Five-Foot Way
Shophouse fronts photographed level and square, in the half hour after the sun leaves the street.
- Ipoh, Taiping and George Town
- Weekends, 2021 to 2023
- Medium format, shift adapter, 45 mm lens
- Open shade, 17:30 to 18:15
01Three fronts. Old Town, Ipoh, 2021.The three owners painted their fronts in the same week in 1987. None of them has painted since. 
02Arcade, morning. George Town, Penang, 2022. 
03Shutters. Old Town, Ipoh, 2021. 
04Back lane. New Town, Ipoh, 2022. 
05Corner, blue hour. Taiping, Perak, 2023. 
06Light well. George Town, Penang, 2022.
Notes on the series
The covered walkway in front of a shophouse was written into the colonial building rules as five feet wide. It is rarely exactly that. Some are wider than a lorry, some have been bricked in, and many have been tiled, re-tiled and painted by three generations of the same family.
I photographed the fronts frontally, from the height of the first floor sill, with the camera shifted rather than tilted so that every vertical stays vertical. I waited for the half hour after the sun leaves the street, when there are no hard shadows and the pastel lime wash shows its real colour.
Signboards were not removed in post. I chose buildings and angles where there were none, which is harder than it sounds and explains why this series took three years.
Prints from Five-Foot Way
- Three fronts, 2021From RM 1,450
- Corner, blue hour, 2023From RM 1,450
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