PENANG
Streets and Lifestyles Phoneography
Hean Kuan Ong
PENANG
Streets and Lifestyles Phoneography
Hean Kuan Ong
PREFACE I am a Penangite, it means I was born in Penang and live my lifes in Penang. Penang island is a beautiful place in Malaysia. Some said it is the pearl of the orient, for me Penang is the place that makes me who I am. My name is Hean Kuan, 34 years old, software engineer who loves taking pictures of the streets and everything happened in my life. It started by discovering a mobile phone’s camera can do a great photography. It probably won’t produce a fine picture quality compare to expensive digital camera nowadays. But for me, it is sufficient to record my life, and the streets that I walk everyday. I told myself I wanna produce a photo album if I manage to collect 500 pictures. 500 pictures are not those random shots, I can easily takes more than that within a month. 500 pictures that are carefully selected and post process with the camera apps. It takes me 6 months to complete collecting them. All photos are in Black and White. It is my personal preference to do so. I feel my photos can tell better stories in Black and White. If
you happened to travel to Penang Island, you probably don’t see any famous landmarks in my series of pictures. Because I do not stay near to tourist spot. What you will see, is an ordinary penang guy’s footprints, beneath with the rhythm of the Penang lifestyles. I hope you enjoy my series of photos. If you happen to like my works, you are free to follow my tumblr, http://streetkaki.tumblr.com/ or you can reach me through email mysurface @ gmail .com.
There is no ending in photography, at least for me. I can see myself taking more photos in future, and photography styles will continue to evolve. Recently, I just bought myself a compact camera, Ricoh GR, yeah! I still love my iPhone 5s, but realized its limitation at low light condition, I decided to get myself a Ricoh GR. I have been told that GR is a camera killer. Once you have it, you will only take pictures with it. At first, I do worry GR may kills my phoneography too, seriously. But no! I am owning a GR now, but I still take pictures with my phone. Therefore my phoneography project will carry on. Probably the next reach of 500 pictures may takes longer time than this time, may be a year, or longer. Do you like photos? Or just enjoy taking photos? That is the question I always asked myself. I realized they are mutually exclusive. One may like to take photos when they are travelling, but when they come back, they will just leave the photos stayed in the SD card. One may take photos and share it in Facebook, but they don’t look back those photos. Is it because nowadays taking pictures is so easy and it is no longer as precious as the old days? Do you like the photos you took? Don’t you want to keep them safe, and view them again and again at the later days? Yes, I do, that is why this album is created. Thanks for looking at it, I wish you have a pleasant day.. 04 May 2014 Hean Kuan Ong