My life in Photography By Chan Bing Fai I am not a photographer of spectacular things or famous personalities. 1 do not have photographs of glorious sunsets or thc launching of the space shuttle - Discovery. I am essentially a very quiet and unobtrusive photographer who operates best in a deserted village or in a quiet country lane. My choice of subject matter is dependent on my mood, feelings and vision. Therefore anytlling can be my photographic subject. I do not look for any specific subject matter but I do look at all kinds of things no matter how humble or insignificant. They can be anything as long as they excite me at that point in time. I an1 always looking for subject matter which is filled with beauty, irony and meaning. The purpose of my photography is not to reproduce a representative world. I use subject matter to express my feelings and at times to allow my imagination to generate fantasies. My photographs are the end result of my enthusiasm and dedicated search. Subject abounds everywhere if only one cares to look for them. But it is a question of recognising and responding to it. One can only respond to it if one can make sense out of it. Different people have different responses when they stumble upon scenes of exceptional beauty. For example in the movie "The Sound of Music", the novice nun Maria, played by Julie Andrew, and on arriving at the convent set in the midst of rolling hills against a backdrop of snowy mountains, she spontaneously burst into song because the hills were filled with the sound of music. Whether one is making images, poetry or music - one should be enraptured by that experience itself in its wholeness. The line between oneself and the experience should not be so distinct and when the boundary is dissolved, one can get connected i.e. one becomes part of that landscape as well. When one makes visible that quality in one's images only then can one succeed in transmitting the essential spirit of the thing or place because one has captured its soul. Seeing what I like enables me to go on a joumey of discovery. I want to discover things and not to manipulate them. No other art reproduces life as we find it except photography. Therefore there is no reason not to use the world as raw material to make interpretative images that convey one's own personal reactions to a thing or place. I often choose to get lost in order to discover the sheer magic of rainbows. So let rainbows continue to be my fascination, And travelling be my motivation. So let true seeing be my initiator, And my photography be the final interpretor. My main interest in photography is to come back with images that reflect what 1 saw and the way I saw it. - Chan Ping Fai -   Photographer/Artist Contact: 10 Jalan 12/14C, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia TEL: (603) 7575908 PHYLOSOPHY BACKGROUND CONTACT Back to Index Page - Chan Ping Fai Back to Photography Main Index Page Back to PSPJ Main Index Page Back to MIR Entry Page.