Colour – Page 14 – Hong Kong Lucida

The Work of Street Photography

Posted on May 20, 2014May 19, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

I am reading Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew B. Crawford.

It’s a meditation on the value of manual work. I’m on page 79 at this point and it’s one of those books I’d like to read slowly, because there are so many wonderful insights that are conveyed in a very accessible manner which encourage me to stop and just think.

Take this sentence for example:

If different human types are attracted to different kinds of work, the converse is also true: the work a man does forms him.

I am a literature geek, pure and simple. That says a lot about who I am already. Neat, simple and a bit obsessive.

So I have chosen the kind of work that suits my temperament.

The work then further deepens my temperament.

I am sure many of us could say the same thing.

But I’m at a point where something else has come into play – my interest in street photography using quality compact film cameras.

Street photography relies on serendipity. It celebrates ordinary, everyday life, and it’s something to think about as to keep myself from going insane during banal moments (such as when I am at the back of a really long queue at a crowded supermarket checkout.)

And it introduces a kind of variety into my work I suppose. (The Chinese characters at this shop entrance means “anarchy”.)

I was standing outside the shop composing with my Contax TVS and a passerby saw what I was doing.

“All these crazy shops,” he muttered to me, and walked on. It looks like a Japanese ramen place as far as I could figure.

So, yes, I suppose it’s a little bit different from my day job. Here, I’m standing at the entrance, aiming my camera, waiting deliberately for the right moment.

What am I doing, and what am I looking for as a street photographer? I admit I live within myself too much.

Maybe part of the work of street photography has to do with getting away from myself.

Sometimes, it’s good not to be myself.

I look into the backs of trucks.

I look at other people at work.

I look at stuff.

I am intrigued by the strangeness of other people.

I imagine myself wearing their clothes. Then, I imagine myself wearing their skin.

And I look some more, and am sometimes not quite used to what I see.

Ngong Ping Cable Car IV

Posted on May 16, 2014May 5, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

If you’ve read the previous 3 posts, you’ll know that the photographs below were in some of those posts, though they are in color here.

Yes, my B mode (berserk mode) in the cable car.

Monochrome is a gift to the street photographer, because:

i) it removes distracting elements and focuses our attention on the theme and/or graphic elements such as lines/grids/repetitions;

ii) it provokes a knee-jerk reaction to do with aesthetic pretensions (ooh b/w, therefore it must be seriously worthy/arty/historical/documentary);

iii) there’s virtue in taking the minimalist less-is-more approach.

But sometimes, less can be less as well.

Slightly contrasty colors can be striking.

Here’re the cable car exhibits (which my wife said looked like Ultraman heads).

While we’re on the subject of superheroes, it’s hard to resist that Superman blue and red combo.

Blue and red combo again.

Slightly desaturated colors can be … poetic.

Colors could mark our different kinds of spaces.

Colorful below, black and white above.

There’s a statement here to be made about human colors vs religious monochrome.

The colors below look Kodak Ultramax -ish to me.

Anyway, there’s a tussle here of course, and you could say the photograph in color is not the same as the one in monochrome.

This one below looks Kodak Portra – ish. (Yes, yes, I miss my film cameras already.)

Of course, there are various kinds of monochrome (low vs high contrast, different filters, etc.).

Not to mention b/w vs colors as in film photography.

Photography is a universe in itself.

Until next time.

Tranquillity

Posted on May 2, 2014April 30, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

We all need to walk.

I have done this walk so many times now, that some of these images are lodged in my mind.

We all know how our external environments organize our internal state.

In a crowded shopping mall, we’re all a bit tense.

Look at water and we relax.

We all need a depository of homely images in our mind.

So we feel at home even outside of home.

There’s a story of a family here waiting to be told.

Just a little narrative.

A little space.

A scattering of things telling us who we are.

Just a little window to the world. A little insight.

A safe harbor.

And we’re home.

Noah’s Ark in Hong Kong

Posted on April 25, 2014April 30, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

I am a creature of habit, of the Homer-Simpson-couch-potato-beer-belly-belching variety.

So when my wife announced we’re spending a night in Noah’s Ark, part of me wanted to resist, though curiosity (plus the fact that I’ve basically [and wisely!] outsourced my recreational and social life to my better half) took over.

It’s a theme park mostly for children (I have 2!) with parents attached.

It’s located in Ma Wan, an island cum residential estate with a policy of banning entry to private vehicles.

We did a night’s stay literally on the third floor of Noah’s Ark, and got bumped up to a eight-bedded suite.

Sadly, though, you can’t find a bar in Noah’s Ark…

It’s a rather postmodern experience, as it’s a biblical-themed park and complex concocted out of secular/capitalist/entertainment motivations by the Sun Hung Kai property conglomerate. It requires a bit of roller-coaster thinking.

