Malacca five foot way shophouses

Five foot way is the typical architecture style that is unique and native in South East Asia shophouses. The covered walk way is within shophouse property but is for public use, providing shade from sun and rain. This design is by law requirement for shophouses since British Malaya era. Thus the footway infront of shophouses must be at least five feet in the clear.

This photo was taken in Malacca. We stopped at the wrong place far away from our destination. Yet I believe this is the only row of shops that have their wooden window all opened at the same time. Lucky for me : )

Hereby I attached a copy of colour version too.. I cropped to square size as currently I’m studying on film medium format camera such as Rolleiflex. The most common aspect ratio are 6×6cm or 6×4.5cm using 120mm film. So the photos will be in square shape, giving a touch of vintage feel.

Malacca five foot way shophouses

Foreign worker quarters in B&W

Hello everyone. This is the first time I’m using Wordpress version 2.7! It’s amazing, I would say the layout and functionlity are much better and user friendly than the previous version. Thanks a lot to my brother James Pang, who upgraded the Wordpress for me.

This is also the first time I’m posting a photo in black and white. I’m always amazed by a lot of impressive black and white photos that I came across all these years. The only regret is, I’m not belong to the B&W film era and don’t know a thing about dark room processing, all the techniques, chemicals and papers…  So I never know how it feels to shoot in film and the process in the dark room, the feeling of anticipation by looking at the image revealing itself on the photo paper. It might be time consuming, yet the satisfaction feeling you get will make a good compensation for that.

In the current digital era, less and lesser people know how to appreciate the beauty of black and white nor to understand it. Why black and white? What’s the different between shooting in black and white compare to colour photo? Well, black and white photo doesn’t attract your attention with its play of colour. It solely depends on its ability to communicate rather than on its appealing visual presentation like colourful photographs. Therefore, it requires more attention in composition, lighting, perspective and the context that the photographer try to present.

Here is my first attempt of black and white. I came across this simple bicycle in front of foreign worker quarters of a pineapple farm in Simpang Renggam. Of course, I shoot it in colour digital format using my trusty Nikon D80 camera. B&W conversion was later carried out in Photoshop CS2. I also attach an original photo in colour format. Do let me know, which one you prefer. Before that, I must admit that I shoot this photo because of the attraction of mixed colours of all the hanging cloth. Bear with me, as I’m yet to see the world in black and white : )

Remember, black and white photo can be powerful as well. It tells a story in both emotional and beautiful way… Hope those who interested in black and white photography can try it out often. Cheers!

Foreign worker quarters in colour

p/s:

If you need extra dose of B&W poison, please visit PhotoMalaysia forum. There are plenty of veteran/expert/master that will be glad to answer all your questions.