Diane Arbus

She was born of a rich family, so was the prince that founded Buddhism, unwary of the sufferings and struggle of life, when she was young. She grew up, married and divorced, liberating her to seek an alternative life, that of a photographer of freak. She love their story, her picture tells their story. Sometimes, an inert sense of existential nihilism, could be the reason for unhappiness with a rich materialistic life, overcoming that struggle to understand reality.

Link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Arbus,

youtube:

1. A great documentary, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXwCctBLQU

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXwCctBLQU

Annie Leibovitz

Since I was into shooting Portraits of Arthropods, learning and understanding the works of Annie Leibovitz, once the cheif photographer of Rolling Stone, then the photographer for Vanity Fair, and later a photographer of her own projects, could shed some light on my work on Arthropods.
When she was shooting for Rolling Stone, the pictures were the moments, she had less to prepare, a lot of working between her subjects and her, the environment plays a lot, so the images turn out being spontaneous and seemingly contained more truth in them. The image of Ono and John was simple and emotionally charged. An icon of his time, a legend that fall for his love, a sense of the powerful needing the comfort of the weaker sex that was repulsively cold and closed, where John was powerfully naked and susceptible.
As a Vanity Fair photographer, she had to cater to the viewers, the patrons, there are more to grapple and resolve. She had to conceptualize, see the image before they were taken. There was a need for public acceptance as compare to the Rolling Stone, there was a need for acceptance by the main stream. Rebellion and having a sense of freedom were not the rule. She gave up something, freedom, and rehabilitation could have been instrumental for her need to gain mainstream acceptance, as her days of drugs was seen as social ill. She remade herself. She had shown resilience to come back and she did.
However, one part of her that was lost, was to be re-waken by Susan Songtag, her very good friend that was instrumental in reaffirming the destiny of photography, to tell the dimension of truth and reality, it brought some eternal meaning to her work.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz,
youtube :

1. An interview with Annie Liebovittz by TIMES, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRhbqtV6RcA, 


2. AB shoot Marie Antoinette http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNyIUlra9LU, 


3. Great shots by AB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET8tOfyWYLg&feature=related,

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRhbqtV6RcA&feature=fvw

Wolf Spider, white spider and the Giant Tarantula

A small version of the wolf spider, 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf6_qDoCUu0&feature=popt00us02

It was really awe struck watch this video where the author shot a pair of wolf spider for a few days until the spiderling were hatched. Staying in the wall crevice and not having enough food, the female spider ate her partner, which the spiderlings seen sticking on the back of her cephalothorax. This would probably add to the errieness of spiders. Most people, especially female hated spiders. I was horrified seeing the partner beeing eaten up.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sLs_sQJKa8&NR=1

White spider being filmed and shown in BBC, very interesting and cool to watch how the spider moved in the dark and hid beneath his burrow.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LmyyXcE6rw&NR=1

Spider hunting down a rat. Only the Giant Tarantula could do that, however, their bites were reported to be non-deadly.

Appreciation of the MicroWorld, Talk

I was so glad that many had turned up despite the unceasing drizzle and intermittent heavy downpour. Edwin and gang had helped to organize the sound system, the projector, survey forms, and tea and snack. Thanks so much. David helped to shoot the photographs shown here; Wai Meng helped to remind those RSVP in the Facebook and Brimzone helped to manage my youngest son and the photo album; Shuh Fang helped to record my talk; Buwei introduced me; and FotoHub printed and sponsored the 2m tall poster. It was a great session with so many people attending. We hope to organize another talk with technical specific on shooting insects and spiders in existing light.

Poster for the talk

Here are the poster created for the Talk on "Appreciation of the MicroWorld"



 

Figthing Spider

These are the fighting spider, they belong to the jumping spider group, Salticidae, if I did not remembered wrongly.

Once my inquisitive elder son, caught 4 spiders and one ant, put them all together in a single container. The last survival was the fighting spider. Seems cruel, but this is reality, some animal are there for the survival of others. We human kill a lot of animals to keep alive. Not every son of ours would listen to us, they love to explore and experiment. Don’t we do that in the school and research laboratory? We, human, do that all the time in the laboratory and we call it science.

Ever heard of 'fucking spider'. Here was what I saw when I was young, children fight spider and fuck spider.

You must have a pair of spiders, one male and the other female. Now compare the 2 spiders, the one with a bigger abdomen and a non-swollen palp is the female. Now first let the female out of the box or cage, blow at her, she will draw all her legs in and stop moving, now put one of your thumb over her abdomen, she is now immobilized. Now you let out the male spider. This is when we become spectators, do nothing and watch. The male spider will do the pre-sex dance. Then slowly approach the female spider and gets electrified.

Why do people fuck spider. Good question.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B62TF2hXmzI

[mbs slideshow=1][gallery link="file" columns="4" orderby="ID"]

Talk - Appreciation of the Micro World

We finally got down to holding a talk at the Thomson Community Centre (TCC) with the help of the Video Club Committee, Edwin, both David and the members. Thanks also to PF for helping with proofreading the flyer. We are delighted that it will be held on the 30th of August, at the TCC. The Flyer for the talk can be found below, and we hope to meet all photographic enthusiasts, their family and friends at the session.

Download PDF here flyer download