Faces of Penang 1

I am going to start off the Faces of Penang photo series with this batch which was shot on an over 30-year old Kodak slide film which was then cross processed with C-41 chemical. Surprisingly the results turned out beyond my expectation. I thought I was going to lose them from this roll of Kodak Ektachrome 160 Tungsten when I finished shooting I realised the ASA dial on my Olympus XA was mistakenly set to ISO200, which normally in such case of shooting on any old film I would step down the ASA one or two stops to get more exposure. But in this case it did ot ruin the whole roll, which is really good news! So here they are some of the shots of the people in Penang which I picked from the same roll of film.

Stylo old man with a ‘tongkat’
He was very accommodating when I requested him to across over from the opposite side of the street where he was originally standing despite of his limping legs which I did not realise at first until he started walking. This man was just so amazing! He stood right there against the textured wall and let us took pictures of him without saying much.

Notice that blurry brown patch on the right side of the photo? That’s my finger accidentally covering part of the lens of the camera which happens almost every time when I am too engaged with the subject and unaware of the placement of my fingers on that little rangefinder. I have no complaint about it as XA is such an amazingly lightweight, handy, yet powerful little tool! My favourite traveling camera thus far.

Break time
Three men chatting away. A scene I shot while walking in the streets with my friend. I quite like the background.

Man outside a barber shop
What first caught my eyes to capture this shot was not this handsome man but it was the blue talcum powder bottles in the window display behind him. The talcum powder is called ‘Holiday On Ice’ which is very commonly used by most Indian barbers.

Stay tuned for more photos of the Faces of Penang series to come.