Personal Project: Merdeka Square

I continued my personal project with this set of photographs, which were taken at Merdeka Square here in Kuala Lumpur. I chose this location because it is a famous spot for tourists in the city, and has fantastic architecture. The design of the buildings is a combination of Islamic patterns and arches, and colonial brick and coloring. The square is large and striking, because the old infrastructure sticks out amongst the modern skyscrapers and city streets. The square is mostly filled with tourists and students, and so I supposed my father and I blended in well. Luckily, there weren’t any tour buses or groups blocking the buildings.

My favorite of these pictures are those that show the differing patterns, designs, and structure. There are pictures in which curving staircases cross with straight, tall palm trees, and that was what I was focusing on. Instead of taking touristy pictures, I was trying to focus on the contrast of inherently Malaysian architecture with the influence of the colonial era.

Portraits

This was our second group project, in which we chose the theme of portraits. Since I have done portraits before from last year, so I wanted to do something different for this project. Prior to this, I had only used the twin lens camera once, and it didn’t work very well. This time, I wanted to use the camera in a controlled environment, and the portrait project was perfect for that. I got four people to model for me, Frida, Vanaalika, Jai, and Mia. I took the pictures, just outside the photography room, where there was plenty of natural light. Once I made a contact sheet of the film, several of the pictures turned out to not be in focus.

A difficult part of the printing process with these pictures is that the film used is actually square. I used a different enlarger this time, which is in almost complete darkness. Getting used to this took some time, because I had some issues with getting the exposure and contrast correct. Getting the correct exposure while bringing out the detail in the white shirts took most of my time, actually.

Doing this project, I wanted to learn how to use the twin lense camera and print with the resulting photos. Using this different camera, I wanted to first learn how to get lighting right before I use it out of a controlled environment. In the future, I hope to use the twin lens in a different environment.