the cymbals and drums was nearly deafening in the confined space, but I was nearly oblivious to the noise while concentrating on trying to compose shots of the action. I found it quite challenging to frame interesting images, and was glad I went with a colleague's recommendation to use the 85mm lens, which made it a little easier to keep out extraneous elements.
 
I particularly like the profile view of the 'pear-shaped uncle' playing the cymbals. In the second photo, one of the lions is retrieving red packets hung from the ceilings above our workstations.
 
One of the many enjoyable aspects of working and living in Southeast Asia.

Three Rivers Petroglyphs Site, New Mexico

I am a bit under the weather this weekend so decided to dip into the remaining mostly unposted photos from our visit to New Mexico in November 2006.  We took two fairly long road trips in 2006 during my year of semi-retirement--the first a one month-long inside passage cruise and drive through Alaska, followed shortly thereafter by two months driving through the national parks of the west and southwest.  I wrote a travel blog about the Alaska trip and have partially written about the national parks trip.

This afternoon, I looked at the photos from our visit to the Three Rivers Petroglyphs Site off Highway 54, near Three Rivers, New Mexico.  The trails here allow you to get very close to an amazing assortment of over 21,000 petroglyphs thought to have been created between AD1000 and AD 1400 by the Jornada Mogollon people.  

Below are 4 images that I made on November 22, 2006.  In the first two you can see the Sacramento Mountains in the distance, with the most prominent peak in the 2nd image Sierra Blanca at 11,973 feet:

Lights On, Lights Off

Just as I set my tripod and was about to push the shutter on a closer view of the holiday lights on Elgin Bridge early last Monday morning, the lights were switched off. I began to curse my bad timing when the lights came on again just long enough for me to snap one photo, and then they went out again for the day, whereupon I snapped another version. So now, I have 'lights on, lights off' views of this bridge to share (although I can't claim that I planned it this way).

Guangzhou Arts Academy Troupe

A friend called last Saturday evening and asked if I was interested in taking some photos of a touring Chinese dance troupe that was performing at the Raffles City shopping complex here in Singapore. Of course, I was keen to give a try, and he offered to save a good spot in front of the stage so off I went. There were quite a few other photographers waiting when I arrived and we chatted with some of them while waiting for the show to begin. The 5DMk2 still seems to be a bit of a novelty, and attracted a fair amount of attention amongst the guys standing nearby.

 I made the mistake of not shooting in shutter priority (or manual) mode, so the shutter speed was sometimes as slow as 1/60s which is not fast enough for dance. Thus, most of these images are less action shots and more the performers poses at the end of segments of their program. I definitely need a bit more practice with this type of photography.

 After the 30-minute show my friend and I went into the food court for drinks and it we noticed several members of the crew had quickly changed into street clothes, but left their makeup on and came in for a quick meal--an interesting contrast from their appearance on stage. It would have been fun to have had some images from there as well.

 This coming Sunday evening (January 25) is Chinese New Year's Eve (i.e., lunar new year), which ought to provide some more colorful photo opportunities.

7 Race Boats Leave Singapore

I went back to the One Degree 15 Marina Club this morning to photograph the boats in the Volvo Ocean Race as they left to start the 4th leg of the race. There were a lot more people at the marina this time, and lots of activity preparing for the departure. I set my tripod at a good vantage point, away from the crowd, to photograph the boats as they pulled away from the marina and headed out to the start. The boats started leaving, one by one, at 11 AM, and departed at roughly 5 minute intervals.
 
I wished I had a slightly longer lens (the longest I have with me in Singapore is a 24-105mm) but I made do with what I had. I used a polarizing filter, which cuts about two stops, and then I made the images even darker by underexposing by another stop, thinking the scene was brighter than it was. Fortunately, these are RAW images, which gives quite a bit of latitude in exposure adjustment in post-processing.
 
The order of the boats in the images is as follows: 1) Delta Lloyd; 2) Ericsson 3; 3) Green Dragon Team; 4) Telefonica Black; 5) Telefonica Blue; 5) Puma; 6) Ericsson 4. There were 8 boats at the start of the race, but Team Russia failed to secure sufficient sponsorship, and had to pull out of the race upon reaching Singapore. It appears this is an example of the impact of the global financial crisis.
 
Next stop for the boats is Qingdao, China, with the predicted arrival on the 30th of January.

Update

The official race website has a fascinating race tracking page--highly recommended!

Volvo Ocean Race Singapore Stopover

The Volvo Ocean Race 2008/2009 is on a stopover in Singapore until Sunday, January 18 and I went out to see if I could make some interesting photos last Sunday morning.  This race began as the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1973/1974 and became the Volvo Ocean Race in 2001/2002.

