[{"content":" Previous Next Hello Stranger 📸 # This a little corner of the internet for my photography.\nNo expectations.\nNo pressure to chase numbers.\nNo algorithms to please.\nNo perfect photo, only real ones to me.\nJust me and my camera, figuring things out.\n","date":"28 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"","summary":"","title":"","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"28 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Posts","type":"posts"},{"content":"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.\nView this post on Instagram While I\u0026rsquo;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 😭. Too bad I disqualified for the \u0026ldquo;same place, same camera\u0026rdquo; challenge. Instead, I changed it to \u0026ldquo;Same Place, Same Lens.\u0026rdquo; The lens I\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;t restrict myself from cropping the photos if needed.\n\u0026lsquo;Little Children on Bicycle\u0026rsquo; mural create by Ernest Zacharevic 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\u0026rsquo;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.\nThe mural is so iconic that it has gradually evolved from a tourist attraction into a \u0026ldquo;tourist hub.\u0026rdquo; It\u0026rsquo;s a place where visitors can photograph one of Penang\u0026rsquo;s landmarks, cool down with an ice-cold drink or an ice cream under the scorching sun, and buy countless \u0026ldquo;bootleg\u0026rdquo; 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\u0026rsquo;s does bring oppurtinity to nearby vendor, but it slowly forces the original local residents to give way to business owner to \u0026ldquo;sell\u0026rdquo; to the visitor.\nAfter 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\u0026rsquo;t discover anything new in the same place. But Penang has so many other places worth exploring that I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to trap myself in just one location.\nSo this is my attempt at the \u0026ldquo;Same Place, Same Lens\u0026rdquo; challenge. Might reattempt this challenge in future 😉.\n","date":"28 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/same-lens-same-place/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Same Place Same Lens","type":"posts"},{"content":" (6 × 9) + (6 + 9) = ? # Heavily influenced by the “69” meme — the joke where people reply “nice” to any post containing the number 69, regardless of the context. Over time, the joke slowly rewired my brain into instinctively saying “nice” whenever I encountered the number 69.\nI started seeing 69 as a daily reminder to notice \u0026ldquo;nice\u0026rdquo; things around me. Whether on a wall, a price tag, a book, or a poster, I began documenting every 69 I noticed.\nI think 69 is more meaningful than 67. It\u0026rsquo;s just a brainrot joke with absolutely no context.\nBeca (rickshaw) with number plate of 69 in street of Penang I also started playing around with the abstract shape of 69. It kind of looks like Yin Yang. Eventually, I realized I could even create a 69 using hand signs like below.\nTwo OK handsign that form into 69 Scratch marks on a wall forming a resemblance to 69 But just like life, you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes you find unexpected surprises instead. In my case, alongside all the 69s, I somehow ended up compiling a bunch of 169s as well.\nInspired by my younger brother, who started experimenting with printing his photos into an 8-page zine folded from a single sheet of A4 paper, I felt this mini project was very suitable for that format. The outcome turned out quite well, and I learned that editing for screens and editing for print are two completely different worlds. I’m still not ready to fall into the printing rabbit hole.\nHand-drawn draft for sequencing vs completed zine Just a small mini-project for now. Hopefully more weird and bigger projects coming soon. Stay tuned.\n","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/nice-number/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Nice Number","type":"projects"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/project/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Project","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Projects","type":"projects"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/zine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Zine","type":"tags"},{"content":"Hi! I\u0026rsquo;m Cai Xuan, aka Sean Chai, born and raised in Malaysia.\nI bought my first camera with my own savings in 2020. Since then, I’ve been on a journey of learning and exploring the art of photography.\nAs most social media platforms — especially in the 2020s — felt increasingly limiting and driven by fast-paced, attention-grabbing algorithms, I started this blog as a space to experiment with how I present my projects, explorations, and experiences throughout my photography journey.\nOpen for all kinds of collaborations. Feel free to reach out.\nSocial: @thisseanchai\n","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"","summary":"","title":"About","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"}]