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Tim May | all galleries >> :Asian Journeys:: A Collection of Galleries :: >> A COLLECTION OF GALLERIES:: Wonderful Malaysia - September 2007 >> GALLERY ::Maur and Malacca - Living History - Malaysia, September 2007 > Generations
Malacca, Malaysia - September 2007
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02-SEP-2007

Generations
Malacca, Malaysia - September 2007


In this temple that we visited in Malacca there were many rooms honoring the dead. They ran from quite posh to quite simple. This room was the most touching to me. Here are remembrances of lost loved ones.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2
1/8s f/2.8 at 6.3mm iso800 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time02-Sep-2007 01:05:31
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-LX2
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length6.3 mm
Exposure Time1/8 sec
Aperturef/2.8
ISO Equivalent800
Exposure Bias1.30
White Balance
Metering Modematrix (5)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Cecilia Lim05-Jul-2008 20:57
Tim, I love your take on these ancestral tablets that we shot together (mine is here:http://www.pbase.com/image/98082076) . Unlike both Phil and my images which are dominantly brown throughout, yours picks up the different colours of the memorial photographs. Even though they have been collectively put into a group, each photograph portrays the person remembered in a different colour, and this gives us a sense of the unique individuality of the people who are being remembered here. They are not just a number but real people who had different personalities and led different lives.
Carol E Sandgren19-Oct-2007 05:38
The soft, darkened effect reflects mystery to me, an outsider. I do not know who these people are, yet they are here, almost as if they are back from the dead, like photographic spirits. I love how there is an air of mysticism in this picture of pictures.
Tim May17-Oct-2007 21:35
For me, also, there is the significant spread in age - some of these people lived short lives and some lived longer lives - again there is a connection here with photography - some images last longer in memory than others.
Phil Douglis17-Oct-2007 19:33
I was hoping you would post an image of these memorial tablets because I knew yours would offer an entirely different interpretation than my own athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/86307882. I use a vertical format and stress the tablets. You use a horizontal format and stress the portraits. (Exactly the opposite of our usual framing preferences -- you are usually Mr. Vertical, while I am Mister Horizontal!) We both offer a metaphor for the art of photography itself -- how it can overcome the limits of memory and help others recall the lives of lost loved ones and make them live again. You do it by isolating six varied images as a community -- some faded, some fresh, some soft, some sharp, some black and white, others in color, some clean, others discolored. The tablets they rise from are implied rather than seen, but still provide good context. I chose to stress the rhythms of the tablets, and spread my six images, all discolored and faded, amongst them. Even our colors differ. Because of our choices in white balance, your tablets are red, mine brown. Your images vary in coloration, while mine have all been scorched by fire and are uniformly brownish gold. Each image tells its story through rhythm and pattern, but in entirely different ways. Between them, they demonstrate the most significant truth in expressive photography: it's not WHAT we shoot that matters. It's HOW and WHY we choose to shoot it.