Category: Colour

Anecdote of the Jar

Posted on by eddietay in Colour

I’m not sure if this is considered street photography, but I suppose so, if street photography is about scenes that are found rather than staged, about scenes that say something about the interactions between human beings and their environment.

For those interested in film photography: all photographs are taken with Contax TVS, loaded with Superia Venus 800. That’s the gear I carry these days. This post is inspired by Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Anecdote of the Jar”:

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

 

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

 

It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

 

A quick Google search will reveal various possible readings to the poem, so I’ll suppress my inner poetry geek as much as I can.

 

I’ll simply say that at the minimum, the poem is about the relationship between human artifacts and nature.

 

The take-away philosophical point is that a man-made object placed/installed in nature changes nature.

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Is nature a rubbish dump, a depository of things no longer useful?

 

The joker in me tells me it’s a supermarket shopping cart that has lost its way.

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Nature is nature.

 

A journey into what nature is is man-made.

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Is nature a resource we exploit?

 

I am reminded of the following lines from Heidegger’s essay “The Question Concerning Technology’ , about how our instrumentalist attitude to nature (and everything else) reduces everything into a “standing-reserve”, as means for other ends:

 

Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. (Heidegger “Question Concerning Technology”)

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We’ve learnt to frame nature.

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And in our arrogance, we forget it is nature that frames us.

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Perhaps we’re the ones putting obstacles between ourselves and nature, between ourselves and ourselves.

Continue reading “Anecdote of the Jar” →

Why Film Cameras?

Posted on by eddietay in Colour

1. Because of the colors.

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2. Because you could visit the past and re-open closed doors.

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3. Because they’re a good investment – digital cameras have built-in-obsolescence but film cameras are built to last.

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4. Because they’re perplexing.

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5. Because what appears wrong can be right.

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6. Because what appears right can be wrong.

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7. Because film photography has a different flavor.

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8. Because everyone else is using digital and I’m just being stubborn.

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9. Because it’s another life.

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10. Because of their rugged beauty.

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Why Street Photography?

Posted on by eddietay in Colour

Why street photography?

1. Because it is always work in progress.

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2. Because we’re all looking for something.

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3. Because we’re waiting.

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4. Because it deals with the mundane, and reality can be mundane.

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5. Because it’s another way of looking at ourselves.

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6. Because it is artful waiting.

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7. Because we’re born to say “Let there be art”.

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8. Because it’s a way, like any other.

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The best camera is the one you have with you

Posted on by eddietay in Colour

I do have a routine, and go to the same few places time and again.

These are all taken within a week or so on the same roll of film, with my Minolta AF-C loaded with Kodak ColorPlus 200.

My usual haunts are Shamshuipo and Wu Kai Sha beach.

That’s a cooking stove by a village house along Wu Kai Sha beach.

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They say the best camera is the one you have with you.

I have cult rangefinders such as the Canonet QL 17 GIII, Yashica GX and the Leica M6.

But nowadays I’m in a point-and-shoot and snapshot-aesthetics phase.

So it’s either a Contax TVS, Olympus XA2, or Minolta AF-C.

These are to me signs of life, these ropes and bricks, arranged as if for display.

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Sometimes, I strike up a conversation with people with my broken Cantonese.

This gentleman runs a BBQ site at Wu Kai Sha beach. He was trying to convince me to book a BBQ pit for my family for the coming weekend and as a bonus, he would throw in a few complimentary pieces of cuttlefish.

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At Shamshuipo. That’s one of my favorite pit stop. Whenever I walk past, I’d try to take a shot.

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It seems we oscillate between desire and labour all the time.

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We discipline ourselves to make sure the plumbing works.

The Work of Street Photography

Posted on 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.

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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.

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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”.)

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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.

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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.

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I look at other people at work.

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I look at stuff.

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I am intrigued by the strangeness of other people.

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

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

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Ngong Ping Cable Car IV

Posted on 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.

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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).

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

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Blue and red combo again.

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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.

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The colors below look Kodak Ultramax -ish to me.

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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.

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

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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.

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Until next time.

 

 

 

 

Tranquillity

Posted on 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.

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

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So we feel at home even outside of home.

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

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Just a little narrative.

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A little space.

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A scattering of things telling us who we are.

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

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A safe harbor.

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And we’re home.

 

 

Noah’s Ark in Hong Kong

Posted on 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.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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 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.

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It all looks very Chinese …

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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.

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

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For the first time, I looked at the hillside.

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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…

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And the Chinese-looking bridge…

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

A mini-waterfall…

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

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

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And then the road…

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