double exposures

It took me a while to get it. Previously most of my attempts ended out with a negative that was blocked out like what happened to part of the second frame. However, figuring out that with the Holga, the correct exposure of the and ISO125 film was at F11 made it easier to figure out what combinations of exposures would work. What is needed now is patience and a bit of luck in finding two compatible subjects that can be super imposed so that a multiple exposure can be done successfully. © 2006 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

la roue de paris

Going home from work I noticed that a structure was being built at the corner of Suan Lum Night Bazaar. It was strange because for sometime it was reported in the news that the Night Bazaar is going to be torn down and in its place a new shopping mall, hotel etc complex is going to be built so it was odd that a new structure is being built. A few weeks later, the imposing structure revealed a huge ferris wheel. Not as big as the London Eye but definitely much bigger than the ferris wheel in the ferias I saw back home in my youth. When it was about finished, I excitedly dropped by with my Holga in tow and took some pictures. I suspected that what I was seeing in the viewfinder is not what was being translated into pictures. So I took notes in a notebook on how I had composed my picture in my viewfinder. This is where I found that there are still a lot to spare to the right and below of the holga viewfinder. I went back one more time with better knowledge of what to expect with the viewfinder. This was when I was able to take a picture of the wheel and the tower of the new L&H Bank building. The result was more or less what I wanted except of the additional foliage below. One of these days I will go back during sunset when the lights of the wheel are turned on just as the sky had turned bright orange as the sun is setting.
© 2006, Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

royal barges II

I was glad that the lunch at the embassy was finished on time. These things have a way of going longer than expected especially if delicious food is plentiful. Food that reminds me of Manila. I went back home and changed to my yellow shirt. Yellow is the color of Monday which happens to be the birth color of HM the King. I took my Canon 10D because I did not want to leave anything to chance. While I am an avid film user, in situations where I need to be sure of the outcome of my picture and in situations when the picture I need to take is a fleeting event, I always go for digital. It was 1:30 PM when I reached Pra Arthit near Khao San Road. When I got to the fort area, all the places beside the river had already been taken and there are at least 15 layers of people behind them so I will not get a good vantage point. On the way to the park, I recalled that there was a restaurant that was selling tickets for river seats for THB900.00. When I got there, the guard told me that the tickets are sold out. But there are motorcycle drivers there and he told me that they can take me to a place beside the river and a seat would cost me THB600.00. Since the Royal Kathin Ceremony of the Royal Barges is a once and a while event, I did not hesitate to take the offer. Luckily, I was one of the first to get there so I still got a good choice of a seat right beside the river. By 3 pm the house beside the river where I got seats was literally filled with people so I had to brave the heat and claim my seat to be sure that no one else will take it from me. I do not want to give up my vantage point. After the heat, the sky became overcast and the rain fell very hard. As if on cue, right before the start of the parade of the barges, the rain stopped. To commemorate this event, I posted pictures of the barges that I took weeks ago when I accidentally discovered the barges. This picture was the only decent one that came out from the film where for some reason most of the pictures I took were blocked out. The film had a good density based on the contact print so I will be making a silver print of this one day. Below is a photoshopped picture of my favorite among the pictures I took of the Royal Barges.



I almost forgot, all photos © 2006 by daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

old bangkok buildings

Bangkok is a very vibrant city with new buildings going up all the time. However it is also fascinating to find buildings from different periods still around in the different parts of the city. Near where I live, I find a lot of buildings perhaps dating to the early '60's and late '70's. In Chinatown there are buildings from the early part of the 20th century. It has been overcast the last few weeks raining most mornings with the rest of the day being cloudy. Last saturday, I did the contact print of the test I did of the Holga weeks ago. The best result for the Kodak 125 px came from the one taken using an EI 80. At that the print looked more of a zone IV rather than a zone V because I was taking the photo based on the assumption that the aperture is set at f/8. The result confirms that the Holga is set at f/11. The bright sun and the cloudy day setting is meaningless. This explains why I was getting mostly underexposed pictures. At any rate, taking pictures with cloudy skies gave me the opportunity to do multi-exposures. Metering is simple. Once the reading is done, it is a matter of taking enough shots for the frame to build up enough exposure that would be equivalent to exposing the frame to an f/11 light. I have figured that it works on multiples of 2 So F/11=2x F/8=4xF/5.6=8xf/4.0=16xf/2.8 and so on. One can even do a combination of different light, provided that you keep track of the light allowed in the camera. I think one time I took a frame as follows: 1xf/8 + 2xf/5.6 and you will arrive to the same exposure as F/11. The density of the film after development should be in the right range that it can be printed on normal contrast (grade 2 or 3). Figuring this offers a lot of exciting possibilities in taking pictures with multiple exposures. #&169 2005 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