When I arrived there were only 3 boats at the marina, and they all headed out for a day sail in less than an hour.  Not being a VIP client of one of the race boat sponsors I didn't have access to getting really close to the boats, let alone a chance for a ride, unfortunately.  

I guess I should add that I am not exactly an accomplished sailor.  On my one and only sailing adventure on Lake Superior back in the early 1970s, I distinguished myself by throwing up all over the captain's (i.e., my older brother's) sleeping bag.  Somehow, I don't think that would exactly qualify me to be a crew member of any of the boats in this race.

I made one image of the Team Delta Lloyd boat leaving port.  This boat was the "runaway winner of the 2005/2006 race" according to the official race website (I suppose the crew wouldn't appreciate it if I mentioned that the boat is currently in last place).

The only 'action' photo that I managed was on what I suppose is best described as a 'closed course', sadly.  Perhaps I can find some more intriguing photo ops if I go back this coming Sunday morning, when the boats are scheduled to depart on the next leg of the race, to Qingdao, China.  

Five Low-Light Images

Attached are 5 images from early this morning. This first image is from the plaza between the two towers of The Sail @ Marina Bay apartment complex; The second image shows a bit of the Anderson Bridge; The third and fourth images are different compositions of the Esplanade Bridge, which appears almost to be a desaturated image with spot color, but is actually mostly unaltered (other than some minor exposure adjustments and a tiny bit of cropping). The fifth image is a different composition of the shadows cast by the floodlights under the Esplanade Bridge--this time I left it in color, although it is naturally almost completely monochromatic.
 
I continue to be absolutely thrilled by the Canon 5D Mk2. As others have said--this camera is clearly capable of taking much better pictures than I am.

Recommended Reading

A friend of mine mentioned Michael Lewis' article in Portfolio.com entitled "The End" the other day during an iChat, and I finished reading it last night.  This is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the world of investment banking, drawing upon the author's account of his own experiences from the late 1980s in the business as presented in "Liar's Poker" and then updating with it with profiles of some of the players who developed a good understanding of what was really going on with the complex and opaque subprime investments on Wall Street.

One particular quote from the article, about investor Steve Eisman will give you an idea of the tone of the article:

But he couldnʼt figure out exactly how the rating agencies justified turning BBB loans into AAA-rated bonds.

“I didnʼt understand how they were turning all this garbage into gold,” he says. He brought some of the bond

people from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and UBS over for a visit. “We always asked the same

question,” says Eisman. “Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And Iʼd always get the same reaction.

It was a smirk.” He called Standard & Poorʼs and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate

prices fell. The man at S&P couldnʼt say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative

number. “They were just assuming home prices would keep going up,” Eisman says.

One caution--the language is a little strong in places (i.e., the 'f' word appears fairly frequently, and no, I am not referring to 'fiduciary').

Highly recommended reading!

Meiji Shrine in the Morning

Meiji Shrine is my favorite place to go for a morning walk in Tokyo.  Of course, it doesn't open until after sunrise, so it is not a good place for very low light photography, but the light that I appreciate there is low angled light that comes streaming in through the trees to illuminate the lanterns and cast intriguing shadows, particularly in the winter time.  

Attached is a photo I took on a walk in December with the Canon 5D Mk2.  I have taken lots of early morning photos in Meiji Shrine over recent years, but had not photographed this particular scene before.  This paper lantern in the first image was set up in preparation for the New Year observances and I happened to be there at the right time to catch the shadow on the tree trunk. 

The second image is a small box offering special poem-like messages from Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken.  The only lens I had with me on this trip was the Canon 85mm f/1.2, which I hadn't hadn't used very much previously, but it is incredibly sharp (albeit very heavy to carry).

Fullerton Hotel

The Fullerton Hotel, originally the Singapore General Post Office opened in 1928 (according to the Wikipedia article) is also a very attractive subject early in the morning.  It sits directly in front of the Cavanagh Bridge (see earlier posts on this topic), and is also an enjoyable place to eat lunch.  

Here are a couple of photos that I took this morning with the Canon 5D Mk2 while walking around shortly after 6 AM.  The 3rd image shows a bronze art installation depicting some young kids jumping into the river.  I actually think this scene is more interesting as a photographic subject in low light like this, than it is under brighter conditions.  Any thoughts?

More Cavenagh Bridge

I thought a couple more of the Cavenagh Bridge photos from this morning's walk in Singapore might be in order.  This bridge was built in 1868 it seems, based on the inscription on the fence in the 2nd image.  Walking at 6 AM here is quite rewarding as long as there are night lights like these to photograph!  These are also up on Flickr.