asia – Page 4 – Hong Kong Lucida

Geocaching and Street Photography

Posted on January 12, 2015January 12, 2015 by eddietay in Monochrome

So, my ten-year-old son is into Geocaching.

It’s basically a game where you hunt for hidden caches – you could then sign your name in the booklet in those canisters/boxes hidden or buried in various places in Hong Kong and the rest of the world.

We’ve found magnetic canisters stuck behind signposts, or hidden under piled-up logs full of ants and spiders.

You could then announce your success to the whole world and leave a few clues via the Geocache app.

So you see, it’s killing two birds with one stone.

I get to do a spot of street photography, and my son gets to do a bit of geocaching.

That’s what I call father-son bonding.

It doesn’t matter where I go as long as I’m on the streets.

We could meander and come back to the same place – it doesn’t matter.

Some people fish, others are into street photography, and of course, some are into geocaching.

And we’ll have a late lunch after a morning of running back and forth.

I suppose it’s another day in Hong Kong.

We do what we can to preserve our sanity…

Camera: Leica M6

Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm 1.4 SC

Film: Kodak BW400CN

Yuen Long Wet Market

Posted on November 27, 2014November 24, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

We were at a wet market in Yuen Long.

I walked past this shed and felt I really had to take a shot.

If you’re in construction, you have to be a bit of a Spiderman.

They’re very agile.

Chicken rice stall.

We walked through a wet market.

Straw hats for sale.

Very fried and oily calamari (or were they oysters)?

I thought the wall was rather beautiful.

I was having a William Eggleston moment here.

The second floor of a village house.

Dried seafood.

More dried seafood.

Some more dried seafood.

Dried seafood, anyone?

Last chance to buy dried seafood!

Scaffoldings offer lots of compositional possibilities.

I walked around to obtain different angles.

I have so many others but I’ll stop here.

The underside of awnings too, can be beautiful.

Check out the lines, colours and shadows.

Sometimes the most common of things can offer up beauty.

The blue and yellow above go very well together.

The arm offers a quirky variation to the scene.

Bamboo scaffolding.

Some more scaffolding.

Parking lot signage.

Thanks for reading!

All photographs here were taken with the now classic Canon G11.

Inexhaustible Hong Kong

Posted on September 26, 2014September 25, 2014 by eddietay in Monochrome

The range of imagery in Hong Kong is breathtaking.

You look.

You think about things.

There’s a mental itch you can’t get to and a glimmer you’re aiming at.

When will Godot arrive? You look again.

At things we do.

At how we live.

Our ambitions.

The road not taken.

We have an apparatus for looking.

They look back.

This is something we look for.

Sincerity.

Attitude.

A kind of mental space.

We work and rework.

And hope everything comes together at the end.

Some images are available here as open-edition prints at my Saatchi Art page.

Singapore Heartland

Posted on August 20, 2014August 19, 2014 by eddietay in About Singapore, Monochrome

Heartland is the title of a novel by Daren Shiau.

We don’t meet often, though our paths have crossed a few times at various literary readings/events.

The novel is about the coming of age of a young man who grapples with class disparities, national service (conscription) and romance.

It is also about every Singaporean son…

The heartland is the social-cultural space we grew up in.

For me, it’s what nostalgia is made of.

There is a shiny global Singapore (Gardens by the Bay, Marina Sands, Clarke Quay, etc.), and there’s also the heartland of Singapore we return to in the evenings.

It’s the uncle we see every day, loitering at the void deck.

It’s hawker food!

It’s that uncle on a bicycle I side-stepped to avoid in the morning.

All of that adds up to a sense of community…

And both national and personal growth is a kind of departure, a severing of ties from the past…

We’ll never return to the seesaw of our childhoods again.

Things are too new to be comfortable.

All that unearthing and shifting of foundations…

There’s always work in progress.

Hence all we can do is learn to look back and find a glimmer of our home again in our imagination…

For collectors: open-edition prints are available at my Saatchi Art page.

Thanks for reading!

Work, Work, Work

Posted on August 14, 2014August 16, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

I am back in Hong Kong after a 3-week break in Singapore.

I’ve 7-8 rolls of film and probably about 50 usable images from a digital camera. Am looking through the lot now.

In the meantime, here’re a few images that sum up my mood at this moment, even as I’m catching up with work.

The 2 images above were taken in the Tsim Sha Tsui area, while the rest below are scenes from Shamshuipo.

I’m tempted to say that these images represent the “can do” spirit of Hong Kong which accounts for its economic success.