As a Christian of the church-going, serious-bible-study-home-group-acoustic-guitar-worship variety cum literature-professor-and-poet-who-has-read-his-Derrida type of person, I was rather intrigued.

So was my street photographer persona, who wisely decided to rely on a Canon G11 to do the job of taking family snapshots as well as street photography.

Yes, there’re still people out there proudly carrying their G11’s, evidence of the longevity of what is now a classic camera. (I’ve seen G9’s, 10’s and 11’s for sale at vintage camera shops.) I know someone who still carries a G9.

Back to the main story.

The above was in an educational exhibit room for kids teaching them about geology. I do like the religious motif with the light shining down and the person in front whose head is bowed in devotion…

Free souvenir photos! Check out the psychedelic set-up, to remind us of God’s cosmological creations, I’m sure.

There were various events, including this 35-minute tour of religious exhibits and replicas.

This guy playing Moses jumped right into our midst.

He spent the next 20 minutes telling us of the Ten Commandments and of how Hong Kong has strayed somewhat from the biblical plot.

It was amusing to see Moses code-switching between Cantonese and English. (Note to self: I must remember to tell my Applied English Linguistics colleagues of this.)

As a Christian of the church-going, serious-bible-study-home-group-acoustic-guitar-worship variety cum literature-professor-and-poet-who-has-read-his-Derrida type of person, I was rather intrigued.

Someone has put serious effort into reproducing replicas of the tabernacle as well as the Dead Sea scrolls.

There were authentic illustrated Victorian bibles plus various other stuff on display. This really appeals to the literature nerd in me.

We were told the exhibits were rotated regularly.

Check out the life-sized 3D replica of the Last Supper.

The animals coming out of the Ark after the Flood.

As a Christian of the church-going, serious-bible-study-home-group-acoustic-guitar-worship variety cum literature-professor-who-has-read-his-Derrida type of person, I was seriously intrigued.

After the end of 40 days and nights of flooding and another 150 days for the waters to subside, a giraffe sniffs the air tentatively, with the Tsing Ma bridge in the background.

Very postmodern.

Very postmodern white tigers emerging from their stay in Noah’s Ark, set against the Tsing Ma bridge …

I felt a need to get out of the theme park after a while.

Though in honesty, there’s no getting out of the giant theme park known as Hong Kong.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate honest-to-goodness aesthetics. Someone has done a bit of landscaping for this village house nearby.

Thanks for reading!

A 20-minute Walk

Posted on April 22, 2014April 22, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

My university is sprawled on the side of a hill, and my office is at its second-highest point.

A few brave souls walk up the hill to work every morning.

Me, I take the shuttle bus up in the morning and walk down the hill in the evening.

It takes about 15-20 minutes, depending on the state of my tummy.

That’s my workout …

That’s the Pavilion of Harmony at New Asia College, at one side of the topmost plateau.

It all looks very Chinese …

The above views are taken with my Canonet QL17 GIII, loaded with Kodak Color Plus 200.

The ones below are with my Minolta AF-C, with Kodak Portra 400.

I’ve been doing this commute every work day for the past 7 years, walking down the hill.

For the first time, I looked at the hillside.

These are shadows of bamboo on the hillside.

Followed by some fish (koi?) pond thing with a picturesque arrangement of a pale-green rubber hose…

And the Chinese-looking bridge…

A Chinese-looking bench I’ve never seen anyone sit on …

A mini-waterfall…

There’s that picturesque almost-identical rubber hose again…

A suitcase advertising a few film screenings at the foot of the hill…

And then the road…

Where Things Go To Die

Posted on April 15, 2014April 30, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

Here’s where things go to die.

We have a guardian of sorts.

The day is green.

Or deathly pink.

The remains of the day.

There’s a time to build.

A time to tear down.

A time to conserve.

A time to say goodbye to the little world.

And a time to prepare.

The Metropolis and Mental Life

Posted on April 10, 2014April 30, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life. (“The Metropolis and Mental Life” p. 409)

All quotations here are taken from Georg Simmel (from The Sociology of George Simmel, translated and edited by Kurt H. Wolff, The Free Press, 1950), whose writings I dip into once in a while because it’s still so potent as a commentary on how modern city life affects the way we think and feel. We don’t see these effects, just as a fish fails to see the water it swims in.

Modern mind has become more and more calculating. The calculative exactness of practical life which the money economy has brought about corresponds to the ideal of natural science: to transform the world into an arithmetic problem, to fix every part of the world by mathematical formulas. Only money economy has filled the days of so many people with weighing, calculating, with numerical determinations, with a reduction of qualitative values to quantitative ones. (“The Metropolis and Mental Life” p.412)

I guess the vulgar word for me is “positivism” – the idea that it is possible to come up with consistent and reliable formulas to how life works. Formulas are re-assuring, such as “be a banker/lawyer/accountant/doctor, because these jobs translate into big numbers, and these big numbers mean success”.

