Incense paper (金银纸)

Last month, I had a chance to bring my alpha to this hungry ghost festival ceremony for some cultural immersion and to test out my new camera. This authentic cultural experience sure beats all the stuff we just read from textbooks as I got up close and personal with the rituals involved in this festival of the ghosts.


Always seen this around but wonder what is it called.

This is a great experience for me both culturally and photographically. It's the first time I tried to shoot a night only indoor event and the first time I attend such a ritual. I was told that I should not use flash photography so I had to rely heavily on the super steadyshot of the camera to yield a few good shots out of a bunch.


Pot of flame, taken handheld, just like most of the other photos here.

We have seen rituals like these on TV and movies but its never like it in real life. I could hardly get a clear shot without anyone around in my frame because it takes a lot of people to ensure that everything runs smoothly throughout the ritual.


Sun Wukong with his rod. 孙悟空和他的金箍棒

Without any flash it means that I had awful shadows at places that you would least want it. Plus the ritual could not stop and pose for you to take photographs, I had to run around to get the best angle. And before I could take a couple of shots, the subjects moved on to another place or did a somersault throwing me off my position.


Awful shadow on the face.

I suppose there are lots of meaning behind these rituals that I do not know and I'm pretty sure that many younger Singaporeans would not know either. I recall that almost 20 years ago, one taoist ritual priest wanted to recruit me as his disciple to learn his trade of performing rituals for the dead. Which of course I flatly refused back then.


Carrying the incense pot to the altar.

Now, almost all the people performing these rituals are in their middle age and I wonder how long could these traditions last in Singapore.


Joss sticks

That night was a night of a series of rituals. After the Monkey god, we have the black and white guards of hell (黑白无常) gracing the altar from a lorry. I wonder how could it be safe to seat on chairs in a lorry. But maybe they were driving very slowly.


The guards of hell in their 5 star lorry seats.

These guards were welcomed as I guess they bring fortunes and luck to the worshippers present. But you have to treat them with respect and do their biddings to receive blessings. I always thought that they were associated to death but the words on their hats suggest otherwise.


Anticipated for this shot but sadly the shutter was too slow to do a good one. I think this is about 0.2 s exposure.


One could read the 4 characters on the white hat. Which literally means "Great fortunes with a look" (一见发财)

Now I learnt that these guards from hell used to smoke opium in rituals of the past but since opium is a controlled drug in Singapore and I'm sure no one wants to be hanged for just a ritual, they changed to cigarettes instead.



Smoking and relaxing

They were soon joined by another guard from hell, from a different level, to have their kopitiam chit chat session here. I couldn't understand most of what they are saying since it's in hokkien and the only dialect that I'm proficient in is cantonese.


Getting ready for the ritual to invite the guard from hell for the tea liquor (五加皮?) session.

Sucre sweared that she heard loads of swear words from these guards and she was very disturbed by it. As for me, perhaps those were the only words that ring a bell from me as it brings me back to my army days. It's rather unfortunate that most of the hokkien that I could decipher were the swear words.


Now they were drinking, smoking and swearing

We managed to spot this gem from the ritual too. I'm sure most of you would have seen those mother of all joss sticks that is at least an inch thick. Ever wonder how they light it up? Here's the modern answer.


Pyro just lost his job to this gas flamer because he couldn't control his fire

The ritual would last through the night but it's almost midnight and time for us to leave. As we were about to leave, they were setting up another area for the next part of the ritual. Who knows what did we miss... but it's getting a bit too late for us and we had to do a bit of travelling too.


Looks like a mat for people to lie down and relax. Who knows.. (Taken with the Fuji F11).

I would need a fast lens (i.e. Minolta/Sony 50mm 1.4 prime lens) to do a better job without flash. Compare to the kit lens, a fast prime lens would be 2^4 times as fast so it could push the shutter speed from a SSS limits of 1/13s at 70mm (105mm equivalent) to a cool 1/200s at 50mm (85mm equivalent).

All photos taken with the Sony Alpha 100 with the Sony 18-70 mm DT kit lens unless stated otherwise.

singapore hungry ghost festival ritual photoblog sony a100 alpha fuji f11