Ikebukuro

It was a cold morning.
I sat at the hotel's smoking corner for the free wifi.
Wearing red socks. They kept slipping down.
Decided to buy new socks from IOIO departmental store but it was only 10am.
Ootoya for breakfast? Haven't had the chance to try it in SG.
Yes! It's open.
Had salmon. Was alright.
Sat by window and wondered why such a large group of people was needed to close off the main road. The Japanese do it most methodically. It's like they have a rule book complicating things.
Waiting to cross the road. Drizzling. Two girls discussed in Mandarin how long my hair was.
Holding damp umbrella and wondering if it's okay to spend so much on a pair of socks. But Vivienne Westwood socks come in the craziest designs.
Paid for socks with credit card.
High school marching band! Girls with cute blue capes!
Pictures. 3GS goes black screen. Panic.
Finish taking pictures. Returned to hotel to attempt to revive phone.
100 yen to use the internet.
No phone. Unable to convert yen to SGD, how was I supposed to shop?
Google Apple service centres. Ginza. Which station exit is the nearest?
No way to tell time? What if I miss my flight?
Panic.
Breathe. Mind clears a little. Google black screen iPhone 3GS.
There it is, the solution.
What would I do without Google?
Head towards station.
What's going on?
Lots of people sitting in neat rows on the road, waiting for something to happen.
In chronological order:

Actually there are more of that morning. But the ones on the Golden Half are magical, somehow. They remind me of every single thing that happened - if not for loose socks and a phone blackout, I would have left Ikebukuro before the festivities started. They're like my portkey.

Half and Half

I once read a remark that the Golden Half is a high-concept camera. I don't remember who said it and where I read it but the comment stuck in my head.

I didn't quite understand what it meant though. I thought it would be a fun camera to do conceptualised shots with, but high-concept makes it sound so... difficult. Recently I got back two rolls of Golden Half shots and that got me thinking really hard about it again.

Taking nice photos with this camera is not easy. You have to think about compatibility of partner frames or hope for happy accidents. I also found out that snapping wildly at anything that catches my fancy is not the way, since that sort of thoughtless abandon rarely produces pictures. What I perceive through the viewfinder, how I use space and distance, what I aim to capture... everything seems to work a little differently with this cute little thing.

I only have six rolls taken by the Golden Half since I bought it in Tokyo, three of which were shot there. The fourth roll was shit and made me put the camera aside for a pretty long while. The last two were used recently in an effort to figure out how to take better stuff with it.

I could depend on chance but really, probability has not yielded good results. I have very few shots I truly like.

I don't like multi-lens cameras - Actionsampler, Supersampler, Pop9, etc - but I like the idea of half and half. Which is why I want my pictures scanned that way. I know some labs scan each half as an individual photo, but I think that defeats the purpose of the Golden Half.

Still, I cropped some of the photos from the recent rolls to see how they would look without their companion.

Sometimes one half looks better without the burden of the other but often I find them more interesting as a pair, perhaps cos I've already seen them as a duo.




A couple of times I got shots like that - one half flanked by two quarters.

Cluttered.



Better cropped?



Throw in thick black borders?



I don't know. I can't decide on anything other than think more shoot more. I shall keep playing with the Golden Half until I get back a roll at least 75 percent of which I like.

I'd forgotten about these

When I was young, I would go to a photo studio near my market to take passport photos. Photo shops then were typically bigger than the counters you see these days, because there would be in the back large pieces of equipment, backdrops and chairs for photo-taking.

All my passport sized head shots were sullen-faced. I don't think I enjoyed being photographed, plus I had the notion you're not supposed to smile as that distorts your face and you won't look like you.

I think it used to be common for such photo labs to display the pictures they had taken in such a way. The arrange-under-glass-tabletop idea is particularly nostalgic.



We were wandering around Little India one very hot afternoon a couple of weeks back when I stopped to take the outside of this shop. The uncle saw me and waved at me to take as many as I can, as they would redevelop the area soon. Anxiously I asked him when, but he just shrugged and told me soon everything there would be gone.

I stepped into the shop to look at some very old cameras and pretty old-looking rolls of film. I was bowled over by the interior, because it felt so familiar even though I'd never been there.

I showed the uncle my blackbird, fly camera as he was interested in it. Having made conversation, I asked if I could take pictures of the inside of the shop (usually I wouldn't dare).

There were two or three customers coming in to take head shots during the time I was there. It was all done very efficiently.





I imagine many Indian nationals coming in here to take portraits to send home. They'd be able to pick out their favourite jacket and tie from the lot here and preen in the mirror for a bit.





Lots of faded packets. I had the urge to go through everything to see what had remained uncollected and wonder why. Think about all the stories in there.

Until I started playing with plastic cameras and film, it had never occurred to me how important photo labs were to many of the foreign workers here. Whenever I prowl around in Cash Converters for old cameras, there would be one or two of them trying to pick out a cheap film camera. I imagine them documenting their outings and life, flipping through their stash of photos affectionately, picking out the happiest ones to send back home.

Remember passing around numbered albums to order photos from?






Many years back I went to a modern-day photo lab to take passport photos. The teenage girl whipped out a digital point-and-shoot. I looked around for the designated photo-taking area. She gestured at me to sit on the high stool right beside the counter and shoved up against the wall - probably the very same one she just had lunch on.

After that I had one other modern-day experience. It was one of those photo lab chains at Raffles Place. At least they had a small designated area with professional lights and camera, even though it was separated from the busy corridor by only a glass wall. The photos were shit and handed to me on a floppy. I was left with the awful feeling that that ugly photo of me would exist forever. Although the truth is that film has lasted longer than floppy disks. I threw it away.

These days I take passport photos in instant booths, because the photos out of there look slightly fuzzy and blurred at the edges, like you're a real person but not quite defined. And because of that, you always look good.

Happy accidents

The roll of expired Kodak E100VS yielded three curiously pink and blue shots. I love them and wouldn't have minded a few more.

The day I was attacked by mosquito swarms

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I love bumboat rides and big fat clouds.






My favourite tree there at high tide and low tide.











It says Sundry Shop. I was too chicken (it looked wild and scary) to go nearer.




Adventures on Pulau Ubin from a couple of weeks back. On photos, the whole thing looks so tranquil I can almost forget how I was attacked by swarms of mosquitoes, how grossly sticky and sweaty I was after a day of cycling in heat and extreme humidity, how good a shower felt at the end of the day, and how I had to slather on anti-iching gel for a few days after. But the key word is almost.