Of course, there are many successful bankers/lawyers/accountants/doctors who lead meaningful lives and who enjoy their jobs. I’m only arguing against the confusion between quality and quantity. Quality cannot be easily quantified. Sometimes we play this soundtrack too readily.

Here in buildings and educational institutions, in the wonders and comforts of space-conquering technology, in the formations of community life, and in the visible institutions of the state, is offered such an overwhelming fullness of crystallized and impersonalized spirit that the personality, so to speak, cannot maintain itself under its impact. On the one hand, life is made infinitely easy for the personality in that stimulations, interests, uses of time and consciousness are offered to it from all sides. They carry the person as if in a stream, and one needs hardly to swim for oneself. On the other hand, however, life is composed more and more of these impersonal contents and offerings which tend to displace the genuine personal colorations and incomparabilities. This results in the individual’s summoning the utmost in uniqueness and particularization, in order to preserve his most personal core. He has to exaggerate this personal element in order to remain audible even to himself. (“The Metropolis and Mental Life” p. 422)

I’ve always found the above passage to be rather depressing. The modern concern with the uniqueness of our personality emerges out of an anxiety. Now that everything is for sale, we’re compelled to be “unique”, “autonomous” and “individual” so as to differentiate ourselves from other cogs in the giant capitalist machine. “Look at me I’m so unique and interesting,” I tell myself and others, knowing that there are tens of thousands of people around me (and many with blogs like this) saying precisely the same thing.

We are surrounded by things we buy with numbers. And these things, whether tangible or intangible, which we buy and sell, turn us into who we are.

Is it possible to walk away from such a situation?

Contax TVS

Posted on April 7, 2014April 30, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

In a previous post on the snapshot aesthetic, I mentioned zone focusing with Olympus XA2 and auto-focusing with Minolta AF-C.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, behold my Contax TVS. It has an aperture priority mode and a program mode. There’s auto-focus (which you could override with a dial).

This allows me to be more stealthy, and the motorized whirring is not too loud.

I consider the Contax TVS series to be the baby brother of the Contax T1/2/3 series of which T2 is much celebrated, or the Contax G series of cameras.

It has the Vario Sonnar lens which allows for zooming, for days when I’m too lazy to zoom with my feet.

This lady popped out and I responded quickly enough…

“Oops, what’s this?” I thought as I was looking at the negative.

The panoramic mode was activated without me knowing.

Oh oh …

Hm.

The panoramic mode is basically a cropping of the frame by the camera, and the panels were unhinged.

I felt there was an intuitive bond between me and the Contax TVS… was I imagining things?

It’s built like a tank, and I could take myself seriously when I’m holding it… I was so looking forward to serious days…

After a moment of reflection and in that rare moment of sanity, I returned the camera to the store.

There were 2 Nikon 35Ti‘s beckoning, and a Fuji “sardine can” Tiara as well.

It was then that I had a Prufrockian moment:

Do I dare disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

I waved goodbye (in my mind only) to those cameras.

The person at the store kept my number, noted my mournful expression, and 3 days later, I was told there’s another Contax TVS in the store, this one with the original strap, manual (in Japanese), case and lens cap.

I took it out for a spin.

Woohoo!

The panoramic mode here was fully intended. This was the only panoramic shot I took. I don’t expect to use it much. It’s a bit tacky I think…

Happy happy joy joy.

All is fine – I tilted the camera and shook it this way and that to see if the panoramic mode would kick in.

I zoomed in and out and it’s fine.

Zooming in … and it’s still ok.

Yup, we have a winner here.

The Force is strong with this one…

O happy day!

The Snapshot Aesthetic

Posted on April 2, 2014April 30, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

I’ve been using Olympus XA2 for quite some time now and have been mulling over how zone focusing allows me to compose more quickly.

I happened to come across the lesser-known Minolta AF-C and yes, it’s auto-focus.

Load it with Kodak UltraMax 400 and it’s pure joy if you’re pursuing a snapshot aesthetic.

You could focus really quickly and the saturated colours would work for those with a taste for lomography.

The word “snapshot” hints of amateurism, and I suppose it goes against the conventional rules of professional photography concerning proper framing and lighting, etc.

There’s a scholarly article here on how the snapshot aesthetic is being used to persuade in advertising photography.

You could say that commercial photographers have appropriated the style of the amateurs.

The entire style (and persona) of Terry Richardson, right down to his use of non-professional cameras, is based on this approach.

On the other hand, it also has also allowed the work of folks like Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand to be taken seriously by the establishment.

Me, I like the reds and greens.

I suppose there’s something covert about street photography in that it is aligned with the transgressions of street art.

It’s true that I tend to take photographs of people in candid moments.

When I’m in the zone, I’ve become quite adept at reading body language and tracking eye movements…

Though sometimes, non-humans are fascinating too.

