The best camera is the one you have with you

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.

IMG_20140430_0037 640

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.

IMG_20140430_0047 640

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.

IMG_20140430_0043 640

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

IMG_20140430_0052 640

IMG_20140430_0053 640

IMG_20140502_0002 640

IMG_20140502_0006 640

IMG_20140502_0007 640

IMG_20140502_0009 640

IMG_20140502_0010 640

IMG_20140502_0012 640

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

IMG_20140502_0013 640

IMG_20140502_0016 640

We discipline ourselves to make sure the plumbing works.

Appetites, Things, Phantasmagoria

I was just looking through a few images taken on an evening at Fa Yuen Street and on an afternoon in the vicinity of Shamshuipo.

There is that contrast that plays with visibility and lack thereof.

IMG_20140320_0056 640

We see people emerging from darkness.

IMG_20140320_0064 640

We see hands and appetites but not always faces.

IMG_20140320_0066 640

We are reduced to silhouettes of ourselves.

What defines and frames our activities are appetites and things…

IMG_20140320_0029 640

IMG_20140320_0076 640

IMG_20140320_0016 640

Our appetites and things have become substitutes for our selves … that is how a city becomes a kind of phantasmagoria….