NUS Showcase

Posting this series a little overdue as I finally have time over the summer holidays (before I embark on my Y3 journey). I had always wanted to shoot some film photography shots in the school campus, especially University Town, which is my favourite spot to study at (the starbucks there has really big tables and convenient charging spots!), but I was usually caught up in all my external commitments and did not set aside time for this.

Luckily for me, my fellow VPC Exco mate Qi Huang was really into film photography during this period of time and we set aside an afternoon to shoot some shots around campus ~ (I still have another half used roll of Portra 400 with about 10 more shots in it, so the shots below are from my first roll of Portra 400)

The shots below were developed by Darkroom8 (more details about the store in my previous post)

Ps: For mobile users, you may click into the photos in the photogrids for a more enlarged view & look at the mini captions ~ (you can swipe too)

We started off our journey at University Town, which houses almost all Residential Colleges, and has a variety of food choices for students. This shot contains the UTown Residence, which is the closest Residential College to all the delicious food spots.

Education Resource Centre - This building houses many study spots, including the Starbucks at Level 1. During the exam season, students flock to these areas and seats are often taken up before 8am. (Ps: Rotate with your study buddy to decide who reaches first to chope seats!)

Managed to capture a shot of the Grass Cutting Machine that frequents the large grass patch at University Town. Students studying at ERC will be able to see the uncle roaming around the grass patch on this machine on a regular afternoon.

Open Day Journeys usually start off from this side of University Town

The place where tourists always frequent when they visit NUS

#NUS

For those who did not manage to get a seat in the air-conditioned Starbucks area

After we were done with UTown, we took the shuttle bus down to the University Sports Centre, and managed to capture some shots without looking like creeps (there were people swimming there)

Students in Archery/Volleyball/Soccer CCAs would have definitely came across this spacious court

Typical Hoop in the Sky shot

Symbolic.

Film Photographers love to take shots of the trash can.

Finishing our journey across the University Sports Centre, in the sweltering heat, we took the shuttle bus down to the Central Library (and also walked to Deck afterwards).

This random group of friends waved to us but I couldn't focus the camera in time for the shot (manual focus lens)

Wanted to capture an image of Central Library while it was being constructed (might become a relic in the future?)

An Image of The Deck - a place frequented by FASS, COM and BIZ students. It has a wide variety of cheap food options!

The shots above were from my first roll of Portra 400 as mentioned, and the colours did not turn out as expected, which was likely due to some development issues from Darkroom 8.

Funny Story: Halfway through my second roll (when we walked till Biz) , I couldn't press down on my shutter button and I started panicking - the battery was just changed so it couldn't have been an issue with the battery, so I assumed that my camera (Canon AE1) had internal issues as it was pretty old, and headed down to Camera Hospital @Sunshine Plaza, only to find out from the friendly uncle tending the store that I did not fully wind the film advance lever fully - we then proceeded to have a good laugh about it as it was a common beginner's mistake.

I had also initially intended to make this into a POV video with a Insta 360 Go borrowed from my buddy Conrad but I had positioned the camera wrongly and the videos can't be used.

Update: Shots from Biz didnt turn out very nice either but managed to salvage 4 shots.

Cheers and have a great summer ahead!