Deck the halls of Chinatown

I loved picking my lantern every time the lantern festival came around. I remembered having difficulty picking the prettiest lantern. There were so many to choose from! What will it be this year? A rabbit, dragon, a cat, or an aeroplane? Fast forward thirty years and more, and Terence and I were in Chinatown taking photographs and wondering if our boys would love a new lantern.

I thought I'd share Chinatown, with its tacky lantern decorations, in a different perspective.

(Taken with the Diana F+ using a Splitzer and Diana Instant Back+.)

Shooting a photo with the Splitzer (an accessory that allows you to splice your images by halves or quarters) takes a bit of a planning on my part because... I like each image to relate to each other! Some photographers wouldn't mind randomness but I like the photo to tell a story.

The bottom half of this instant film (Fuji Instax Mini) is the decorative box that goes around the base of each lamppost, which holds the string of lanterns across the street.

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum. (Taken with the Diana F+ using a Splitzer and Diana Instant Back+.)

If I didn't split the photo in half with two images, it would look something like this. (I used the Diana Instant Back+ that allows me to take instant photos with my Diana F+.)

Sri Mariamman Temple and its surroundings.  (Taken with the Diana F+ using a Splitzer and Diana Instant Back+.)

Signs on the wall of Sri Mariammam Temple (South Bridge Road) read: "No stickers/nails/hooks allowed on the temple wall". I placed signs on the wall, and I did it legally.

Watching them back. (Taken with the Diana F+ with Lomography Redscale 100 ISO 120 film.)

The old men outside the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum whiles their time away just by people watching. So I watched them back. I 'watched' for a loooong time, which explains why their faces are blurry. I marvel at how they kept their body so still.

(The redness of the photo is because of redscale film. Redscale photography is a technique of shooting film from the other side, i.e. the wrong side. The name "redscale" comes about because there is a strong color shift to red due to the red-sensitive layer of the film being exposed first, rather than last.)