JPG Magazine: Stories: Photo Essay: Jurong Bird Park re-visited

Jurong Bird Park re-visited

By Richard Seah

29 August 2008

I was 15 years old when the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore opened in 1971. In a teenage adventure, two friends and I walked there. I cannot remember how long the trip took, but it was many, many hours.

The second time I visited the park was in the mid-1990s, when I played tourist guide to two friends from India, now living in the United States.

Photography finally took me back there again in July 2008, when one of my regular shooting buddies suggested that we go there - instead of going to view an exhibition where a young photographer won the S$30,000 (approx USD 21,000) top prize in an art competition with a series of controversial still life images showing the parts and organs of dead animals!

My first lot of photographs were okay but not great, except for one that was initially passed over. My friend had commented that one particular bird was "very ugly". I took a shot just for the heck of it.

Later, when I edited my images, I decided to turn some of the colorful parrots and flamingos to black and white just to see how they look.

Then I remembered that "ugly bird". I turned him to black and white, cropped out some distracting leaves on the left, increased the contrast slightly...

This became Evil, ugly fella - which is one of my most commented, most favorited images on this site. Seems he (or she) is not that ugly after all, but certainly still evil looking!

That got me fired up and I went back to the bird park another two times in the next three weeks. On my third visit, I decided to buy a one-year season pass.

I will be going back for more.