So are serendipitous arrangements of objects that “make sense” and cohere.

I’m making a point to look for “found exhibitions”.

After all, the entire world is an exhibition if you know how to look.

Street Photography: An Imagined Community

Posted on March 19, 2014March 20, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

Social media and the internet in general are wonderful for those of us who are committed to somewhat specialised endeavours.

I’ve been reading the posts of quite a few people for a while now. Though I’ve never met them in person, I’ve been inspired by their examples and their work. You could sort of tell the kind of people they are by their posts.

Benedict Anderson uses the term “imagined community” to refer to a person’s sense of belonging to a group (he was talking about nationhood) even though he or she may never have met all its members. I know I may be presumptuous here, but I’d like to think these are members of my imagined street photography community.

In an ideal world, I’d really like to have a few rounds of beer with all of them at the same table. It’ll be an absolute blast.

Here are a few sites/people I’m constantly checking out.

Eric Kim

Eric bares his soul in quite a few of his posts. Here, he wrote about street photography and social media. Here, he wrote about GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), a common affliction for photographers. And my favourite post here is about what drives him and how he’s seeking to follow his passion and at the same time remain realistic about bread and butter issues.

Ming Thein

This guy is a hyper-achiever. Put together an MBA ethos with a photographer’s sensibility and this is who you’ll get. [Edit: Ming Thein says he doesn’t have an MBA (see comments below) but it’s undeniable that he really is very focused, committed and productive.] He’s not a street photographer per se but I do admire his mastery of photography techniques. In two years, he wrote 780 articles, had 9.5 million visitors, and received 36 000 comments! Check out his post on printing here.

Shoot Tokyo

Dave is another photographer with an MBA ethos. [Edit: Dave says he doesn’t have an MBA (see comment below) but it’s undeniable that he really is very focused, committed and productive.] I think he’s a high-level business executive or a business owner. He’s a flaneur in Tokyo. And check out his Leicas! Yes, Leicas as in plural! Check out his wonderful prints for sale here.

Thomas Leuthard

He’s offering free street photography ebooks! I like his article here on why street photographers do what we do. His Flickr site is more extensive.

Yanidel Street Photography

He’s on a street photography and life project that will take him around the world in eighty weeks, from Paris to Switzerland and then to Spain, Portugal, London, Turkey, Mexico, Cuba, and so on (you could see his itinerary here.) This article helped me realise that I tend to favour a certain style of street photography, and is useful in helping me vary my way of doing things once in a while. This article addresses the central existential question every street photographer must ask of himself or herself: 35mm or 50mm?

Invisible Photographer Asia

This is the go-to place for street and documentary photographers based in Asia. You’ll get lots of street cred if your work has been featured here. (One day, one day I’ll make it.) Kudos to Kevin Lee, the person who started it all.

Photoethnography.com

Click the “equipment” link and you’ll find tons of information on film cameras. Thanks to this site, I decided on a Yashica GX so as to learn to handle aperture priority, and on a Canonet QL17 G III to handle shutter priority and manual. I’ve been using the previous two cameras for a couple of months before finally buying a Leica M6. Karen Nakamura is an ethnographer by profession. While the site, as far as I know, is no longer being updated, it is the go-to place to learn about film cameras you could use for visual ethnography, a discipline closely affiliated to street photography.

Japan Camera Hunter

While I’ve never bought anything from Bellamy Hunt before, others have done so. See here (Eric’s video) and here (about the Contax T3 that Dave, the Shoot Tokyo guy, bought from Bellamy ). This guy definitely has street cred. His three articles here, here and here on where to buy film photography gear in Hong Kong is my go-to guide. I basically spent a few happy weekends checking out some of these places. I definitely owe this guy a few beers.

These are a few sites/people who are exploring the use of social media alongside street photography. In some cases, it’s related to their day jobs. In a few other instances, you could say street photography is part of a portfolio of various other endeavours.

In the age of social media, it’s important to embrace the “no one knows anything” ethos. The phrase was used by William Goldman in relation to Hollywood, to describe how, in the end, there is no such thing as a fixed formula to doing things and even “experts” are constantly surprised by unanticipated surprises in the fields of their own supposed expertise.

I’m beginning to think that in the end, there are no experts, and that it is only committed and thoughtful practitioners who will thrive. The only thing to do is to open ourselves to the possibilities of positive black swans (a phrase coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, whose books I return to again and again).

These people inspire me with what they do and I wish them all the best.

At my end, I’m working on a poetry plus street photography manuscript and am planning to teach a new undergraduate course on photography, writing and social media hopefully in the next academic year. I’m taking baby steps here compared to these people.

P.S. Have I missed anyone? I know the list is definitely not exhaustive and skewed in terms of gender. Would be grateful if anyone could could fill in the gaps.

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