i have always thought of being a ‘combat photographer’ while serving National Service. i have always wanted and dreamed of making photography my job for this 2 years, creating images while out in the field, documenting events and personalities with meaningful shots and stuff. Robert Capa, the legendary war photographer said, “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” Robert Capa documented WWII by swimming ashore Omaha Beach with the Allied forces on D-Day for the Battle of Normandy. he took over a hundred shots of the event, only to have the darkroom technician ruin most of the images due to a careless mistake while processing the rolls. in the end, only 11 images were salvaged and they are fondly referred as the “Magnificent Eleven” today.
back at Tekong, one of the first things i ever did was to express my interest to be a ‘combat photographer’ for the SAF. such a posting definitely existed before, since William, a friend i got to know from my Yishun photo club served NS as a photographer. but that was donkey years ago and apparently there is no more such posting now. to cut the story short, i volunteered myself to be the battalion’s photographer and managed to seek approval to bring my own camera into camp. this is really a privilege considering how the army is always paranoid about image capturing devices.
i will love to bring Rachel or Sherry in but its really stupid to even think about it because shooting film for such purposes really makes no sense at all. therefore i bought my first DSLR yesterday. its a Nikon D60 camera with 18-55mm VR and 50-200mm VR DX lens. its a really small and relatively basic DSLR, but i believe it will serve my purpose well. at the end of the day, its going to be a chiong-sua camera.
frankly speaking, there is a lot to learn and get used to all over again. having used SLRs like Rachel and Sherry all along, the D60 feels like a toy in my hands. i was never afraid to be a little more rough with Rachel but D60 really yea, feels like a toy. i am having a headache from looking at the user manual and learning all the digital stuff. but then again, i think its time to move ahead with the digital era as well.
but of course, it doesn’t mean that i will stop shooting film. i remember my first SLR, the Nikon F-401X, then, i couldn’t even manage a proper exposure. later, i got shit from my Mum for buying Rachel because its film again, and no one shoots film anymore and its not practical to shoot film at all. but today, i learned most of my stuff from film and believe it has been great fun shooting film!
2008 has been a great photo year and i learned a lot. shot new stuff like weddings, portraitures and black and white film. some of my favourite pictures for 2008. hope 2009 will be a fruitful year as well :)
chee-ki wise, my resolutions for 2009 will be to…
1. do a good job for the battalion and hopefully contribute some meaningful documents.
2. learn as much about my Nikon D60 as possible.
3. learn photoshop.
4. perhaps process my own black and white rolls at home.
