Bang Bang Geng
Personal photos, vintage lenses, and collectable cameras deck the inside of Bang Bang Geng.
KoonYik Chin.
If you ask KoonYik Chin about how he got his start in photography, he’ll likely refer to it as more of a disease than a pastime. Chin used to toy around with a digital Olympus E-P2 camera starting out in 2010, but when friends introduced him to shooting with film nine months later he says, “I think I probably went overboard.” Self-diagnosing himself with “Gear Acquisition Syndrome,” Chin began collecting film cameras, vintage lenses, leather camera bags, and antique stereoscopes with a fervor that today populate the interior of his specialty photography store in the basement of Publika. The store, Bang Bang Geng, borrows its moniker from a collective of four photographers who documented South Africa during the Apartheid period, which came to serve as the nickname for his amateur photography club. With his wife’s support (but silent chagrin), Chin opened up shop in March 2013, ditching a lifelong career in IT services and investing his personal savings in the store. The space acts as more of a gallery and place for inspiration than retail outfit: the majority of snappers on display are from Chin’s private collection with a selection available to rent. Instead enthusiasts come for film starter kits (for the risk averse) or complex processing methods like wet plate photography. Chin’s enthusiasm is apparent to anyone who wanders into the shop, spouting knowledge and words of encouragement in a time when the art of film photography is steadily losing favor to the instant gratification of digital. Dealing Kodak, Fujifilm, Ilford Photo, AgfaPhoto, and TudorColor, the shop is ripe with rolls for shooters at any level. Dark room classes also have amateurs coming in for crash courses in developing along with services for digitizing old negatives. While prices are prohibitively expensive for processing and digitizing old rolls elsewhere, Bang Bang Geng charges just US$2.50 a roll, or at a price that Chin says, “help[s] people not lose their memories locked in their old negatives.”
Publika, Level G1, 1 Jalan Dutamas 1, Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur; 603/6206-2686; Bang Bang Geng
