A Good Location

I have spent the past two weekends walking around the older part of Hong Kong (Central, Soho, Sheung Wan) to find some cool locations for my shoot.

Turns out finding a good location for a portrait shoot is no different than shooting any other type of photos.

You need an interesting, but not busy, background, some eye-catching color, and if there is some interesting architecture (as simple as door arch) that is even better. One thing I am particularly looking for is non-busy street. As I am still learning portrait shooting, more pedestrians watching me working is just going to put more pressure on me.

Next step: think about theme and poses.

Location location location

Having gone through Joe McNally’s photo/lighting workshop recently has ignited my interest of doing more portraits with small strobe lighting. I have limited my photography with too much available light.

I have just got a friend who agrees to pose for me for a portrait session. So I will be walking around town in the next two weeks to find some nice location.

Will talk about my criteria for a shooting location in another post.

The view up here

Half way down from the summit of Mount Kinabalu to look over Laban Rata. The view is pretty spectacular up here. Could use some more oxygen though …

A clear day

A clear day

Road to Full Frame

One of the photo-related goals I have for 2010 is to slowly migrate to full frame cameras. So obviously for a Nikon shooter I am looking at D700/D3s/D3x. D3x is pretty much out of the question as it is way too expensive, plus I have no need for the extra resolution and don’t want to compromise my shooting and processing speed. As for D3/D3s, I am too used to the non-integrated vertical grip cameras ever since I started using my D300. So that only left the D700.

It is widely expected that there will be an upgrade soon to the current D700, a D700s if you will, that has the new D3s sensor in it. Also it is to be expected the high-res D3x sensor will find a way into a D700 (D700x ?) body as well. Since PMA is just around the corner, I bet there will be announcement real soon now.

On the other hand, I have noticed that there are quite a few D700 on the used market with excellent price, some of them even are still in warranty. So my plan is to get a 2nd hand D700 now, and a D700s later when it is available. That way I will have a primary camera with another full frame camera as backup.

In an upcoming post I will talk about my lens strategy towards full frame.

Festivity

Well wishes all around and let’s hope in the new year everyone will be very productive photographically !

Barcelona, Spain

Back from my trip to Spain … it is such a lovely place. Perfect weather to visit this time of the year too.

Same Neighborhood. 40 years.

One thing I know about street photography is you have to really know the neighborhood to capture the essence of the place. And if you can spend 40 years at the same city shooting the street you definitely will be able to find it, also for the fact that you will gain 40 years of photography experience !

In this post a previous unknown photographer walked into Columbia College Photo Department to ask the chair to look at his portfolio:

One day in 2004, Bob Thall, chair of Chicago’s Columbia College Photo Department, was met at his office by a rather unusual visitor. Amid the usual young students was a middle-aged man with a paper shopping bag. Thall’s secretary told him that the man said he had some photos to show someone. Thall invited the man into his office where he introduced himself as Gary Stochl. He told Thall that he had been doing photography for forty years but hadn’t really shown his work to anyone. He thought Columbia College’s photo department was a good place to start.

What a start! After browsing some of the approximately 300 loose prints from Stochl’s shopping bag Thall abandoned his afternoon schedule and instead, with some of his colleagues, spent the next two hours reviewing the rest. Those black and white prints captured on downtown Chicago’s streets since the 1960s were some of the best street photographs he had ever seen. According to Stochl he had become inspired by studying the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank during high school in the 1960s. He bought a Leica and took to the streets of downtown Chicago to find his own style. He had been photographing mostly in this same area continuously ever since.

This story is inspiring on so many levels. Here is an amateur photographer who pursue his passion only because he loves it, and can keep at it for 40 years. Also because this proves that you don’t need any formal education to become great in photography, only prerequisite being your passion.

You can buy Gary Stochl’s photo book from here.

Colorful City

Colorful City

Under the correct light this city can be quite colorful. As long as the modern architectural style rendering every building to be made of steel and glass.

Old Neighborhood

Old Neighborhood in Wan Chai, Hong Kong

Someone will see these older communities in Hong Kong and want to raze it and build new high rise apartment complexes. I wish Hong Kong real estate developers and especially the Hong Kong government will learn from European countries about how to re-vitalize old communities without knocking everything down.

(Please don’t tell me about Hong Kong Government needs the space to build more affordable housing for the increasing population. The nearby neighborhood’s housing price jumps from $3000 HKD per sq. ft. to $9000 HKD after it was “renovated”. Hardly the change they are advertising will happen.)