bts walkways

I was very glad when the walkways were built underneath the bts train lines. It meant that most pedestrians like myself can walk high above the traffic below. I like some of the architectural details they have added onto the walkways where the lines seem to blend with each other. These were taken when I was figuring out the Holga. A lightleak occured in the top photo, not because of the Holga itself but because I did not wrap the film with foil before sending it to the developers. When I started wrapping the later rolls in foil or any dark opaque material, the lightleak disappeared. I placed the camera on a tripod in this case, but there seems to be some vibration on the floor causing some amount of blur as it took 4 shots to take each of these pictures. The result is a slight blur. © 2006 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi all rights reserved.

wat po

Wat Po is located beside the Grand Palace. One of its famous temples houses the reclining buddha. These were the best of the bunch that I took that afternoon. I was a bit disappointed because of the way the pictures of the spires came out. This is when I suspected that the Holga's viewfinder is showing me just a portion of what the camera lens is actually taking. Another observation was that the pictures were slightly underexposed, considering that I had set the lens on the cloudy sky setting-meaning something like f/8 on an ISO 100 film. In this case I was using an ISO 100 Fuji Velvia. This may support the assertion I saw somewhere that whatever the setting of the Holga, it only takes pictures at f/11, meaning you need a very bright sun, which explains why I got decent pictures when I took pictures of my friends when they were swimming in the pool before Songkran, the afternoon sun was shining very brightly that time. These pictures at Wat Po were taken. at 5 pm just when the sun was getting ready to set. © 2006 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

how the holga sees

It is June, a start of another month. Last year I went on a camera buying spree. I was able to acquire second hand cameras, a Leica M6, Hasselbad 500C, Rolleiflex, Canonet QL-17 and the brand new Holga. It was relatively easy to figure out most of these cameras with the exception of the Holga. My first roll of film came back blocked out that it was useless. I could not figure the right exposure. When I finally was getting decent exposures with the camera, the picture is coming out not as I wanted it to be. So a few weekends ago, I tried figuring out a test for a camera that has a fixed f stop and shutter speed.

To do an exposure test, I placed the Holga on a tripod (yes the one I got from Hong Kong already has a tripod screw mount, no need for modifications!) Since it is of one exposure, (f/8) then I metered the wall accordingly using the rated speed of the film, in this case Kodak 125PX. That morning I was getting a reading of f/4 at 1/125 sec, the closest to 1/100 sec supposed shutter speed of the Holga. Working on this assumption, I should click the shutter 4 times to reach the equivalent exposure of and f/8 at 1/125 sec. I then did the next two frames at the equivalent of one higher EI and one lower EI. The negatives look promising but I still did not get to do a contact print to judge which was the best EI to use. I will find out the answer this weekend.

The second part of the test was to figure out how the Holga sees. I positioned the camera with the corners of the square covers the Holga's viewfinder totally. The picture at the top of this blog entry shows the result of how the Holga sees up close. It shows that there are a lot of extra space to the right side and the bottom that I did not see when I was looking at the view finder. I suspected this was the case because earlier when I took a picture of the new Ferris Wheel in Suan Lum, I covered the view finder with the entire wheel. Yet when the negatives came back, there was a lot of space available again to the right and to the bottom. This will be useful in figuring out how to compose the photograph.

I am slowly figuring out this plastic camera. I decided that in order that I can enjoy my cameras, I will have to spend 2 months with each of them at a time concentrating on each of them, learning how to use them. I am now learning more about my Holga and finally am starting to figure it out. So this June and July, I will post the pictures that I manage to come up with this fantastic plastic camera. I am sure I will be having fun along the way!

