IN THE FIELD; Kampung Mengkapur, Pahang

Spontaneous trip into the interiors and home to Lily's extended family, hitching a ride with COAC truck up into central peninsular. So starts the next phase of the project, travelling to rural areas with the mobile kit, making instant portraits of Silver Gelatin Prints. Targeting to focus more on East Malaysia, but would base my travels throughout the Peninsular too and the region. It's little steps, I hope i'll cover some ground before 2017 is over ;)

interior road, central Pahang

camera backpacking

demonstrating how it works

EXCURSION; Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Holland

Waar & Kunst, Nieuw Sloten– Amsterdam
Fotomuseum ∞ Den Haag
Nederlands Fotomuseum– Rotterdam
LhGWR Liefhertje en De Grote Witte Reus– Den Haag

EXCURSION: Boston, USA, Museums/ Exhibitions

Peabody Museum, Cambridge
MFA Museum of Fine Art, Boston
ICA Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

ACQUIRED; screw bits from Digicolor

dropped by digicolor, getting some screw adapters, spigots and nicknacks

IN THE NEWS; mention in The Star

Star today (Starmetro section, p.12) artistic ventures

Fivearts Centre Article

 

IN THE FIELD; Fivearts Centre

Prints of the five members of the Fivearts Centre, another eight more to go.

a revisit to #fiveartscentre Five Arts Centre 3 years on since #krishenjitastrofund was awarded. Here to make portraits of the members of this collective to be included in the first batch of portraits, it is also the 11th year grant awarding ceremony for 2016. Good luck everyone. It's coming full circle this project, really glad to be part of this #kantaboxkamra #afghanboxcamera #kamraefaoree #cyclingkualalumpur also commute by bicycle #kantacycling ;) closest I could get to putting a Kamra on a bicycle. Thanks fivearts for the amazing continuos support & just being such patient sitters

mobile in KL, first field trip on bicycle with Kamra. Self-contained mobile field kit. in preparation for an expedition real soon. thanks June for the pic ;) 16 prints

kanta on a bike, first mobile expedition

fiveart members, 5 of 13 members taken, another 8 to go

backpack kanta, mounted for walking

first sitter, setup for portrait taking

IN THE FIELD; Sarina Yeh

Sarina was down from Taipei and I had to repay her kindness with a portrait, seksan too ;) great too see you again, hope we'll cross paths again soon #kantaboxkamra

OUTING MASTER CHAN

Bringing Master Chan to meet Lau, Color dot com. first ever excursion out with masta, thanks to Mahen for making special arrangements

ARCHIVE; sorting out entire archive

sorting out 'kanta' entire archive, that's alot of prints & field trips since 2014

ACQUIRED; Monorail

Had a impromptu visit to Master Chan, to inform him of visiting the photo lab the coming week. Also took the opportunity to lookup for monorail spares. Which of course he had! A couple of mid length monorail, Korean made. For the building of a life-scale camera a.k.a Element Camera.

MADE; Ground Glass

for project Life-Scale Camera (working title Element Camera). made ground glass from acrylic sheets, 3mm frosted. although not as cheap, it's bright and durable (not breakable). had to do some restoration work on the viewing frame, needs a new felt sealant. but both formats now have a viewing glass. sizes 6.5 x 8.5" and 10 x 12". these will be the biggest camera ever assembled.

here is a reference to how i got hold of these century old plate holders & rear elements. http://kantaboxkamra.blogspot.my/2016/07/purchase.html

they are gems, but a waste if let to rot. am aiming to prepare a simpler build for demonstration by early next year, if my resources & time allow.

IN THE FIELD; JOAS Demonstration

Quick Setup; JOAS meet up with such inspiring people doing great work in the field. talking bout mapping and also about the next phase of the project. a little show & tell with a 'live' demonstration. Ken Chung volunteering as the first sitter.

 

 

ACQUIRED; large format lenses

For a new build, the next type of camera, slightly different concept, but a DIY ultra large format instant camera. working title life-scale camera. true method of making it from found materials. using paper negatives. here are a couple of lenses to expand the repertoire, complementing the globe lens.

size comparison

300mm schneider lens

486mm lomo lens

300mm package

486mm package

ACQUIRED; Traditional Clay Stove

1 september 2016; experiment; acquired clay stove, traditional rocket stove concept, for chems

5 october 2016; Starting up the traditional clay stove. it's an efficient fuel to heat ratio, although needs alot of labour to get it boiling hot. it starts fire real quick, and keeps amber very long. experiment with chemical boiling, silver visible, fumes not so bad

19 October 2016; 3rd attempt, using aluminium can. Unsatisfactory result. liquid not thoroughly boiled off, left over residue, white circular granules and thick liquid. 400ml = 2 rounds, about 20-30 sheets. need better, efficient way to extract metal from chems.

small & large clay pot stove

placed the charcoal in the wrong chamber

attempt at boiling down spent-chemicals