G'day

TOP is off on Saturday, for regular housekeeping...as in, you know, the cleaning of the actual physical house. I hate doing it but I like having it done.

We will do much more about this business of the post-1995 photographers. I'm working on a samplings post. Thanks for all the responses.

It's always fun to research photographers I haven't heard of. And what do you know, look what I came across—a "Random Excellence" photographer from way back in 2008, Hin Chua, has a lot of new pictures in the set called "After the Fall." (I thought it was a new project at first.) It's a type of photography you probably know well, but unusually well done. None of the pictures taken alone does a whole lot for me, but somehow taken altogether the set becomes meaningful. Take a relaxed, extended look.

See you Sunday.

—Mike, Organizing Apprentice and Journeyman Housekeeper Ordinaire

UPDATE from Hin Chua, Monday a.m.:

Dear Mike (and everyone),

Thanks for posting my series again! Hopefully two posts in six years doesn't consist of TOP overexposure! Mike, when I started getting into photography in 2005, your columns on photo.net were a regular reference for me; I've always valued them.

Embarrassingly enough, the current 'After the Fall' work on my website dates to about early 2010, which means I have about three years of work yet to show the general world. As William notes, yes there are hundreds of images involving thousands of miles of travel that quite rightly didn't make the cut. Whatever they say about keeping your website updated as a best reflection of oneself is true, and I've been too guilty of that. I have to admit in public the current sequence looks a little long in the tooth and will be better for the new photographs.

But the site will be updated this year, and the long-term goal is a book. I'm clearly working at a slow, deliberate pace here. And hopefully in a year or two I'll get my act together and kick it up a gear ;-)

Best,
Hin

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

William Barnett-Lewis: "Thank you for the link to the Hin Chua 'After the Fall' series. I've done a fair bit of that style of work, though rarely at his level. There are a number of delightful 'surprise' images there that tickled my personal photographic aesthetics. The best thing about it, though, is that it's a carefully edited and presented series—there were, doubtless, many more images taken than presented. To look at even an extended series such as his is a relief in a world where most people seem to think uploading everything on their SD card is all they need to do. This is, at least for me, why it works even better as a whole than even the individual well done images do. There is as much care in the crafting of the series as in the crafting of the images themselves."

Mike replies: Agreed.

Softie: "'None of the pictures taken alone does a whole lot for me...' I beg to differ. Some of those pics in 'After the Fall' are among the finest compositions I've seen in years: particularly the stack of concrete pillars with the graffiti heart."

Comments

[David Paterson]

I agree with what you say about the set being more meaningful than the individual images, but - unusually, I would say, for this type of work - many of these photographs stand up very well as single images.

It's a style of photography I wish I had an eye for myself, but don't.

[Ed]

Yeps, great work.....

Greets, Ed.

[lith]

You're speakin' Strine now, Mike?

Strewth.

[We say it because you say it. --Mike

P.S. I like Baltimore street slang for "strewth..." "true dat." (Courtesy of "The Wire.")]

[Gary Bossardet]

I mirror your thoughts completely.

[Rusty]

I find considerable joy in my daily visits (just before or after visiting TOP) to Lenscratch http://www.lenscratch.com/ curated by Aline Smithson. She is very much in touch with contemporary photographers and their projects.

[Roger Bradbury]

@ Mike: "I hate doing it but I like having it done"

My feeling exactly.

- Roger, reluctant house, er, maid and washing up prevaricator extraordinaire.

[Gabe]

Rusty - thank you so much for "lenscratch". I was trying to go back to sleep with the trusty IPad, and you made me discover Miro Svolik. The joy of the participants in his "above" pictures, the wry humor, the ingenious ideas, the overall concept ...... Wow I'm now fully awake, smiling and chuckling, and the better for it. Mike may I nominate Miro Svolik for consistent excellence? Please have a look. http://www.lenscratch.com/
Cheers
Gabe