Shirren Lim: The Use of Lines at City Crosswalks
All images by Shirren Lim. Provided with permission.
Photographer Shirren Lim calls Jakarta, Indonesia her home–and is where hhe started photography back in 2009. What began as an ember of habit eventually grew into a fiery passion in life. Ms. Lim labels himself as a travel photographer, and explores the mysteries of her surroundings using her camera.
Her documenting the travels has earned her exhibitions in London and Switzerland on top of being part of a group exhibition in Spain.
Websites:
Talk to us about how you got into photography
Long story short, I got into photography as I needed a hobby to keep my sanity. I was working way too hard. Back then, I didn’t know anything about photography save some odd memories of me fiddling with my siblings’ camera. So I bought myself an entry–level DLSR and skipped off to Cape Town to pop some shots (I so happened to be heading off to Cape Town for work). I came back from that trip, talked to some people and read up on everything to do with photography and design. Once I got the hang of it, I was in love.
What made you want to get into black and white street photography?
I got into black and white photography simply because I couldn’t see colour. It’s not that I’m colour-blind. I just find colours to be distracting. I like the elegance and simplicity of black and white images. Where to me at least, my black and white images are distilled to their very essence.
My first few foray into photography was into black and white portraitures. Later I graduated myself across other genres. The latest being black and white street photography.
Why do you think that black and white is so important to photography as an art form?
I think most all of the great classics are in black and white. I think as an art form, it carries with it a certain truth, romanticism and nostalgia that we or at least for me, are forever trying to go back to.
When you go about creating these images, what are you typically looking for? It looks like patterns, but what else? What’s your thought process like?
I stood at the crossroads quite a while taking a whole loads of shots. I was looking for patterns, shapes, sizes, light and rhythms of life. To me, at these angle, the crossroad looks like a chess board. The people and elements, chess pieces on top.
What gear was used to capture these photos?
These images were taken between Nov 2015 and July 2016. They were all shot with the RICOH GR.