best fire escapes ever

I read on Wikipedia that 80 percent of Singaporeans live in public housing. The public housing ranges from tall high rises to shorter buildings like these, near Arab Street. Aren't these stairs cool?

concrete park

Now that I'm getting over my jetlag, I can start to shoot some night photos!

family badges

I've been enmeshed in a serious amount of family time. All Chinese families are big. They are so big that this box was given to us at the funeral parlor. The box contains swatches of fabric to designate your relationship to the departed. I forget what each color was for, but they all signify different relationships: in-laws, on the mother's side, on the father's side, etc.



The box is resting on a tub of white shirts that people can wear at the wake. In many secular Chinese religions, white is the color of mourning.

Samy's

Eating with my family in Singapore is tons of fun. The other night we went to a well-known curry house called Samy's. You eat off banana leaves and guys come around and ladle food out of buckets. That's right, buckets. We had fish-head curry (in the background), lamb curry, chicken curry, among other things, and this naan that had cranberries in it!



Wash that down with a Tiger beer and you're good for a long nap.

stairway to heaven

My grandmother used to go to a Buddhist temple by her house and we thought she would want some Buddhist rites performed at her services. So the day she died, we went to the temple and got two monks to come out to perform some sort of rites at her wake and cremation. It was very interesting. The monks chanted at her wake while we stood around the coffin. The chanting went on for so long that I almost fainted. Afterward, the person closest to her poured water out of a teapot into a cup placed in a bowl next to the coffin. So my uncle poured the water into the cup until it overflowed into the bowl. While this was happening, we formed a human chain by each placing a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us, so it was like a symbolic transfer of energy. I would have liked to shoot photos of the ceremony...but I was in it.



I shot this photo at the crematorium. These are the two monks that led the chanting on Saturday. One is from Ceylon and the other is from Burma.

banner change

I'm changing the banner on the blog today, so I thought I'd post the photo that I used for the original banner.



I shot this at a party in Crown Heights (Brooklyn) last year, at the end of May. Still one of my favorites. This new banner is a couple on a motorcycle in Buenos Aires.

a time for inappropriate laughter

My grandmother's wake was held on this block full of funeral parlors. It was very interesting. Next to us last night there was a Taoist wake, full of wailing music and at another they were burning things. We had some monks from her Buddhist temple come out.



Everything was really last minute and the funeral director offered this place as being available. He was giving us directions over the phone and my mother asked, "What's the name of the place?" And then I heard her repeat, "Casket Fair Price?" And I burst out laughing. She hung up the phone. "There's no way that can be the name of the funeral parlor," I said. Sometimes the Singapore accent can be deceiving. I thought it was probably something like "Cascade Palace," or "Cafe Place."

But no. The lights are in the way in this photo, but the name of this funeral parlor is indeed "Casket Fairprice." We could not stop laughing. And the name was printed on EVERYTHING: the chairs, the entryways and, of course, the hearse.

my AhMah

My grandmother passed away this morning. She was 87 years old. I was fortunate enough to have arrived just yesterday to Singapore to say goodbye. This is her, on the right, and with one of her sisters. She's on the right, in the dark-colored dress. Doesn't she look like a movie star?



She helped to raise me and my brothers when we were kids, living with us for about six months of every year. For some reason she always came in the winter, which I thought of as odd when I discovered how warm Singapore is. She hated to drive and she hated the cold, but she liked being with us. She was a different person in Singapore, where she was independent and could take the bus and the subway everywhere. She was a different person in these photos, too. (I mean, clearly! She was in black-and-white.)

It is like we live not just one life, but many--we see so many things, meet so many people. May we all be so loved and looked after not just in the end, but throughout our many lives.

with love from across the oceans
stephanie

i'm somewhere else

I'm away right now, automating posts. I hope my trip is going well. Posts to come, obviously...

