Ektachrome is back, and one drool-worthy laptop


The new Kodak Professional Ektachrome 100.

In what is a pleasant surprise, Kodak Alaris is reintroducing the previously discontinued Ektachrome in 35mm format in the fourth quarter of this year. You read that right—it’s not just film, but slide film at that. That should get quite a few people excited.

Read more from their press release here. I still need more information about the emulsion, but it feels good that they’re bringing an old favourite back. 

Razer’s Project Valerie—Who wants one? (Me. I want one.)

There are other eye-catching at CES as well, like this gorgeous gaming laptop from Razer with some seriously impressive screen real estate—a whopping three panels’ worth. I’ve told friends my next laptop will be a Razer because it feel like Apple sold MacBook Pro users down the river, but this new Razer is a beast. and it feels right up my alley. No availability date or price yet, since it’s still a concept, but I’m sure it’ll get here eventually.


Happy birthday, Karen

Karen outside the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, 2016. © 2017 Callan Tham. All rights reserved.

Obligatory birthday post? Sure. But what’s more important than celebrating the moment and being glad that we are all alive and well? Never forget that.

So happy birthday to my long-suffering and ever-loving wife and mother of my two kids, as my friends are always keen to remind me—not that I can forget these things and hope to stay alive :P


Araki, Genius

Nobuyoshi Araki is one of two demigods of Japanese photography (to international audiences anyway, the other being Daido Moriyama), and probably the most quotable photographer in the world today, right next to William Eggleston.*

Some snippets from the interview Araki had with SFMoMA; that exchange when he was asked if they could “go again” is something I can identify with, and I promise I’ll share that story soon. Click on this link (sorry, can’t embed the link on Format) for the video interview: https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/nobuyoshi-arakis-more-more-approach-photography/


* I’m biased; I wonder if there are photographers who have influenced my work more than these two.


Old work is worth keeping

Cropped SFW version—full NSFW version below

I’m unsure if this is just me or if it happens to most photographers, but there are times where I wondered why I keep all the photographs I took, even those I would never show to anyone. They could be terrible photos, or embarrassing ones, or just mistakes, but I keep them. The archive just grows bigger every time I press the shutter button.

Then I go through some older work and find photos that catch my eye, photos that I did not fancy when I first looked through it. Maybe my tastes have changed, maybe my headspace is altered, but it feels somewhat rewarding, and surprising, to find a new angle or a new sensibility that I missed the first (or even second) time around.

[NSFW photos below]

“Expressions” — Sara Scarlet, Singapore, 2016. © 2017 Callan Tham. All rights reserved.

These four photos certainly didn’t strike me as something I’d pay much attention to when I first looked through my “contact sheet” months ago, but now I noticed the subtle expressions on Sara’s face. I remembered that day: she was terribly jet-lagged and I felt rather terrible at having to push her through a session, plus I wasn’t feeling it that day; I couldn’t get into that ”zone”.

Yet we still got some good work done that day. Sometimes, we just have to push that little bit more, even though it’s the last thing we want to do at that particular moment. 

But I digress. The point is, keeping previous work can provide you with surprises later on, and perhaps more importantly, it allows you to look back and see how you and your work has evolved or changed. And no matter your inclination, understanding the path you have taken can only be good to chart the road ahead.

That makes keeping the old work worth the effort. The accumulation of hard drives, though, is still a royal pain in the arse.

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