Random Excellence: Hin Chua

I can't remember when or where I first encountered the work of Hin Chua, a young Australian from Perth, born in Malaysia, now working in London. But his pictures made an impression on me; some of them I remember still, specifically, even though I haven't seen them in several years. (With me that's saying something, because I look at a lot of pictures.) He says he "picked up a camera in an attempt to get over a girl."

I don't know how I ran across him this time, either, but somehow (a Google image search, maybe?), I discovered he has some pictures on flickr. I don't normally care for flickr but I looked at perhaps 600 of the 1350 pictures he has posted there. (I don't know how to link to flickr. Search "Hin Chua" and you should find him more easily than I could.) Naturally with that many pictures not all of them are masterpieces, but he sure has got an eye.

He's gotten more serious about his photography since I encountered him last: better cameras, bigger negs, website. And that's good; he's respecting his talent. I think he has a book out, too (and I'd like to know for sure). He still seems a little immature to me—as an artist, I mean—but maybe that's because the way he sees is young: brilliant, profligate, callow. I certainly don't know if I've picked the best examples to show here. A thousand of us could look at his pictures and come away with a thousand different favorites. You could quarrel with my picks. Propose alternates. (These two are from "After the Fall" and "Mare Nostrum.") I like this photographer better than most, that much I will say.

________________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Curio: "On Shane L.'s site, Chua wrote, 'Flickr functions as an online version of Diane Arbus’ wall. You know the one. the wall covered with work prints, the ones you’re trying to see if you can still bear to look at in a few months time. Except in this case, any man and his dog can wander in. It also just so happens that a few great people whose views I respect also pass through from time to time, and their thoughts, comments and suggestions have really helped shape the work. I have a living room full of work prints, and while it’s a damn nicer sight to look at, it hasn’t been as creatively beneficial as the Flickr version. Flickr (like the world) is what you make of it, and there’s just no way you can tar it with any one brush.' "

Comments

[Guy Batey]

He's called Hinius on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinius/

[Scott Symes]

I have been following Hin for years. Great stuff and his work has evolved quite a bit over that time. Here is his flickr link.

http://www.flickr.com/people/hinius/

[Chris Norris]

I think a good (but still large) selection of Hin's work is his set of pictures in the Hardcore Street Photography pool: http://www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/pool/35468146967@N01/

It's one of the most tightly curated groups I've been a part of on flickr and Hin has more photos in the pool than anyone. I've been submitting stuff for a year and have managed to get one photo in. And I'm pretty sure that one was an accident.

[HCSP]

Where I come from we bow our heads before we say 'Hin'

[McD]

Nice work

And not a word about gear

Thanks!

[Edward Taylor]

I like a lot of his photos. Many of them though, not so much. I wonder how important consistency should be in evaluating an artist.

Mike, you once wrote that most photographers probably throw away or delete many of their best images.

Hin Chua's art reminds me that I am probably guilty as charged.

[Chuck A]

I picked up on him a few years ago on pBase. He has since moved his site but his work is excellent. I agree that some editing may be needed but his insight is fresh and fun. I am glad to see him get some recognition.

Chuck
www.pbase.com/candrask

[Stephen Scharf]

No disrespect intended, but lately, everytime I see these random excellence threads, I think, "Huh?". Why you've never featured Vincent Laforet's or Chip Litherland's work is a mystery; now *that's* random excellence.

[Mike J.]

"Why you've never featured Vincent Laforet's or Chip Litherland's work is a mystery"

TOP is deep and wide, O grasshoppah.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2007/06/free-advertisin.html

Mike J.

[BryanF]

In regards to Flickr and editing. Most serious photographers that I know who use Flickr, primarily use it as a sketchbook more than anything. For edited versions of these projects, you're better off going directly to his site.

Mike - Other than Flickr, where is a good place to find emerging talent? Yes, it's very cumbersome and it's vastly filled with rubbish, but the blanket dismissals of an enormous community like that is a bit naive. There are some talent photographers, doing extremely interesting work over there. But it takes some work and like all social networks, you need to spend some time there and be involved. If you go there and hope to find the gems on Explore or through random searches, you'll drown.

@Stephen Scharf: Laforet and Litherland don't do much for me, so it's a matter of taste. Also, it's pretty clear that they're photojournalists/editorial photographers, where Hin is more a fine art photographer. Different intentions....

peace,

bryan

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

("callow"?)

