Once Upon A Time In INDIA

After the last house flood, our stuff and junk are still semi organised in the garage. While rummaging through the chaos last week end, I discovered some forgotten memories; images that were forgotten.

A CD found was labelled "India Fashion", ahhh... memories flood back, it bring a smile to my face :)

I remember someone said, "It took me a long time to figure out that it's not where you are that counts in life; it's the memories that you make there."

And since, "Everybody has a story to tell, but stories forgotten can never be retold." Here's the great time I had with a group of energetic and creative young Singaporean before I forget!

1994 - I was head hunted and landed a well paid job as the first Picture Editor for Lianhe Zaobao in Singapore. Life was good, the Editor; Mr. Loy liked me a lot. Believe you me, this "LIKE" thing is very important in Singapore ;)

I just bought and set up the first Electronic Picture Desk for the Chinese Paper Division. I was getting acquainted with the Apple Macintosh computers and learning to use Adobe Photoshop 5.0 to scan negatives with a Kodak Professional RFS 2035 desktop scanner then output the pictures to a S$40,000 Kodak dye-sub printer!

Looking at the images in the India Fashion CD gave me a shock! The quality of the scans were terrible and they are all in PICT format, which; Photoshop CS5 DO NOT support! Suffice to say, the "rejigging" of the 1994 scans took me some very late nights :)

But how did I ended up shooting fashion in India?

In 1993, the features section of the Chinese paper ran a nation wide Most Promising Young Models Contest. The winners (male and female) will go with a fashion team from the paper to India for a week of fashion shoot.

Before I start, here is a plead; I had no record of the names of those in the pictures and this old mind cannot really recall their Chinese names! So if you are reading this or if you are their friends, please inform me yours / theirs names. Thanks!

We were in a chartered bus heading for Jaipur, the Pink City; this boy was selling poppadom in the middle of the road. I shot through the bus window.

The different modes of transport in the busy Pink City, do you now know why they call Jaipur the Pink City? Duh!

The famous Hawa Mahal in Jaipur. Built of red and pink sandstone, the palace is situated on the main thoroughfare in the heart of Jaipur’s business centre. It forms part of the City Palace, and extends to the Zenana or women's chambers, the chambers of the harem. It is particularly striking when viewed early in the morning, lit with the golden light of sunrise. - Wikipedia -

Shooting our young models in front of the “Palace of the Breeze” (Hawa Mahal).

Look at those four striking up a pose! Ha ha ha... from left, our make-up guy; our feature writer, our tour guide and our fashion guy.

By the road side, people made do; to survive.

We were on the roof top overlooking the busy Jaipur main street. The City Palace, bathed in the golden setting sun are in the background.

 Could be an earliest SELFIE! A late afternoon work out on a Jaipur roof top. Fashion photography is not all glamor :)

Monkeys are a common sight on the Jaipur city roof top.

Every where your can see are bright, bright colour!

The stunningly beautiful City Palace at Jaipur!

With a City Palace guard.

This was a royal bath tub at the palace!

We are trying to get out of the city and head for Amber Fort, 13km from Jaipur.

Amber Fort as viewed from its front across Maotha lake

Getting ready for the shoot.

How about an assistant to steady your monopod? ;)

Then disaster strike! I did not see Mr Murphy around, but as always he was ;)

Our pretty model had a nose bleed! Look at all the attentions she is getting :)

Our model recovered from her bleeding ordeal to pose with this delightful nuts merchant.

Next to come:

Once Upon A Time In India 2