friends on film

I loaned a camera for a week and I made some pretty good memories 🙂
disclaimer: I didn’t take these shots on an actual film camera! I used a normal DSLR camera and tweaked each photo with VSCO to achieve faded, grainy and vintage effects. I think there is a certain aged beauty to film photography, even if I didn’t exist in the time when they were the most popular mode of photography.

here are some of my own personal tips about how I achieved these effects on these pictures below:

  • VSCO filters: AU5, AV8, F1, Q5, A6, P5, FN16, FS4, K2, Q8 (of course, there are more! the final effect you achieve depends on how you choose to play around with the settings)
  • apply vignette (around 50-70%)
  • the grain effect may help to achieve a dusty/mid-quality effect to the pictures but don’t overdo it. I suggest using RNI film for overlays.
  • try removing shadows
  • try the fade option
  • I personally used the tint effect (either end of the spectrum may work) but this is really contingent on how the original photo looks like and the effect you want to achieve. in reality, different brands of film will produce different tones so you can emulate them accordingly. for example, fuji films tend to have a greenish tint)
  • lower the contrast
  • in some cases, I increased the brightness for a slightly overexposed effect

shanghai & nanjing, china

Last November, I travelled solo to Shanghai to meet my dad there. He wanted to expose me to the F&B franchises in China at an exhibition as well as to show me around Nanjing, where he spent a lot of time working in the past. It was a really great experience to once again revel in the upbeat city of Shanghai and to take a walk back in time on the historic grounds of Nanjing.

Continue reading “shanghai & nanjing, china”

circus caravan, always on the go

words taste bitter in december when
urns are emptied, filled, lost, doubled till
small talk becomes no talk.

—

this year, the gap on the shelf
of a borrowed book reminds:
keep the moment when the acrobat
freezes on the trapeze, statuesque
marbled eyes locked in the space between
one second and the next,
feasting on the contradiction of being motionless
yet on top of the world.

this year, the gap on the shelf
of a borrowed book reminds me just that.

—

only a time too vulnerable to be measured in minutes
prevents seizures of lunacy when
young things trickle in rivulets,
engulfing the space only you and i knew.
they could never learn of a time
too vulnerable to be measured in minutes.
they don’t speak in sepia like we did.

—

smiles in january will be sweeter,
the kinds that are followed by birdsongs.
i know this in threes, twos, and

ones.