Category: Visual Art

Crackers firing on 15th January Chinese New Year was banned 51 years ago due too many casualties happened. But the practice was a sign of prosperities for business among Chinese communities. The longer the string of crackers hanging down from the high floors depicts the success of business in the past year. Most importantly, covering the floors with burned red crackers is the sign of prosperities for the coming year.
Such a yearly practice was an exciting event to capture in photography.
I am fortunate to have the heritage image in good order among my collections.

An monochrome image that I captured more than 60 years ago. I digitalised the negative and post-processed with the soft-ware recently.
Burning and dodging of the selected areas could be easily applied with the high tech. In the early sixties, cottage industry site at Mata Ikan area was a favourite location for our Sunday outing. Besides the atmospheric pictorial quality of the morning scene, most importantly, capturing the decisive moment was utterly essential for an eye-catching image.