I wouldn’t dare call myself a street photographer. In this day and age, who would? Oh wait - unless you’re one of those ‘photographers’ on the streets approaching pretty ladies, asking them for a photo. Heard that they are rampant on TikTok. ‘Hi I’m a street photographer, can I take your picture?” is how they begin. Cringe much. In China, they are getting increasingly popular that even got Straits Times confused with the term. You can read about said ‘street photographers’ in this article here. Got to do your research, team at ST : (

But what I can claim, is that I love photographing on the street a lot. In fact, I got my start in this career, photographing on the streets.

A journey starts with a single… insert your own cheesy liner here.

When I was based in Bangkok, Thailand, for work several years ago, all I had was a basic DSLR, the Nikon D40 for the weekends. My brother won it in a lucky draw and did not know what to do with it, so he handed it to me hoping I would fully utilise it. And utilise it I did.

It was then when I fell in love in photographing moments. Documenting the reality of whatever happened outside in the form of a single photo. That eventually evolved into a marriage between documentary photography and weddings. What else could be an even better match than that?

I know the term ‘documentary photography’ has been used loosely at weddings but it is also one term that the team at Bottled Groove is proud to use, during our pitches. Anyways, somewhere along this journey after I switched to Fujifilm, I came to be introduced to Ivan and Alwin, both active and popular members of the Fujifilm community here in Singapore. The former is also an official Fujifilm Ambassador, titled ‘X-Photographer’ by the brand. Ivan also started Fujifanboys, a platform to bring the Fujifilm users around the world together.

Ivan (left) and Alwin (right), the dynamic duo

Reason I am giving a backstory to this, is that the guys often organise photowalks for the fanboys, usually on the weekends. Usually, I get bogged down by weddings on the weekends but I was fortunate to have joined them on two photo walks in March this year when it was held on the weekdays!

So for this blog post, I will only be using photographs that I took, during the two sessions. Let’s dive in!

For the first walk on 4th March, it was at Potong Pasir. For the second, it was on 8th March, at Little India. I had not been to both places for a photo walk before and it was definitely something that excited me.

Let me group some photos for you, so that you can find out what makes me photograph certain photos.

Colours

This is kind of an obvious one. Without posing / choreographing a scene or the people within the scene, I like to find similar colours and group them into a photo. Let me show you what I mean.

You can also challenge oneself by trying to match more than one colour, or getting the primary colours in one single photo.

Green, Yellow, Red, Blue. Primary colours.

Simple enough eh?

Let’s move on to the next category that interests me - odd shapes, or matching shapes.

Shapes

Occasionally, I would come across an odd shape, or matching shapes that line up perfectly side by side. Again, no moving around of objects. Just, keep a keen eye and observe.

Again, I feel that this is relatively simple. It gets easier after repetition too.

Next, I am going to share about composition and documenting a scene. What makes a scene? Is it an aesthetically pleasing photograph? Is it juxtapositioning? Is it humour? Or is it a mix of everything?

Juxtapositioning

Photographs, like reality, has an odd way of telling us that life is a funny thing. Sometimes, things don’t work out the way we want it to be, but sometimes it does.

One of the hardest photographs to nail, juxtaposed photographs are photographs that allow you compare two or more situations within a photograph. In the scene above, a lady and a gentlemen are strolling by a police poster, with a female cop as well as a male cop. The only thing that would have made this photo above perfect, would be a cap on the walking lady too. Alas.

REAL SCENES

Sometimes, it is just as simple as capturing the scene as is, and documenting it. A scowl, or a friendly face when you approach, makes for a sometimes unforgettable photograph.

I try my best to avoid confrontations, but generally, people living in Singapore are rather friendly as long as you do not overstay your welcome.

Humour

I have a rather quirky idea of what makes good humour. As such, a lot of my wedding photos and street walk photos are often funny only to me. I don’t know - what do you think?

In the first image, it is not often we get to chance upon a parked Police car, let alone photograph it. Seeing Dexter poke his head and hands out with the camera, I could not resist. The sheer audacity of it all eh? And yes, there are two cameras pointed at me.

In the second image, uncle, rather oblivious to the fact that we are having a photowalk, pops his head out to the commotion of 20-plus people walking around his usually quiet neighbourhood. Little does the fellow photographer on the ground floor know what was happening and why was I photographing in his direction.

In the third image, yep - the light does not fail, ever.

In the fourth image, I found the photographer with the Old Chang Kee plastic bag rather dedicated to his craft of taking a photo, with a portable light no less, no matter the circumstance.

In the last image, nobody can ever explain the feet on top of a fruit stand. No matter who I show it to. Make of it what you will.

LAYERING

Also one of the toughest to nail, it is about separating subjects across the width of a photograph, with them each doing something interesting. Sometimes, not everyone is actively participating in something humourous or quirky/interesting. Sometimes, you luck out.

The last frame of course is framing, but technically, it can be layering too lol. Yea, the trick is, to try to keep a narrow depth of field. Sometimes I ‘gan cheong’ and photograph wide open haha. But when I do keep it at least f/8 above? *Chefs kiss*

I love this at weddings, because sometimes a scene can get quite chaotic and the only way to represent the scene in its chaotic fullest is to, just capture everything!

Summary

What is important here, is how much these casual walkabout photo shoots inform my decisions on a wedding day (and how observation is key). If you’d looked through some of my wedding work, you may find the documented photographs similar!

Anyways, I hope that for all you beginners out there, you found this at least a little useful. It really does with plenty of practice and even to date, I feel like I cannot get enough of that. Don’t be afraid to approach me directly via my IG if you have questions or tips lol.

Till then, do take it slow and the key point is, to just observe!

Photographs taken on the Fujifilm X100V

SOC Classic Negative and Acros Film Simulation

Street photography and how I approach them (Photo walks with Fujifilm community)