Perhaps this picture will cause you to consider doing medium format film photography. Although i did a lot of nice sexy beach shoot with Amanda, this photo taken in a cafe on the Mamiya RZ67Pro with 110 f2.8 lens just raised the level to 3D literally.
The colors and tones are just so beautiful. Its mind blowing to think that one need to spend USD 2000 on puny FF digital nowadays when USD 400 gets you this amazing gear with plenty of $$ for film development. Awesome.
This is Amanda CME (fb,insta: mak3upqueen). I met her 3 years ago and last sunday we decided to collaborate. I shot this album using both film and CCD digital. Unfortunately film is still processing and not out yet, so do enjoy my digital version. Shot on the “lousiest nikon camera – ken rockwell” D3000.
As much as i am eager to see the output from the 6×7 film i shot, these CCD output from my Nikon camera are just awesome. Amanda have done so much makeup for her clients, doing model poses is like a walk in the park.
Hope you enjoyed the photos. I am the best portrait photographer in Malaysia, not commercially, but in my thoughts, reach out and passion. Do forgive me for the arrogance 😉
I gave in to the alluring temptation of trying out the FujiChrome film simulation. How did this happened? Ever since i sold off all my full frame digital cameras like the leica ME and Nikon D610, i had only the d3000 nikon, F100 nikon film camera, a FZ1000 bridging digital 1″ sensor and two M7’s, a Bessa R3m and a Hexar for my M mount lenses. So you can see its 90% film cameras.
Shooting film been great and i truly enjoy photography and slowing down so much. However there are some films that are no longer in production and as i scoured through the internet looking at the tones and feel of some of these bygones film, i came across discussions about Fujifilm’s simulation of FujiChrome.
Fujichrome only exist in digital today, to be exact, it exist only as a jpg output on a digital Fuji camera. I resisted the idea of buying another camera since the whole exercise been done with and i could finally have “peace” 😉 but days of looking at the FujiChrome samples got the better of me. I went out and acquire a Fuji X-A2, the entry level Fuji, a M to Fuji adapter to use my M mount lenses and a 16mm f1.4.
It happened that two of my friends are coming down to Kuala Lumpur, two very attractive friends that is. So i took the opportunity to use the FujiChrome simulation and 3 lenses to produce some new albums. The lenses are 40mm 1.4 Voigtlander M(60mm on fuji), 28mm F2 Ultron (42mm on fuji) and 16mm f1.4 Fuji native lens.
The 16 f1.4 is an amazing lens. It could focus as close as 5 cm away and have shallow DOF for full body portraiture at a close distance.
I switched to Astia film simulation while using the manual 28 mm f2 (42mm) to see if it gets me what i want. I would say the results are good but i still prefer the FujiChrome tones. On the Fujifilm X-A2, i am unable to have the other film simulation like Acros but since the X-A2 is using a conventional CMOS sensor instead of the Xtrans II, i didnt need to waste time on my LightRoom, almost all the pictures you see here are cleaned up from its JPG instead of raw.
Just look at those beautiful FujiChrome tones. I can only wonder what if the film still exist today, how much more different can it be apart from actual film grains. Using 40mm f1.4 mostly for the rest of the images here, I realized that focusing on Fuji is easy and you can magnify a moveable focus point to aid in the focusing.
Eilein have a beautiful visage and a taller than normal asian nose bridge. Shooting her portrait from the side angle highlights her features while the interesting light at 8 am brings in some drama to the image.
I hope you enjoyed this series of mine. Overall i feel that Fuji did a very good job bringing FujiChrome film simulation to the public though i believe it still looks very digital in comparison to my other actual film albums.
Here are some photos, mostly taken with lc-a using just distance focusing. Shooting without focusing is pretty much like a habit once you been thru 2-3 rolls on the lomo lc-a. I must say the images are rather…unconventional. Enjoy.
This is a delicacy you should try if you come to Penang. Unfortunately i distance my focus to be at the person rather than those delicious candies. Its basically glutinous rice cakes that are wrapped with peanuts and sugar. Yummy.
I was attempting to a picture of both of them facing each other. Multi-exposure is fun but takes some experimenting to get it right.
I had a fantastic weekend unwinding by doing a set of portraiture using the LC-A 120 medium format film camera and my trusty Leica M7.
One of the challenge that i faced is that LC-A and the bigger LC-A 120 have exposure control. This means that if you shoot backlighting photos, you will just end up with silhouette images. But as you can see in the images here, i managed to come up with a technique to fool the camera without using any filters or add ons.
Lomo cameras should be used with a lot of common sense and thoughts to get good images. If there is one thing you should forget, is to forget the 10 rules of lomography. There is no shortcut for good images and visualization.
All these photos are shot on a Fuji 400H pro for both the LC-A 120 and the Leica M7. You can easily differentiates the pictures of the LC-A 120 by its square format and the Leica being rectangle. These are taken at the beach and hotel called “LonePine” in Penang, an island on the northern state of Malaysia.
