Amazed by Fatin Falcon, a Singapore-based photographer, I came across her personal challenge of photographing the same place with the same camera for an entire year. She challenged her creativity by repeatedly capturing moments at Merlion Park using her Ricoh GR III. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the post where she shared this particular challenge, but you can check out her fantastic photographs on her Instagram, especially the ones she captured around 2024-2025.
While I’m not that ambitious, I coincidentally realized that I had taken a series of photos from the same place using the same lens. Or, to be more precise, the same background. Originally, I wanted to do the challenge with the same camera as well, but my camera (Olympus EM10 mk iii) broke in 2025 ðŸ˜. Too bad I disqualified for the “same place, same camera” challenge. Instead, I changed it to “Same Place, Same Lens.” The lens I’ll be using is the Lumix 14mm f/2.5, the old lens I pair with my broken camera. It offers a wider field of view, but I won’t restrict myself from cropping the photos if needed.
When I first moved to Penang, as a normal person would search some info about Penang, I for sure you will came across the famous Armenian Street, where tourists gather to photograph the iconic public mural created by Ernest Zacharevic. Naturally, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, especially since the place is almost always crowded with visitors. Over time, I ended up collecting quite a number of photos from the exact same spot.
The mural is so iconic that it has gradually evolved from a tourist attraction into a “tourist hub.” It’s a place where visitors can photograph one of Penang’s landmarks, cool down with an ice-cold drink or an ice cream under the scorching sun, and buy countless “bootleg” versions of the mural printed on T-shirts, keychains, tote bags, and just about every souvenir imaginable. Whether the after effect is good or bad is up to you to judge. It’s does bring oppurtinity to nearby vendor, but it slowly forces the original local residents to give way to business owner to “sell” to the visitor.
After numerous revisits, I found myself making the same tourist photos over and over again. My creative juice had dried up. Unless I was willing to wait patiently for something interesting to happen. Or maybe I couldn’t discover anything new in the same place. But Penang has so many other places worth exploring that I didn’t want to trap myself in just one location.
So this is my attempt at the “Same Place, Same Lens” challenge. Might reattempt this challenge in future 😉.
