maybe it is, maybe this is all that’s left cos i’ve retold anything juicy to whoever matters a mere 20 times already. i’m all dry.
please note that the damage for that stash equals approximately RM145 (give or take with the fluctuating exchange rate). jyeeeeeeaah.
the first part of the long leave commenced with a road trip to malacca. yes, we all roll our eyes at the little town that spawned, since the last count, 2,134,518 lomo photos and even more artsy fartsy DSLR shots. post-worked and posted to death. which is why the posse road trip was sorely missing one mr music and one miss rabbit (who scurried off to the less-travelled pulau ketam instead).
so malacca is, in the loosest sense, a home town of sorts. sketchy family history about supposed baba nyonya heritage, teochew wanderers touching points along the west coast, and the annual ching bing (qing ming to you) trip which i’ve never participated in, all tie me back to the state. plus i am head-over-heels for the lard-soaked chicken rice balls. probably the strongest proof of my heritage, methinks.
closed my eyes and picked two cameras to accompany me on the trip: the beloved LC-A+ and the paradoxically under- and over-rated golden half.
expired centuria dnp lends a rather strong purple haze to all photos (tested in a few trial rolls) which i’m not particularly fond of. i guess despite my occasionally pink hair, i’m a conventional girl at heart.
the weather was blazing, which just screamed for a fixed-speed toy cam and a tribe toyota brolley.
how obliging.
overpriced baubles and the throngs of KLites aside, the town has also fascinated me with that delicious creepiness old abandoned buildings have. as you peek through a crack in a mildewed door, you start pondering the “whys” “hows” and especially the “whos” of this dilapidated shell of a house, even expecting to be greeted by an unblinking otherwordly eye (because that’s what always happens in the movies, ok).
these place are supposedly unclean but with my starbucks-numbed senses i couldn’t and haven’t felt a thing. maybe just a little imagined loss and despair which in all probability stems from me trying to inject some romanticism into my yuppie life.
still, annual pilgrimages to the place has made me a little sick (though we could pin that on the horrid horrid satay celup).
chicken rice balls. check. st paul’s church. check. techni trishaws. double and triple checked. eye on malaysia. maybe not. baba house. hmm. cendol. check. geographer. limau limau. jonker after 8pm. it’s as if time elbowed its way forward just to stand still.
a sparkling, gleaming white tomb of a 500-years dead and gone and forgotten malay warrior. i dare you to make sense of that.
but then again, i’m merely rambling, waiting for my hair to set. which it just has. i wish i were a peranakan princess.
so does straightening, colour-correcting, level-tweaking mean you’re cheating? or are you failing yourself by not making your celluloid snaps better? is it a compromise of skill of you don’t get it perfect in that one shot? or is it pure bull-headed, “cutting my nose to spite DSLRs” pride to shun technological enhancements?
people have been asking me good places to buy/process film.
i’ve not processed anywhere else other than a few shops at mid valley megamall and pp foto shop (usj 2).
i do not recommend the mid valley fellas at all. don’t know how or who actually does the processing, but nothing nice has ever come out of the rolls i’ve sent.
pp foto is great for the price and service, but was not too fond of the scanning they did for my cross-processed photos (E6 to C41).
don’t think, just film did a nice compilation/database of shops that sell and process film.
so i picked up my singapore rolls on the way to the doctor (yeah, sick on the fucking weekend. go fucking figure.) and while JT loves the cross processed look, i’m still not too sure how i feel about it. no doubt it’s interesting, but i think my money could be better spent on other things (RM38 per roll as opposed to the usual RM9). maybe i’m just not fond of the tint. shot sensia 200 at 400 to underexpose. have read about its red/green hue. like… huh, really? mine were blue/green. i want a slide that shifts red! anyway still have another roll in my golden half and a roll of kodak professional b&w lying around.<3
[update: JT rescanned the negatives and i love them!]
super baby @ urbanscapes
anti-social behaviour @ urbanscapes (at least aroha and i were playing mario kart together)
Chelsea Maika design
my new golden half. thanks, sayang. :)
sights of interest amongst dilapidated crack whore alley
four thousand geeks, an internet meme as old as time itself and game OSTs
i watched the most amazing song in the world. my next life goal is to watch yasunori mitsuda perform it.
“what’s that on your bag? that’s so cute!”
“oh, this? it’s a- pokeball.”
sip. sip. sipping 8 different kinds of beer at brewarkz.
“what the hell? this isn’t wine-tasting!”
gulp. gulp. gulping 8 different kinds of beer at brewarkz.
lc-a+; moleskine; artline; <3
golly gee willickers, it’s indie street.
the address defines its price range in singapore dollars
carefully-planned, accidentally-bohemian chic. a contradiction i don’t mind.
all the while as i snapped away, i psycho’ed myself with thoughts that they might just open their eyes and turn around
by bye, singapore. see you soon.