Miss Kim here is a top 10 Miss Malaysia in 2013. Though it has been years since she got involved in any beauty contest, you can see that she doesn’t require much effort to be photogenic. On the LC-A 120 camera, i took these images by standing just 1 meter apart. In lomography sites, you often see that almost all the images shown are taken on a centre subject and with light facing it else its dark, my examples here are unique because for once you get to see images taken using the LC-A 120 backlighting and yet decently exposed on the subject.
The technique is very simple. PM me if you want to find out 😛
Now i did a complete album using the M7 and fuji 400h pro film. It’s an emotional theme that portrays the relationship between a girl, a vintage camera at a lonely room. Do enjoy the images here, the complete set could be found at my facebook, fb:marcuslowphoto.
Next, i be sharing some of the candid photos i took on the LC-A 120 as well as street photos. Till then, adios.
There is this aspiring makeup artist, Megan khor that wanted to do a sexy swimwear album for a model chosen by her.
Ironically i was chosen for the task despite having the reputation as “the guy that avoids doing lingerie and overly sexy themes”.
After discussing about the shoot, i decided to do it. Personally i have always felt and still believe that doing lingerie shoot/nudes are just low skilled themes and often the subjects are portrayed in inferior porn like poses. i am pretty sure the world don’t need more of those.
This swimwear idea is different and since its outdoor i get to use my skills. Objective would be an album that shows class, highlight sexiness and elegant poses of the model and effective use of outdoor photography. The strongest reason that i accepted this however, is because I have known Megan for sometime and when she proposed to sponsor the swimwear and makeover, i knew she has her heart in it and i would put in mine to match. After all, when is the last time u met a make up artist that would sponsor the clothes.
Hidden in this whole album however is as truth, a message. I purposely used a 10 year old APSC nikon camera with 10 megapixel (yeah less than most phones nowadays) to create this album. Lets just say its my way of saying “No” to the new Nikon D5 announcement and the lure of constant upgrades.
So jump in to my facebook link below to see the rest and follow my page to see the next 2 albums done on the same genre.
Drop me some comments and feedback.
Models instagram : x.x.angela, eil3in
The 40mm 1.4 voigthlander is one of those lens that i sold and bought over again. Its not too normal as what 35 would render and its not as boring as 50 mm which everyone have in their arsenal. I allows just that extra bit of space to make the difference.
Here are some images of Pang yi ling (facebook) and Angela Lieche (facebook), both friends and freelance models in Malaysia that i recently collaborated with for a series of “Cheongsam”. Cheongsam is the chinese pronounciation for the traditional costume that chinese wore for festive seasons like Chinese New Year.
One of the mistakes that new photogs often make is placing a red costume on red background, usually the temples are chosen as the background for such shoot. In my series, i put Red (eilein) on an outdoor background with blue rails and some random spots, for White (angela) since she is wearing red, the temple at Petaling Street was chosen.
Do enjoy the images below and drop me some comments of your thoughts. Cheers.
* All images shot on Leica ME, Voigthlander 40mm 1.4, edited in LR, PS, VSCO filters.
So its christmas here already. For reading my blog, here are three(3) images from my recent-yet-to-be-uploaded albums for your viewing pleasure.
Have a wonderful weekend and do remember Christmas is about giving and not taking just as God freely gave His Son to us undeserving mortals.
I spent sometime reflecting upgrading my mental faculty to add poses to my workflow. Yup, poses. I think its working, i can now easily pose any outdoor model in decent poses regardless of the props available. Its not that hard once you have spent 30 minutes a day studying poses after your long day of work in a completely different field (app developement in startup). In this set of portraiture, i used a Voigthlander 40 1.4 that costs less than USD 500 with the Leica ME (ccd sensor).
Sexy. I find myself often struggling with this theme. The asian traditional values of grace, beautiful poses and my inherent preference of not doing anything on nude/lingerie which downgrade any beautiful model into soft porn is often at odds against each other when i study western art. Truth be told, i find recent works of China’s chinese photographers posing nude ladies outdoor tasteless, gimmicky and downright a hit at women’s honor.
On the other hand, as a women, sexy and curves are advantages of her body design, it should be highlighted in poses if its done correctly, with decent clothing that invokes that primitive visual response of viewers at a basic level.
A prop is essentially any item, object that the model can use to add interest to the visual image. In this picture, highlighting Rachel’s gladiator using the rear passenger seat and door adds interest to an otherwise weak image.
Simple poses with good natural lighting can never go wrong.
Thanks for viewing my latest portrait session, i have a lot more beautiful photographs from this session and will be sharing them on my next blog.
I know i been churning out a lot of crap reasons and morality lectures that nobody wants to hear, but hey…its how i feel in all honesty.
* featured image, taken using F2.0 at 1/3000, 40mm 1.4 voigthlander, Leica ME.
i took out the leica ME and my favourite voigthlander 28mm ultron. Left the noctilux in the dry box. Took a trip to penang.
Took these photos of Eilein.
M changing lives with images. 