My Problem With Photography

My problem with photography is that it is a limited medium. In writing you are not constrained by what is in front of you; you can slow time, speed it up; you can give the gift of sight and sound; you're able to take a person into the zeitgeist - the mood of a moment, pointing to him the interesting, the beautiful - quickly skipping past the ugly and the mundane. You can grow whole forests at the speed of thought, feed your travellers exotic insects, send them on a tour of the royal gardens on the back of a bee. Writing is unrestricted, plugged directly into the imagination, and it changes the way you think simply because you can now capture thoughts - pluck them right out of the air, even, and store them in a format far more versatile than the printed image. Photography, however, is superficial. It is beautiful only in what you capture. Your style is the kind of things you shoot, as opposed to the kind of things you do to your subject. It is subtle, light. And it is inherently limited: even Henri Cartier-Bresson admits this - though he was talking about painting as a comparison, for he was himself a failed painter.

And yet ... photography is fun. It is a social activity, and it is a commercial one - you don't have such silly things as group outings in writing, for instance, because group writing produces some of the most horrible end-products known to man (i.e.: the Transformers 2 dialogue). Writing is also not commercial, for you do not see people arguing about the best brand of pen to use for their next novel; but it is lonely, and retentive, and often frustrating, and it is all those things in exchange for the creative control and power a writer wields over his work.

I'm going out for a photography outing tomorrow, and we're set to have a hell of a time (half of which would be commercial, materialistic comparison of gear). And the truth is that I am decidedly confused about photography, because for all the frustration I have with the limits of this medium ... photography is fun, and I have shot some pretty damned cool things in the short time I've been doing it. Like this, for instance:

... which is probably the one photograph I am most pleased with. And because I am a writer, I am a street photographer, because my storytelling habits have followed me off the page and onto the road, behind the lens and the mirror box. Photography is fun: it is accessible, easy. Sexy, even. And if photography has a place for me - the cynical, storytelling writer - then it has a place for everyone with the resources to get themselves a dSLR (and lens, and flash, and camera-bag, you get the idea ...)

If there is a art for the masses of the 21st century - mark my words, photography is it.

Photolog: Old Kuching

This was a photo-gathering taken a few weeks back - they've been 3 since, but I've only completed post-processing for this one. The idea for shooting in Old Kuching came about because I figured that I was going to be leaving soon (and yes, that I am) but at the same time I realized Kuching may be fundamentally different when I return. I have had friends who leave and come back to gross capitalism (i.e.: The Spring); what is to say that the Old Kuching I know and love will stay the same? The sampan rides, the uncomfortable coexistence of decay and tourism, smack side-by-side in crowded streets and wide boulevards, would they remain?

I am interested in stories, and in stories of my hometown; this photolog is my first attempt at keeping them.

That's us right there: Garrick, Joash, and Samantha. They were waiting for me to finish with a bunch of dumpsters clumped in an India Street back-alley. Those shot didn't make it past the post-processing stage.

This was taken in Elektra House, which was once the shopping mall in Kuching. I stood by the stairs and imagined a busier, happier time, one where couples sitting on steps actually mattered to the flow of traffic.

He was bored. This particular KFC outlet is from the old core of Kuching, and it stays mostly empty. The ceilings are mushy and aged, the seats tacky pink and green. And there are a lot of them. It isn't hard to imagine the store in better times.

"Uncle, smile!" I say, but he just looks at me, and then at my camera. He sits in that corner for hours - when we stop by for a drink at the open air market, at dusk, still he sits there, immutable, old. What were his dreams, when he was younger? Did he have any? How did he find this corner? These crates? I snap the picture, voice my thanks, but he only nods back at me.

Found in India street. What was it like for our parents, our grandparents? they had no labels, or brands, or ad campaigns to tell them what to buy.

Macaroni and chillis on Gambier Street. Ah, the sweet smell of globalization!

The old market smells of rats, and the ghost of crowds, and memories.

These two men started a conversation as soon as they pulled up to the Old Market jetty. Between them, the girl was texting someone else.

"Don't give it to them" Garrick told me.
"Why not?"
"They can find work on their own."
I looked at them, and then back at him. "They're BLIND, Garrick."

The crest at the top of the Old Post Office bears the legend Dum Spiro Spero: While I Live, I Hope. I was telling my aunt about it, and my grandfather overheard: "You know what it means?!" he interrupted.
"Yes." I said. "How do you know?"
My grandfather pauses, and smiles. "When I was in Primary 2, in St Thomas, they taught us what it meant."
Dammit, the colonialists had taste.

These men were kicking a ball and a bottle, amongst other things, outside this convenience shop. They looked happy enough.

This photolog was shot on Gawai, and the men you see here were longboating upriver. Twenty minutes later they left where they came from, but not after cleaning their boat and cooling themselves with the river water. Sam was horrified.

Kuching is a beautiful city. I will miss it.