...So this is an old photo, of when I was boarding the little plane in Calama, Chile (the DESERT), for a short flight down to Santiago. This was last March, on my SPRING BREAK 2009, but so more tame than GGW. This photo for me---this is the stuff that dreams are made of. It has all the critical elements of solitude, desert, and travel. After I took this photo, I found myself seated next to a guy with the strangest accent. He was ethnically Chinese, but raised in Moscow, residing in MONGOLIA, and living the heretofore-unheard-of rock star life of a geologist. He got flown to all these remote, fascinating parts of the world, courtesy of big corporations looking for the next great resource to exploit. When we got to Santiago de Chile, I hitched a ride to the city center with their chartered geologist bus, stashed my big backpack at their fancy hotel, and then he bought me lunch.



I really loved Chile.

pretty city

I love how Buenos Aires seems to absorb everything, and everything just lives together side-by-side harmoniously. Like bright graffiti and pastel facades with French windows. This is an inspiring little pedestrian overpass in Abasto, a central neighborhood.

Estacion Liniers

I can never have enough photos of train-related things. This is the Liniers Station, the last stop in Buenos Aires of the municipal Sarmiento train line. It is a different Buenos Aires out there.

oh subte.

Oh, this photo. Five minutes after taking this photo, my buddy and I were collectively robbed on the E line of the subte. We had spent an amazing morning shooting one of the most incredible sites I've ever been to--a sprawling, decaying, yet functional campus where they work on the trains. The buildings were beautiful, the machines were awe-inspiring, the colors were fantastic, and I probably shot around 200 photos inside, plus at the abandoned train station just outside it. We were eventually kicked out for trespassing. My buddy shot so many photos that his memory card filled, so I gave him the one I had been shooting on and used my backup card. Then we returned to the city. And he had his camera--with my precious memory card inside--lifted in a packed-like-sardines subway car.



This has pretty much happened to everyone I know here in Buenos Aires. If I'm carrying lots of cash on me, say, to pay my rent, I never get on the subway.

the bicycle car

The bicycle car on the municipal rail in Buenos Aires is fascinating. If you ever get on one of these trains, bypass the cars with seats and go searching for the big, empty car with people perched at the windows. Of course the bicycle car also doubles as the smoking car. This in itself is not that unusual. On the way out from the city center, the bicycle car was basically empty and there were some guys nonchalantly smoking a joint. On the way back into the city, the car was pretty packed--people sitting on the floor, sleeping, reading newspapers, having coffee--and there was a different group of guys smoking a joint, unmolested, on the crowded train. The only person giving them weird/curious looks was me. This impressed me beyond belief.

pasta casera

This is an interior of the restaurant I showed you yesterday, Il Vero Mangiare.
You know what he's doing here?



He's making fusilli. That in itself is pretty astounding to me. But the way he's doing it is by taking squares of dough and rolling them around a metal rod taken from a broken umbrella. You know--those pieces that always break loose and dangle, threatening to poke you in the eye. Well, next time your umbrella does that, you can snap the rod off and think to yourself, "This will make a hella fine pasta-making utensil."

i heart my neighborhood III

We had the ultimate find the other night, a restaurant just two blocks from our apartment! It is only open on the weekends, so that could possibly explain why I've never noticed it before. It's called Il Vero Mangiare, and when you walk in one of the sons (family-owned) is standing at a station by the door, making pasta.



What's even more incredible is that this restaurant is actually in this other photo from the blackouts. It's the corner storefront directly to the right of the trashfires in the intersection.

i heart my neighborhood II

I love this photo for so many reasons. Mostly because of the dog. Secondly, because it was taken in such darkness, and you know how much I love night photography. Third, it has both my roommates in it. And fourth, inside that rusted out shell of an automobile on the right lives a man who drives me crazy.



More on this car-shelter later, hopefully. But I feel like I have to be careful about taking photos of it--and the man who resides inside.

champagne fail

It was my (new) roommate's birthday on Friday. We bought some nice champagne, put it in the freezer, then went out for dinner at 11:30 p.m. (Argentine dinner time).



