Roots

1/50s, f/1.2, ISO 3200, 50mm

Here's a night shot from the Soho neighborhood in Hong Kong.  A few weeks ago, I noticed this tree growing out of a steep slope and became fascinated by how one of the roots had grabbed unto a a pipe running underneath its trunk.   It was very dark, so I shot the photo at ISO 3200 with the lens wide open at f/1.2.

Hong Kong from the Peak

5s (bracketed), f/16.0, ISO 200, 28mm

I went up to the Peak yesterday to take some shots of Hong Kong's skyline.  It's difficult to do anything terribly creative with a view like that.  No doubt, on clear day the view from the Peak is stunning.  But since everyone shares the same vantage point, there's a good chance that someone else has a shot that looks exactly like yours.  It get's a little more interesting on some of the trails near the peak.  The view is still amazing and you can sometimes use trees and bushes to frame photo (I did something like this on a hike a few months ago looking over the southern part of the island).

To make my photos stand out at least a little bit, I bracketed my exposures and processed my images with Photoshop's High Dynamic Range (HDR) function.  The shot above was taken a few minutes after sunset.  HDR works well here to bring out the green color in the hillside (which otherwise would have been difficult to expose correctly).  I have included another shot below the fold taken about 30 minutes after the sunset.  I processed that image with more muted colors to give it more of a "Gotham" feel.

15s (bracketed), f/11.0, ISO 800, 27mm

Sparks (火花)

1/200s, f/2.0, ISO 200, 135 mm

Shooting with fast primes is a lot of fun.  For this shot, I used Canon's 135mm f/2.0 lens with the lens wide open.  The image quality is just superb and the auto-focus is fast and accurate.  And it's great to have a medium telephoto lens that's fairly light-weight and inconspicuous for street photography.  I used a fairly long shutter speed (1/200), so that the sparks would form light lines rather that just appear like tiny dots.

To Crop or Not to Crop

1/1250s, f/1.2, ISO 100, 50mm
To crop or not to crop: I took this picture a few weeks ago and initially decided to crop it and move the subject to the right of the frame.  I try not crop my images excessively but in this case I felt that the surroundings didn't add much.  And cropping seemed a way to bring the viewer closer to the woman in front.  But when I came across the orignal image yesterday, I realized that I made a mistake.  While there's not much going on around the woman, the surroundings provide more context and reveals more of the street's grit.  The cropped image is below the fold.  What do you think?

1/1250s, f/1.2, ISO 100, 50mm

Catty Town

1/100s, f/4.0, ISO 1600, 14 mm

Hong Kong is home to a lot of cats.  The smaller city streets are frequented by what looks like domesticated cats--or at least self-adopted cats (they seem well-fed and healthy).  There are also a lot of cats on the hiking trails--they are also pretty friendly though generally seem hungrier than the city-dwellers.

Above is a wide-angle shot (with the Canon 14mm prime) from a store on Hollywood Road.  Continue below the fold for another three.


1/125s, f/1.2, ISO 3200, 50mm


1/100s, f/3.2, ISO 320, 70mm


1/500s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

Tram Ride to Kennedy Town with the Canon 35mm f/1.4

1/200s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

I have been trying out Canon's 35mm f/1.4 recently.  It's an amazing lens and the wide apature opens up some interesting creative opportunities.  With such a shallow depth of field, you can really make the foreground stand out, and, shooting wide-open, the lens produces photos with a cinematic feel.  The 35mm focal length on a full frame camera makes the lens great for environmental portraits.  You can fit a lot of the surroundings in the frame but still make the subject stand out.  And compared to most wider lenses, it produces very limited distortion.  Still, the lens is a little on the wide side for my general shooting style, especially for street photography.  I feel that I'm too far from the action and that going closer would interfere with the scene I'm trying to capture.  As a result, I sometimes end up cropping my shots more than I'd like to.  On the other hand, it's a fun challenge to frame fairly wide angle street shots, and in that way I like the way the lens forces me to think about how to compose an image, rather than just find, say, an interesting person or object to focus on.

Today, I took the lens on a 5d Mark II for a tram tide to Kennedy Town on the west side of Hong Kong Island.  Continue below the fold, for more shots.


1/160s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm


1/100s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

1/125s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

1/200s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

1/100s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

1/50s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

1/80s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

1/250s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 35mm

Messages Under the Moon

I went back to Victoria Park tonight with a friend. It was the last day to experience the full display of lanterns in various forms and shapes along with the make-shift carnival the city had put on in the park. Earlier this week, I had been fascinated with the time and care people put into writing messages on public "wish boards". Tonight, the sponsor of the Carnival (and the giant lantern fish), Lee Kum Kee Soy Sauce, handed out small paper "wish tags", and I went around and snapped some more shots of people writing down their wishes.

Again, the light was tricky.  Not feeling that color added much to the shots, I decided to process the photos in black and white. I shot most of the photos with the aperture wide open at f/1.4 or f/1.6 with the 50mm 1.4. The auto focus is downright horrible, and I manually focused about half the shots. Space constraints and the number of people made it difficult to create interesting compositions. Still, the appeal here was more in capturing the concentrated looks on the faces of writers. And in the end, I think that was enough to make the results at least somewhat interesting. 

Read on below the fold to see more shots. And please feel free to leave your thoughts.


   

Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節)

It's Mid-Autumn Festival and the parks and streets of Hong Kong are decked with paper lanterns. In Victoria Park in Causeway Park, the city celebrated by putting up a lantern so big it made it into the The Guinness Book of World Records. I went by to take some shots with my 5d and a few different lenses. The light was a bit tricky and I ended up shooting most of with the photos at ISO 1600 and above. My favorite shot is the one above. There was a public message board in the middle of the park, and I spotted this girl writing a message while her mother was watching. I was struck by the girl's concentrated look, and the picture shows well just how focused she was on leaving her message.

 I had hoped to get some more portraits of the crowds but the rain got in the way.

I've included a few more shots below the fold (including the big lantern processed with some subtle HDR).