On the other hand, we need to remember the harshness of the Gini coefficient that is operating here.

The above 2 images represent a personal triumph.

This is one of 2-3 stalls along Apliu Street that sells vintage film cameras.

It’s difficult to take their pictures with stealth because every time I walk by, the stall owners’ film-camera-detection senses are alerted and they would look up at me (or my camera).

I walked by for the third time that day and managed to finally do it.

Thanks for reading, and check out my prints!

Shanghai Monochrome: Why It Does Not Have To Be In Focus

Posted on July 25, 2014July 20, 2014 by eddietay in Monochrome

Why It Does Not Have to be in Focus: Modern Photography Explained is the title of a book by Jackie Higgins.

To me, it’s a study on artlessness in modern art photography.

Why photographs do not have to be in focus is akin to why it is that modern poetry does not rhyme.

Ditto why it is that modern musical compositions play with dissonance.

The big word “modernism” comes into play here, with its suspicion of “correctness” as espoused by traditional aesthetics.

I could go on and on (an occupational hazard for a university professor) but I’ll restrain myself and say simply that we’ve learnt not to trust a person who is too poised, too eloquent, too ready with his or her words.

We’ve learnt not to trust that person who is too artful.

That perhaps there’s something reassuring about imperfections, acknowledging that sometimes, not getting it right is also part of the human condition.

So we look to artlessness and we stop policing ourselves about right vs wrong in aesthetics.

After all, we often don’t have time to stop and look.

Everything is done in haste.

To depict the modern condition, art has to be the modern condition.

The artist has to learn not to take himself/herself (or art) too seriously.

Art can’t be served on a plate.

Street photography is about stopping time and making the ephemeral make sense.

It’s about that grimace we’d rather not see in ourselves, that we’d rather suppress and not let others see.

Though if the day is good, we allow ourselves a little grin – that’s humanity too.

We could be lighthearted on a lighthearted day.

Or stand by and watch life pass us by, and smile.

It doesn’t have to be in focus, and it doesn’t have to be upright as well…

We look again.

We don’t always get it right.

Life goes on in a blur.

If you like this post, you’ll like my portfolio.

Have a good day!

Shanghai: How to Appreciate High Contrast Monochrome

Posted on July 23, 2014July 21, 2014 by eddietay in Monochrome

Yes, I’ve recently acquired a taste for high contrast monochrome.

It is stark, clear, and in some ways, minimalist.

Stripped of colours, our attention is drawn directly to the subjects.

You could overexpose a bit to make a social statement about modernity – the face of the security guard is partially eclipsed, in contrast to the blown-out advertisement.

There’s the dichotomy between an individual and a building, and the image draws attention to rectangular grids of the building and pavement, in contrast to the white polka dots echoed in the two round shapes on the building.

The rectangular grids here are enhanced by the bus and the back of the shirt.

More grids, blocks and lines in the next few shots:

The face is blurred out, again emphasizing the blocks, grids and lines.

I’m about to reveal a useful street photography technique.

All these shots are done from a mobile elevated position.

I’ve set this up so I could do street photography on the move.

I spent $40 RMB setting this up, though the equipment involved, depending on the model, could easily cost more than $200 000 RMB.

I’m a very talent street photographer, you see.

Can you guess what it is?

It’s really a fantastic piece of equipment for the street photographer, which has to be manned by another person.

It’s called an open-air double-decker tour bus.

$40 RMB is the price of an all day ticket on a route with 3-4 bus lines.

My ten-year-old son wants to have a go. The next eight images are by him.

I gave him 2 very important street photography tips:

1) Try not to place the subject at the center.

2) Don’t drop the camera or else.

I’m responsible for the high contrast monochrome, of course.

But what can I say – he has good creative genes. 🙂

Okay, my turn.

The above is the street photographer assistant I hired, taking a break from handling that fantastic piece of equipment for me.

The youth of Shanghai, walking with a swagger.

I like the facial expressions.

Cool dudes.

A blurry shot, something I learnt from Daido Moriyama…

Thanks for reading, and buy my prints!

Shanghai On the Move

Posted on July 20, 2014July 18, 2014 by eddietay in Monochrome

The overall theme for this post is Shanghai’s speed and mobility.

I realize I have a preference for a “flawed” aesthetic.

Even with a digital camera (Canon 600D), I’m still going for the same vision as with my film compacts.

In fact, in some ways, I’m treating my Canon 600D like a film compact…

If you view the image at full size, you could see the grain almost breaking up the picture.

There’s a symmetry to this composition that I like.

It’s not focused correctly, just as we see things in glimpses.

