I bought two masks at an antique store in Melaka. The white one was used in the creation of “Butterfly Dream” and the gold one was used in the idea of “Solomon’s Treasure”.

Since I was a child, I have been interested in stories like treasure hunting. The plot of how an explorer escapes from danger, finds the treasure, and then survives again against the odds, fascinates me.

When I received this mask, I immediately got inspiration; a picture came to mind. In the dark surroundings, the mask glowed underneath, as if there were countless gold and silver jewels hidden, waiting to be discovered.

This image has been lingering in my mind for weeks. I felt it was time to bring it to reality

Photography
To set up the background I used about 40 kg of red soil, which I spread in a rectangular tray 3’h x 4’w x 3’d.

Then I watered the surface to create a rough texture. Then I placed a few shells and dried branches to enhance the atmosphere.

I used two torches in the shoot. The first one was placed in the top left corner to highlight the texture. The other one was used on the mask for light painting.

Under the mask I placed a 30-watt bulb to create the glowing effect.

This created a huge contrast and the exposure was challenging. The situation is that if you meter the surface of the mask, the rest of it will appear overexposed.

Conversely, if I metered the bright areas, the mask would appear underexposed.

So I metered the mid-tone part of the soil and then used another torches light to “paint” the mask a few times to get it sufficiently exposed.

It is important to emphasize that with a film camera, it does not have a preview function and you have to wait for the film to develop before you know what is going on.

I used the bracketing technique, using different exposure times, 1 second, 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 8 seconds, 16 seconds, etc.

I found that a 4 second exposure was just enough to “paint” the mask for a proper exposure.

This entire shoot and set up took several days.

When I held this fruit of the product in my hand, I couldn’t help but think that I might never find Solomon’s treasure; but I have discovered another secret, that is, photography, which brings me infinite spiritual satisfaction, and that is a treasure in itself. Do you agree?