Uncovering the hidden gems in Life through the lens of Photography by Kantaya New

Art is Life and Life is Art. Through the lens of Photography, I discovered myself and learn more about Life.

Ichi-go-ichi-e is a Japanese idiom that loosely translates to once in a lifetime. Each moment, each chance encounter, is unique. You could meet the same friend again. But both you and the friend are not the same as when you last met. Therefore there is a need to be deliberate, to cherish and savor each and every moment, as the same moment will never come again.

To me, Street Photography is also Ichi-go-ichi-e. Each Photo is a special moment, a dream, an emotion frozen in time.

In retrospect, often the best things in Life happen totally by chance.

Long Wait © Kantaya New

If Happiness were to exist, it would have to exist hidden somewhere within those ordinary and mundane moments. And wouldn’t it be extraordinary to be able to uncover those moments? It would be like finding half-polished diamonds. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to capture those special moments and share them with family and friends and the next generation?

This is my dream, and this is what I like my photography to be able to do. Only by being totally immersed in the moment, and madly capturing that moment through my lens, am I able to have a freshness of appreciation of all that is extraordinary but seeming ordinary.

Urban Mist © Kantaya New

Tea Break © Kantaya New

Freeze! © Kantaya New

It's Hot! © Kantaya New

Kantaya New
Kantaya is a Thai-born Photo Artist, currently residing in Singapore. She used to lead a corporate life and has no formal education in photography. However, she fell in love with photography by chance while living in Japan a couple of years ago. At the height of covid-19 in 2020, she started devoting time and energy to pursue interest in Street Photography. Kantaya started participating in photo competitions in 2020 and achieved several awards and special mentions, including the 2022 Sony World Photography Awards, Alpha Female Award 2022 and 8th Fine Art Photo Awards.

She spends much of her time, including weekends, hitting the streets in search of those hidden gems or special moments within our daily life. It could be a hilarious moment, seemingly out of this world shots of strangers going about their everyday lives. All these scenes may appear to be normal, but it cannot be replicated. Hence, she aspires to be able to use her lens to capture these special moments, and leave a story for the next generation. Currently, she is focusing on capturing covid-19 related “stories” of how the pandemic has changed our lives.

www.kantayanew.com
@kantaya_new

Outdoor Closet © Kantaya New

I Love SG © Kantaya New

My Hero © Kantaya New

I'm Here! © Kantaya New

Eye Contact © Kantaya New

Virginia Hanusik: Into the Quiet and the Light

By Virginia Hanusik

Publisher : Columbia Books on Architecture and the City

2024 | 184 pages

In South Louisiana, where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico, water―and the history of controlling it―is omnipresent. Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana glimpses the vulnerabilities and possibilities of living on the water during an ongoing climate catastrophe and the fallout of the fossil fuel industry―past, present, and future. The book sustains our physical, mental, and emotional connections to these landscapes through a collection of photographs by Virginia Hanusik. Framing the architecture and infrastructure of South Louisiana with both distance and intimacy, introspection and expansiveness, this work engages new memories, microhistories, anecdotes, and insights from scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners working in the region. Unfolding alongside and in dialogue with Hanusik’s photographs, these reflections soberly and hopefully populate images of South Louisiana’s built and natural environments, opening up multiple pathways that defy singularity and complicate the disaster-oriented imagery often associated with the region and its people. In staging these meditations on water, life, and land loss, this book invites readers to join both Hanusik and the contributors in reading multiplicity into South Louisiana’s water-ruled landscapes.

With texts from Richie Blink, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Jessica Dandridge, Rebecca Elliott, Michael Esealuka, T. Mayheart Dardar, Billy Fleming, Andy Horowitz, Arthur Johnson, Louis Michot, Nini Nguyen, Kate Orff, Jessi Parfait, Amy Stelly, Jonathan Tate, Aaron Turner, and John Verdin.

Rawsht Twana: Twana’s Box

By Rawsht Twana

Publisher : Fraglich Publishing

2024 | 252 pages

Twana’s Box' can be described in many ways: a journey through a photographer’s rare archive, documenting the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1974–1992; a son’s quest to find his lost father, who was murdered by a military regime; a young man’s way to piece together the fragments of a scattered family in a scattered culture; the becoming of a photographer who, through the stories of others, starts to understand his own identity in times of war. 'Twana’s Box' is not only the photo book that holds a selection of Twana Abdullah’s archive; it is a unique insight into a time and place in a region that has since completely transformed. Rawsht has spent years piecing together his father’s negatives and stories. His archival work inspired him to become a photographer himself, working for Metrography – the first independent Iraqi photo agency – before immigrating to Europe. ills colour & bw, 21 x 27 cm, hb, Kurdish/Arabic/English

Akinbode Akinbiyi: Being, Seeing, Wandering

By Akinbode Akinbiyi

Publisher : Spector Books

2024 | 252 pages

Taken across Europe and Africa, Akinbiyi’s images of everyday city life muse on the sociopolitical labyrinths of urban society

Whether in Bamako, Berlin, London, Lagos or Durban, British photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi (born 1946) creates black-and-white street scenes that function as visual metaphors, ruminating on cultural change, social exclusion and colonialism’s effect on urban planning.

Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm

By Grace Wales Bonner

Publisher : The Museum of Modern Art, New York

2024 | 184 pages

A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer
This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm―Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner―Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs.

Uncovering the hidden gems in Life through the lens of Photography by Kantaya New

Selected Books