There’s still a lot of construction going on in Shanghai.

This is visual evidence that the metropolis (population 23 million) is still growing!

It’s a city on the move.

With people on the move.

The three big Chinese characters are translated literally as “China dream”.

A city is the dream of its people made manifest.

The Chinese characters on the left can roughly be translated as “caring for the youth of the future” … I think.

The ones on the top right means “building the nation’s most eminent city”.

Where would Shanghai (or China) be, economically and politically, in the next 5-10 years?

This is one of the entrances to the Xujiahui campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where I gave a talk entitled … lo and behold, “The Practice of Poetry and Street Photography” at a conference called Modern and Postmodern Arts: China and the World.

People pose here, at the campus gate, for photographs.

One of my favourite Chinese idioms – “a hundred years to cultivate a human being”.

The full idiom is something like “it takes ten years to cultivate a tree, a hundred to cultivate a human being”.

That’s a library, if i remember correctly.

Waiting.

Still waiting.

Now crossing – a nation of people on the move.

Places to go, people to see, things to do.

The next 8 photographs were taken by my son, though of course, I’m the one responsible for the high contrast monochrome.

The first six were taken when we were in one of the spheres of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

The next two pictures (by my son) were taken at Urban Planning Exhibition Center.

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I think he’s developing a good sense of composition here.

Thanks for dropping by, and buy my open edition prints at my Saatchi Art page!

Shanghai Digital Monochrome: Power Station of Art

Posted on July 18, 2014July 19, 2014 by eddietay in Monochrome

We went to the Power Station of Art, and I happily brought my 600D with my nifty-fifty lens along do a a bit of indoors street photography.

He’s either an artist or a priest…

A photograph of a person taking a photograph… that’s the master trope of this post.

I am looking at people who are looking at art.

Perhaps a case can be made that I am also making art of my own, out of art itself.

This is art quoting art.

Fabric mirroring fabric…

Museum goers are also performing a kind of art…

Someone doesn’t like Dickens… or perhaps this is a comment on China…

Don’t ask me what it means…

See for yourself.

And have a dialogue.

Hmm…

The gift shop is tastefully done.

The helicopter view of the gift shop.

The real is a shadow … the pose is clear.

Participatory art… we like to see ourselves in art.

Is art real?

Always read what it says…

An owl of Minerva…

So many texts and subtexts…

The elephant in the room…

Even the pipes look arty!

Is this art?

Can this be art?

Better consult the catalogues…

Is it in the book?

We need to do some close reading.

There’s a decorum here, for the sake of the decor…

We need to find out more…

Look some more…

Pay close attention.

Look up…

Look down at the screen.

The answer is in the smartphone.

Thanks for dropping by, and don’t forget to check out my Saatchi Art page!

Shanghai Digital

Posted on July 16, 2014July 17, 2014 by eddietay in Colour

The images in my previous posts on Shanghai were made with film cameras.

I’ll go digital here, with a non-descript but able-bodied Canon 600D paired with that nifty-fifty (50mm, f 1.8 II) lens, which gives me an 80mm focal length with the 1.6x crop factor.

80mm is a long reach for street photography, but it’s a good complement given the 35mm focal lengths of my Olympus XA2 and Minolta AFC, and the Summicron 50mm of my Leica M6.

And 80mm means I’m far away enough for the shutter sound to be inaudible.

The above were taken at a shopping mall in Shanghai known as Raffles City.

Fellow Singaporeans would recognize that name, because there’s a Raffles City in Singapore too.

The one in Shanghai is owned/developed by CapitaLand, the real estate company based in Singapore. I almost feel at home here, surrounded by many Singapore retail shops/brands.

Let’s not forget there’s a Gini coefficient at work here too…

A fellow tourist on an open-air double decker bus.

Intriguing cables against historical architecture.

Some more cables against building windows.

People waiting for a bus.

The next seven images were taken by my ten-year-old son.

He wanted a go at street photography and I asked him to focus only on 2 things as an assignment of sorts. One, “try to fill the frame” and two, “make sure they’re doing something”.

As you can see, my son is very talented – it’s in the genes… 😉

He’ll inherit all my cameras one day… (he’s been asking about that Leica M6).

Lots of potential here on a rainy day.

This is street photography from a cab.

Nice rainy red flare.

Watch out!

We survived and went to a museum.

A very distinguished-looking man.

This is probably not his day.

I like the colors here.

In front of a gigantic goldfish tank.

Thanks for dropping by, and don’t forget to check out my Saatchi Art page!

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