In all my years of boozing experience, this was a first.

minding the shop

My friend Courtney Myers asked me to shoot some photos for a FlavorWire story she's doing on FeatBA, a Buenos Aires design collective. This was my favorite of the series. This is Sol de Rio of Taller Taller ('taller' means workshop), setting up a projection screen to show us some of her multimedia work.

laundry day

I'm not sure what is more work: doing the wash myself in the sink upstairs, or walking the four blocks to the lavanderia, and then having to pick it up later. I will say that doing the wash myself is more satisfying and somewhat relaxing (and saves me 10 pesos), but having it done means that my clothes seem cleaner.



That's why I do both.

more lipstick

Buenos Aires is such a different city at night. I guess all cities are like that. The creatures of the night come out to play.

classy or trashy? you decide

I feel like every photographer has shot at least one of these. This was shot outside one of my favorite haunts here in Buenos Aires, Kim y Novak. Sometimes this window is open and you can just walk up and order a beer from the sidewalk.

a little night music

I went to a little house party last weekend and toted my camera. This photo is in the beginning of the night, before the dancing but after the empanadas. I liked this guy's socks.



Because my Spanish is still coming along, parties can be really hard for me--you know, the whole not being able to communicate thing. But if there's music and dancing, I can hang with that.

on the road again

I took this photo on the night bus back to Buenos Aires. I just really like the colors and the feeling of going home.



Even if it's a home-away-from-home. It's still home.

frontier kids

These kids are allowed to do anything. Run around barefoot in the dark, play with knives, drink coffee. You know, all the stuff kids like to do. The two-year-old is still in a diaper but he's allowed to ride in the back of the pickup balancing atop a suitcase. They're pretty bad-ass.

never say die

Long after I'd given up hope of making it to the ranch, I got there. The owner came to get me after catching wind of the communication breakdown. And suddenly, I was having a family dinner at this remote vineyard under the full moon.



It was an unexpected turn of events.

Mendoza birthday, continued

The next day I was still stuck in town so I took a long walk. Tupungato is in the Mendoza region of western and central Argentina, which borders Santiago de Chile to the west. Its dry climate and high altitude make it good for wine production. It reminded me of Napa, except only with the Andes in the background.




And a bonus for my fellow Aries Papa, I hope you too have the:

dried up

After 13 hours on the bus, I took another 2-hour trip to Tupungato, where I got stranded for the night after spending hours wandering and waiting in vain. It was an extremely frustrating experience. Phones weren't working, taxis weren't working, what a mess. It is also not a good idea to arrive in a small town during siesta time. Even the river in town didn't work.



It wasn't the 30th birthday I'd been hoping for. Instead of being on this beautiful Andean ranch under the stars, I spent the night in Tupungato, a town of about 37,500 people. When I went out for dinner at 10 pm, everyone in town seemed to be outside along the main commercial street, chilling or strolling or playing in the park. It was very beautiful. Everyone knew each other. I've never really been in a place like that.

And so, unexpectedly, my wish to spend my 30th birthday in a place I'd never heard of before was granted.

oasis

The 13-hour ride from Buenos Aires to Mendoza is supposedly most likely the Midwest. I slept for most of it, thank goodness.



I do love the drive-by scenery of the Midwest. It begs for a different kind of photography of scale.

best bus meal ever

I've never been served a meal on a bus, and wasn't expecting to get served on Saturday. But I splurged for a bed-suite situation on the 13-hour overnight bus to Mendoza, and they served us dinner right after boarding. Here was the base for it. Don't ask me why there's an American flag on it.



Then they brought by the hot-food portion of the meal, which was matambre, slices from what I imagine was a giant, chicken-and-pork sausage infused with peppers, hard-boiled eggs and the like. After the meal there was coffee or mate, little desserts, and then they came around with a tray of (real) glasses, ice cubes, and a bottle of whiskey.

I am never flying anywhere ever again.