Studio Based Portrait to Street Portrait Photography

From Studio based portrait to street portrait photography. This was a natural progression considering I no longer have a photography studio base to work from.

This is due to leaving my homeland of New Zealand in March 2011 to live in Phuket – Thailand. In 2015 I relocated to Malaysia spending one year exploring Penang, and I’m now a resident of Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur Photographers

Kuala Lumpur has a very active community of enthusiastic street photographers devoted to their craft. They get together for photo walks, organize regular gallery exhibitions, and manage several popular online forums for sharing their photography. Which is ideal for inspiration and is a valuable support structure for the members.

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Pasar Karat Flea Market Photo Walk

I stumbled upon “Pasar Karat” – a direct translation from Bahasa Malayu is “Rusty Market” while on my photo walk around Chinatown – Kuala Lumpur. In the 80’s the market was also referred to as the “Market of Thieves” apparently due to the questionable source of the goods for sale.

Pasar Karat is on the fringe of Petaling Street and starts at 5 am and stall owners are around to 10 am and I understand that Sunday is the busiest day with all the vendors turning out with their wares. Some of the old timers have been hawking for 20 – 30 years.

pasar_karat_mural
Signage for Pasar Karat

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Street Photography Ethics

Street Portrait Photography is my passion.

I love stepping out with my camera, wondering who I might meet on my travels, and what photos I’ll make along the way.

My vocation is portrait photography, and the street provides so many interesting subjects.

The opportunity to learn about people, a snippet of their lives is what motivates me to keep stepping out.

When the portraits are downloaded, it’s another opportunity for me to gaze upon the subject, recall our conversation and imagine more …

This is a short list of what is important to me in my craft of Street Portrait Photography.

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Sa Dingding at WOMAD New Zealand 2008

In 2008 I covered the WOMAD World of Music, Art and Dance Festival for the Taranaki Arts Festival Trust in New Plymouth. New Zealand.

WOMAD an internationally established festival, brings together artists from all over the globe. The central aim of the festival is to celebrate the world’s many forms of music, arts and dance.

In 2008 over 300 performers from 14 countries performed at the ‘open air’ stages at the picturesque TSB Bowl Of Brooklands in New Plymouth.

Artist Lineup

This is a sample of the artists I enjoyed:

Cara Dillion (Ireland)

Beirut (USA)

The Monks from Tasha Lhunpo Monastery (Tibet/India)

Dengue Fever (USA/Cambodia)

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba (Mali)

Kora (New Zealand)

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Portraits Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park

This morning was beautiful, and  I headed out at 8:30 am to the nearby Kuala Lumpur City Park (KLCC), armed with my camera and 85mm lens to take some portraits.

My aim was ten portraits, and to photograph people using natural light only. My desire was to approach strangers and ask for their portrait, and then ask them for a few minutes to ask a couple of questions.

In reality ten portraits was too ambitious. I was at the park for ninety minutes and spent time with people enjoying conversations, listening to their stories and sharing some details from my own story. Having this exchange is far better, and more interesting than speed shooting and collecting random portraits of strangers.

The questions I posed were influenced by a recent ‘Chase Jarvis 30 Days of Genius’ interview I watched with Michael Meade – storyteller and author of The Genius Myth.

QUESTIONS:

What makes you happy?

What is your gift to the world?

Everyone I approached was open to having their portrait taken and answering my questions.

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Phil Jones Graffiti Street Artist

Phil ‘suspect’ Jones is a multi-media artist and skater. He regularly collaborates with other Taranaki artists to create murals, organize graffiti exhibitions and accepts commissions.

I met with Phil at Suspect Studio in May – 2009 to photograph his creative space.

He has an upcoming group exhibition at the Lysaght Watt Gallery – COLLABORATIONS celebrating collective creativity 9 August – 3rd September 2016

4-6 UNION STREET (on The Square)
HAWERA 4610
SOUTH TARANAKI, NEW ZEALAND

 

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Freeman White Landscape and Portrait Artist

Freeman White is an internationally recognized landscape and portrait artist.

He sprung to National and international attention in 2006 when his painting “Portrait of Hans” –  Hans Kellet pen name of playwright Ryan McFayden – won the prestigious Adam Portraiture Award  at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery – Te Pukenga Whakaata.

I met with him at his Wellington based studio in September 2010 and captured this series of portraits.

For more about Freeman visit his site and Saatchi Art profile.

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Ian M Clothier Electronic Artist

I visited Ian M Clothier, electronic artist and co-founder of Intercreate Trust in his New Plymouth home studio, where we discussed his projects.

Namely the Haiku Robots which at the time he was exhibiting at Puke Ariki Museum New Plymouth – New Zealand.

This is a series of photographs taken at both his home studio and Puke Ariki Museum in September 2009.

Portrait of Ian at his home studio in New Plymouth, New Zealand.
Ian M Clothier at his home studio.

HAIKU ROBOTS: literally sends numbers to the computer, based on their changing location at the boundary of the project space. Numbers can be converted to text, just as a phone does. Over time, word lists are generated and these are searched through for strings of words that can be construed as poetry.

Visit Ian’s website to stay current with his projects.

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Joseph Churchward, QSM (1923 – 2013)

In September 2010 I had the honor of meeting Joseph Churchward at his Hataitai home studio.

I enjoyed hearing his narration of life thus far,  his interest in genealogy – my grandmother was Rubina Franzen (nee Churchward) and seeing his family photo wall – and the passion he exuded for his vocation.

Joseph is a master typeface designer, and through focused dedication to this art from a young age he’s created more than 690 hand-crafted fonts. Which include recognisable fonts in New Zealand such as the TV One logo, The Evening Post and The Dominion.

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