Remembering Günter Blümlein

One usually rembembers good friends who have had a powerful impact on one's life on occassion of his birthday or passing day. But for a totally random day, I remember the late, great Günter Blümlein

Passing well before his time in 1 October 2000, born 21 March 1943 in Nuremberg, Blümlein had an immense and very powerful impact on the watchmaking industry, and to the his customers (like me) and staff. Many of those who worked for and with him, still carry on his philosophy and remember him with great fondness.
Photographed, in Glashutte December 6, 2013. On a page of my book "A. Lange & Sohne: The Pour le Meite Collection" dedicated to Blümlein, published 2010. Lange 1 Lumen, announced SIHH 2013 on a photograph of Blumlein and the late Jutta Lange.

The Lange 1 was and is truly an iconic timepiece created by Blümlein, assymetric when it was unusual to have watch dials which were so, and featuring an outsized date.
Photographed, circa 1999 at the Lange booth in BaselWorld 1999.

Grandmasters of watchmaking: Roger Smith

Then comes the modest Englishman. A devout follower of the late great George Daniels, Roger Smith is committed to make the entire watch, by hand, just as they did a hundred or more years ago.

Rather elusive, as he is domicile in Isle of Man, but an effable gentleman.

As he knew I had a cycling habit, he told me that he too recently bought a bicycle...a Brompton with 6 speeds, to just tool around the island. I asked if he knew one of the world's most famous sprinters Mark Cavendish, and he quietly remarked that he has seen the Manz Missile riding in the island a couple of times.

A wrist shot with the Roger Smith Series II

But all the Series II watches were for clients, so Roger himself did not have one...what did he wear? An old Omega Chronograph...quite beautiful too, I must say.

A little cheeky, but I cannot resist this juxtaposition...

Grandmasters of Watchmaking: Portrait of Kari Voutilainen

Continuing on the series on Watchmaking Grandmasters, today I feature the enigmatic Kari Voutilainen.

Kari has a keen eye and a wicked, wry sense of humour. In other words, a barrel of fun. Seen here enjoying a joke with Philippe Dufour.

Seconds later...posing for the camera

A formal portrait pose...

For Tues, I will feature portraits of Roger Smith. Once the apprentice extraordinaire to George Daniels, now a Grandmaster in his own right.

Portrait of a Legend: Philippe Dufour

Spending a day with one of the legends of Independent watchmaking - The Grandmaster himself: Philippe Dufour is always such a great pleasure.

I count myself incredibly lucky to be able to own a Dufour Simplicity, and even more lucky to be able to call Philippe Dufour a good friend. So please pardon me for the delayed telecast of Friday's post, as I just had to indulge my friend, and bring him to eat one of his favourite Singapore dishes - Bak Kut Teh.
Even Lengendary Grandmasters need to eat!

Holding court, with my two other friends: Veteran watch journalist Larry Wee, and Mr Logistics: Eddie Sng.

As a watch collecting group, wrist shots are very popular.There is a Facebook site called Wristshots by my good friends at Watchonista which receive hundreds of postings a day, and another by Russell Cheong called Foodie's Watch which also very active. This would probably qualify as an ultimate wrist shot...
Dufour on Dufour

More portraits of the Grandmaster and others who attended the Hour Glass' Grandmaster event held recently in Singapore....hint...Kari Voultilainen, Laurent Ferrier and Roger Smith in the works...akan datang (Malay for coming soon).

Its SIHH!!

Watchscapes attends SIHH...watch this space for magnificent, high resolution photographs from SIHH and GTE soon. Meantime, as I am in Geneva attending the show, I will try and post short snipets.

Concorso D'Eleganza 2012: Impromptu portraits

People at the Concorso...these are impromptu portraits of some of the beautiful people at the Concorso D'Eleganza della Villa D'Este 2012

Begin with the models...

Close up on one of them

Car owners who took the trouble to dress in period dress of the era of their car

And a proud Ferrari owner's wife, who was taking photographs of their car.

One of the spectators...

And a young photographer...

Model shoot with Nissan GT-R

The Nissan GT-R is not new, but it has developed a reputation of being a Porshe killer. When the Hasselblad Users Group wanted to do a car shoot...I first offered to arrange a Pagini Zonda...but they felt that as this was our first car shoot for the group, perhaps a less exotic, but still interesting car might fit the bill. The GT-R does this trick. Superb car, and we were lucky to have Rebecca as the model who slithered on the car.

I don't normally do model photographs, but Rebecca was a pleasure to work with, so I thought I'd show these shots with GT-R as a prop.

Closeup on Rebecca's face

OK, back to the car....

OK, I lied...more to Rebecca on the car...I am not an expert on cars, so I let the pictures do the talking....first Rebecca with car...

Click on remainding pics for a 1920 pixel wide superwallpapers.

I did take many photographs of the car alone, but perhaps for another day, eh?

Many thanks to Raymond Kong for the use of your marvellous automobile. Apologies to Rebecca...as we are a camera nut group, I left the photographs un-retouched...no photoshop of anykind except for levels and resizing (and where appropriate, addition of frames)...except for the two car only photographs...which were photoshopped to death...muahahahahah (evil laugh).

Archery anyone?

Just a quick, fun post for today...

When I was in the traditional city of Nikko in Japan last year, I managed to witness an interesting archery event. The participants dressed up as mediaval folks...processing down a prepared gravel road, approximately 800m long

Three targets were set up at regular intervals, and archers on horseback, ride at full speed, and try and shoot 3 arrows at the the 3 targets. Amazingly many are able to hit 2, with some even striking all 3 targets while on horseback.

Faces at dinner: The Hour Glass and De Bethune dinner

Around the dinner table one evening...dinner with De Bethune...

Alessandro Zaneta, Sales Director De Bethune:



Michael Tay, chief supremo at The Hour Glass:



Wong Mei Ling, CEO of The Hour Glass Singapore:



My good friend Dr. Mycroft Khoo...



Editor of The Business of Time, Chuang Peck Meng, Business Times



Editor of my book, Timmy Tan, Timewerke



Moderator at Horomundi, Zach Toh




All photographed with Panasonic Lumix GH-2 with 14-140 lens at ISO12800. Intentionally blended in Photoshop for the grainy, grizzly look...in an attempt to capture the mood of the evening.

Faces

Continuing on the series of rally photographs...a series of candid portraits













All photographed with Panasonic Lumix GH-2 with 14-140 lens.

Photographers in a rally

It was election time in Singapore last week...though as I write this blog entry (Saturday afternoon) the polls are still on-going and results will not be known till later this evening. I happen to live in the only constituency where there is a walkover...so sadly I won't get to exercise my right to vote this election.

But it didn't stop me from attending some rallys held over the week...interesting to see that there are so many photographers in a typical lunchtime rally...here are some shots

Girl with Canon 7D and a fellow with a Nikon behind her:



Another girl with a film Canon...though with an Olympus strap



Hidden camera-woman...with Olympus EP...not sure if its 1 or 2.



And the guys...press cameraman, with his pro Nikon D3 (not visible in pic) and very well used, seasoned Hasselblad X-PAN. Very cool.



Fellow doing video with his Iphone, on special holder...I believe there is a lens in front of the Iphone lens, and external microphone:



And Press photographer with his battered EOS 1ds3



All photographed with Panasonic Lumix GH-2 with 14-140 lens.