© 2006 daddywasabi

lotus pond

I always come back to this lotus pond near my home. One time I almost got into trouble because everyone was jittery about security and they thought I was taking pictures of sensitive installations, when all I was interested are the lotus flowers in full bloom early in the morning. I promptly removed myself from the place before I get into any more trouble. But when I went back last January, I limited myself to where there can be no mistake in my intentions, that is to take the pictures of the lotus flowers in full bloom. To my surprise, one woman told be to go further in because she said, I might even find small turtles in there. I did not find them, only more of the lovely bright pink flowers lit brightly by the morning sun. © 2006, Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

luang prabang trees

It was not an original idea but there were a lot of bare trees reaching up like fingers to the sky. So I could not help myself and used up a lot of memory space in my cf card. It was also a good way of easing up on my back because of the long motorcycle ride. © 2006, Luang Prabang, Lao PDR, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

royal barges

I found it by accident. I did not even realize that the barges were located somewhere in Samsen. I just decided to go back to this soi we entered by mistake during the Holy Week when I was visiting the old churches of Bangkok. After taking pictures using my Holga, I went to the river and found black boats and beyond were some of the Royal Barges. I saw the sign in the piers that on certain days, the express boats will not be passing by some piers because of the rehearsals of the Royal Barges to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the ascension to the throne of HM the King. The minders of the place allowed me to take pictures. But then he commented why I was taking pictures when the sun is going down. I took his advise and came back the next day with my Canon 30V and a roll of film. It was a bit cloudy with light being diffused but bright enough and I went and took as many picture that my roll would allow without me falling into the water. These are just scans of the negatives. I will be definitely be making hand prints of these pictures. © 2006 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

erawan revisited

A few weeks ago, a crazed man went to the Erawan shrine at the corner where the Grand Hyatt Erawan is located and smashed the revered image. People were shocked to learn of the news the following morning. Now the Fine Arts department is makinga new statue which is made of metal and cement which will include the smashed plaster statue. In another few months the new statue will be ready. When I visited the place, pictures of the old statue were placed in the shrine. Last week, as I was taking pictures of the walkways under the BTS line, I notices that they had erected white scaffolding around the old shrine with the picture of the original statue outside. I read in the papers that when they were building the old Erawan Hotel, so many accidents had been happening during the construction. The place was being declared as cursed. Erawan is the Hindu elephant god. So a shrine to the Hindu god Bhrama was constructed. After this was done, all he accidents stopped. I never saw the old Erawan Hotel. When I moved to Bangkok in 1990, the Grand Hyatt Erawan was already being constructed. With all the changes the old Erawan shrine was left untouched. Many people from different countries visit the shrine and make their wish as the shrine is well known to make some wishes to come true. I took the pictures using Leica M5 with a 50mm summicron lens. #&169 2006, Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

erawan vendors

I visited the shrine again a few weeks ago to see what had happened to the shrine. I also took pictures of the vendors around the shrine. The lottery ticket has been there forever. I posted his picture last year. Along the road are the sellers of the garlands, incense stick, bananas and the elephant statues that are usually offered in the shrine. I will be posting pictures of te shrine as I saw it in a few days from now. © 2006, daddywasabi, April 2006, Bangkok, Thailand, all rights reserved.

lumpini park

On that day, there were sculptures on display near the red cross building. Otherwise it was an ordinary Sunday afternoon at the park. Near the open air gym, there were men who seem to be practicing an ancient martial art as they were hitting each other with thick wooden rods that was perfectly coreographed that each of these men seems to avoid each others fatal blow. The ancient trees still provide a restful shade . I am glad I live nearby this park because this place never ceases to provide me with something new to look at. © 2006 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi all rights reserved.

pool

We had a get together a few days before Songkran and the temperature had started to become very hot. The two photos on top were taken with a Leica M6 with the viewfinder guide in the wrong scale. The last photo was taken using Holga. I wanted to take a picture of just my friends and the water. April 2006, Bangkok © 2006, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.