I agree, he has some deceptively simple images.

[Mike J.]

"...blanket dismissals of an enormous community like that is a bit naive. There are some talent photographers, doing extremely interesting work over there."

Ah, demotic, democratic flickr. Of course this is ground we've been over in detail before, but I just plain don't like looking at pictures on flickr. There is great work there and many fine photographers use it, true. I do spend a decent amount of time there--it's better than nothing. But it's not a good way to look at pictures. The images are too small; they're oversharpened, at least in the form you first encounter them; some of them have larger versions, some do not, which I find very frustrating; there's all sorts of distracting visual clutter in my field of view; and by far the worst of all are those little white squares all over the pictures, immediately drawing my eye to something I would much rather discover on my own. That alone spoils pretty much half the pictures I see there. It completely disrupts the process of "meeting" a new picture. For me, anyway. I can't stand that.

Coming across a picture in a gallery or museum--printed and sized just the way the artist intended it, nicely lit, beautifully framed, on a clean, clear field...it has presence, wholeness, individuality, impact. Encountering a great photograph for the first time like that can make your neck hairs stand on end. Of course we cannot see all the pictures we want to see in that fashion, I understand that. But flickr is the other end of that long spectrum of how we encounter and experience photographs.

It's not a prejudice against the work or the photographers, though.

Mike J.

[Bill Mitchell]

Many photographers, particularly young ones, have great ideas, but have not developed the craft needed to present them in an interesting manner. In that one sense, at least, photography can be much more difficult than painting.

[XebastYan]

Thanks for linking Hin Chua. Outstanding and very inspirational pictures. I adore his view. His website is a very fine selection of his work. Good One, I have added his site to my "go there regularly" links.
Xeb

[BryanF]

Mike - apologies for not being clear. on presentation, I'm in complete agreement with you. It's not the best way to view photography, not even on the web.

I guess, my point, if anything, is that there's really no other large community online where you can discover emerging talent. That's what I use for it these days. To find new work by photographers who don't have any other outlet to show what they're up to.

[Andreas]

Wow, that Hin rocks, already bookmarked.
And thanks for showing.

Btw, i also think flickr is ok, but they should improve the presentation of photos, this awful.

[Jim]

Mike, I agree with you completly about the best way to view photographs. The only way it can be improved is to have the images in your own home so that there are no distractions or limits to the time you can spend with an image. On the other hand the exposure that flickr can give you to so many photographers is fantastic. Most disturbing about it and photography on the internet is that i'm afraid coming generations may only "know" photographs viewed on a monitor. Just like so many young people today experience music though ear-budphones

[expiring_frog]

Mike and others, re Flickr, there is actually a workaround to see the pics properly, without the clutter. Procedure:

1. Navigate to some page containing at least one photo in the album, or the photostream. For example, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinius/

2. Click the "Slideshow" button, top right. This should put you in a slideshow view with the images enlarged to fit the browser window, two strips of navigation buttons at the top and the bottom, no white boxes, and a black background.

3. As soon as the slideshow starts up, click the "Pause" button, bottom left.

4. Now, use the right and left cursor keys to navigate the stream of images. If you don't move the mouse any more, everything except the picture will fade out. This is exactly like the slideshow modes in the standard Mac or Windows picture viewers.

This way you can see virtually all of the photographer's pics without any clutter. I say "virtually all" because Step 1 usually involves seeing at least one picture in the cluttered view :). However, there is a better alternative to Steps 1 and 2, with some URL manipulation: when provided http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinius/ , append "/show" to it, to get http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinius/show/ , and paste it in your browser's address bar. This gets you directly to slideshow mode, skipping Step 2. The trick works with album links too -- again, just append "/show".

The method is not ideal, but it's better than the default.

[expiring_frog]

Re my last post on Flickr slideshows: they also have a fullscreen mode. Click the bottom right button when viewing the slideshow.

[charlie d]

Nice one.

[Iñaki]

I so have to disagree.
The best way to view a picture is, eventually, to be able to view the picture.

I´m sorry. I am not going to buy that stuff of "good lighting, good mood, good wall". Utter nonsense -in my opinion-. I am able to know the photograph or the curricular body of a photographer on the net. It is the best media avaliable in that very moment. It is the best media to view the picture, then.

I am starting to sense a certain othodixy in all of this.

By the way, wicked pick. Nevertheless, I think he handles color much better than he handles monochrome.

Cheers.