Thinking back to Guanajuato, 2016

Guanajuato, Mexico, 2016 When I first stepped into Mexico City, 5 years ago now, I came across Matteo, a Finn who regularly spent 6 months of his year there. When asked how he managed to talk his way through customs, he said the first thing he learned in Spanish, was how to express his appreciation…More

Notes From The Inside

You know, i really like Instagram. It’s a conducive platform for bite-sized writing. That isn’t the point of IG, but the expectations of the platform make sharing offhand, barely cogent text… well, ok. Most of my writing happens during lulls these days: the hours on public transport, breathing moments in the middle of a work…More

Elsewhere on the Web…

Singapore I’ve been writing elsewhere on the web these days, being very lax about keeping this blog up to date. Apologies to those of you who come here hoping to find me as prolific as I am on a platform like Instagram (@charlene.winfred). All of my longer pieces these days live on the Fujilove website.…More

Not What I See

Singapore. “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” ― Ansel Adams I take recognition of familiar surroundings for granted. Here in my own country, the…More

Roots

I spent my first 5 years of life in a kampong (village), in a house typical of one – with slatted sides and zinc roof, a separate building for a kitchen, and an outhouse (a dark and scary place). But my roots spring from Housing Board Development flats – the public housing blocks where 80…More

Map-Making: poetry and photographs by Eileen Chong and Charlene Winfred

At the end, we would sign our names like artistsin the corners then lay down our pencils,the day’s journey mapped out and complete.   – Eileen Chong, Map-making, from From Peony, 2014, Pitt Street Poetry [Edit 30 June] All copies of Map-Making have been sold out! This has been a long time coming. 20 years,…More

Back to black… and white

Singapore I’m back in the motherland. It’s always a bit of a rough landing, coming back to the big smoke after an extended time in the country. After years of this transition, you’d think I’d be used to it. The role transition – from functional adult to child (albeit, an old, overgrown one) in my…More

Four views of a sunset

Quite possibly, the best view in the world. Not because it’s particularly dramatic, or spectacular. It’s not a view that will make it into a calendar. But it’s a view that always allows you (or me) as much time as we desire, to watch the day exhale. Sun, set.More

Cloud

Daffodils gather elsewhere, but in Trend, the clouds wander, alone with the Milky Way. I’ve been making a lot of black and white pictures of late – a symmetry of mood and creative impulse perhaps. My eye appears to have traded its attraction to colour for tone. Then once in a while, I’m shocked by…More

Winter, Chapter 2.5: Castle in fog

Hillerød, Denmark, early March This one’s a throwback to that crazy foggy day I woke up to, at the beginning of this trip to Denmark. I look at these pictures now, a month and a half after they were made. I can’t believe myself that I was there, wandering around a the quiet town center…More

Winter Chapter 6: The last days of fog

Aalborg, Denmark. This may be my penultimate winter post. The thawing fields are being fertilised and ploughed, readied for the growing season. After days of clear skies, it snowed briefly – furiously – for an hour in the morning. And then, the snow eased, and it rained for the first time since I’d arrived in…More

Winter, Chapter 4: Whiteout

Northern Jutland, Denmark From Hillerød, we travel to the farmlands of northern Jutland, where tiny, delicate galanthus bloom despite the frosts. The evening of arrival was bluer than I had ever seen, but throughout the night, all colour was sucked into a blinding void. In the aftermath, there was no sound and no movement. Only…More

Winter, Chapter 3: Of Frozen Lakes

Above: skaters on Peblinge Sø in Copenhagen last week. We made our trip to Copenhagen on another sub zero day. It was windy too, as it seems to always be in this city. Walking into the freezing wind from Nørreport station to where we were headed in Nørrebro, was… I don’t remember. I think my…More