january reflections

my thoughts on january...

well, the first month of the project is behind me. eleven months to go! although i'm a little disappointed to have missed two days, i'm pretty happy with the way it's gone so far. other than the hospital fiasco, i'm generally not anywhere without the G12. i'm not quite sure what the subject material might be for the next 330+ shots but i'm definitely going to keep on going and find out.

i think my composition has improved slightly over the month and i'm more confident (and interested) in taking random shots of strangers. some days the motivation is lower than others, but i expected that. you can see the whole month in one place on my facebook page. and some other shots that didn't make it in my 'b sides' set on flickr.

the G12 is performing well, including in -15c temperature in new york! i find the controls reasonably intuitive and well placed. although i'm sometimes not sure if the function i'm looking for at the time is found my pushing the 'menu' button or the 'func. set' button. i'm sure the more i use it, the easier that will become. having big hands means holding the camera the way it was designed (with the thumb just to the right of the 'play' button) feels a little unnatural and i find that most of the time my thumb ends up on the bottom right corner of the screen. also i find some of the controls are easily, inadvertently bumped; accidentally changing settings during shooting. in particular the exposure compensation dial, the iso dial and the main control dial. i guess i'll do a full review of the camera at the end of the year. i reckon canon might be interested in what i have to say... in january alone i took 1,245 shots. if i continue at that rate i'll end up taking around 15,000 by the end of the year!

i've decided february is going to be 'poladroid' month! no, i didn't misspell polaroid - 'poladroid' is a fun little download i found that "converts" your shots to look like a polaroid shot (see below). i will set the G12 to take square shots and readjust my thinking to compose within a square frame. i'll probably try to shoot more people too. kung hei fat choi! here goes!...

project 365 - G12... 31-01-11

writing

i found this nice old guy on staunton street in soho today. it's so cool to be walking down a pretty busy street and see an old guy sitting in a chair just doing his own thing. whatever he was writing was very important because he didn't look up for ages! that made my job easier. i liked the contrast with the green wall to the left and the interesting pottery shop on the right. and for the first time in this project, i altered the image a little in photoshop (gasp). i tried out a photoshop add-on i purchased from alienskin software called bokeh 2. nothing too dramatic, just blurred the area around the subject and gave the shot a vignette.

project 365 - G12... 30-01-11

b ball

i went to wan chai computer centre today and being a sunday there was all kinds of activity in the park next door. so i decided to pop my head in a get a few shots of the basketball fixtures that were being played. i wanted the shot to have the feel that it was in an inner city environment, so i positioned the camera very low to include the buildings in the background. i had to pre-focus on a point on the court and shoot when the players moved in.  i like the various states of frozen animation of each of the players in this shot.

project 365 - G12... 29-01-11

getting botanical

back to normal! well sort of. still recovering from the previous two days medical shenanigans, i decided to stay indoors and continue adding to my stock photo, botanical collection. the flower is real, the background is not. it's a large print of the sky with clouds i had printed for this exact purpose. i think it works pretty well. if i hadn't pointed it out, would you have been able to tell?

project 365 - G12... 28-01-11

second trip to the emergency room today. the procedure du jour is an mri. not overly pleasant either, especially if you're claustrophobic. but the real story was, realising that spending time in the hospital and not grabbing the camera on my way out the door meant two days without a shot. what a dilemma! i've been so determined so far to post pictures only taken on that day! so, do i lie and just post one of my other pictures; or tell the truth and 'fail' in my goal to post a shot everyday? i've gone with the truth option (obviously). it doesn't really feel like a fail to me though; i'll just end up with 363 shots. no biggie! i've just got to remember next time i'm rushing off to the hospital to grab the camera!

mri

project 365 - G12... 27-01-11

well there i was... 27th of january, no photos taken with the G12. i'm so disappointed! but the 27th and 28th were a crazy 48 hours to say the least. they involve a terrible case of food poisoning (i think) and two separate trips to the emergency room! i don't need to go into further detail here. i'm ok. so the picture here represents the procedure i had done in the hospital today, gastroscopy. not pleasant! the picture is not me, i just grabbed it from the internet, although i do have a great dvd momento of the ordeal! gross.

gastroscopy

project 365 - G12... 26-01-11

fishmonger

i've been meaning to shoot this man for a while now. he sits alone on peel street here in hong kong everyday selling dried fish. there are dozens of dried seafood shops around selling the same type of fish he's selling so i'm not quite sure what's so special about his. i also know he's camera shy; i've seen him shoo away a few people when they've had their lenses pointed in his direction. this gives me an advantage when using the G12, it's much less conspicuous than an slr with a big lens attached. however, i still faced about 90 degrees to the left of where i was shooting and put the camera at hip level. i framed, focused and shot within a few seconds and then went on my way. maybe one day i'll ask if i can take a proper portrait, he has such an interesting face!

project 365 - G12... 25-01-11

brooklyn bridge 2

yep, you guessed it, brooklyn bridge! sorry, i couldn't help myself; i like this shot. i realised approaching this lamp post that i would be able to place the sun directly behind it to give an interesting effect. i softened it a little in photoshop which i think gave it a bit of a misty feel, even though it was a crystal clear day.

project 365 - G12... 24-01-11

brooklyn bridge

it was -15C when i was walking across the brooklyn bridge and took this shot. the bridge is such an icon in new york and i'm sure it has been photographed from every conceivable angle and position. so i was looking for a reasonably clean composition and i was glad that there was a solo pedestrian in the frame.

project 365 - G12... 23-01-11

jumbo sunset

this shot was taken at chek lap kok international airport. the combination of the setting sun and smog had turned the sky orange. this made a nice backdrop to the two jumbos moving towards the take-off position at runway 25L.

project 365 - G12... 22-01-11

nathan road

i was shooting a rugby match today with my slr camera and got distracted from my G12 project. i took a grand total of four shots... i like this one the best. not the greatest day in photographic history! this was taken on nathan road, tsim sha tsui. i was hoping to get a lot more of the neon lights reflecting off the bus, but that's all i could come up with. it's also a little unusual to see such a plain bus in hong kong; it seems wherever there's a square inch of blank space - someone will put some advertising there.

project 365 - G12... 21-01-11

feeding frenzy

i passed by a billboard today that had a small flock of pigeons in front of it that i thought might make an amusing composition. as i approached, a woman passed by and threw down a bag of seed. the small flock of docile pigeons quickly became a ravenous flock of frenzied pigeons, climbing over or on each other to get a free feed. i didn't get the shot i originally visualised but this one sums up the frenzy.

project 365 - G12... 20-01-11

hustle

i was in central today around lunch time and it gets pretty busy. i wanted to get a shot that captures the mayhem. i tried this at a few crossings and this was one of the busiest. i supported the camera on a hand rail and took a 1/2 second exposure.

project 365 - G12... 19-01-11

nap time

i found this guy taking a nap. clearly not homeless, just taking a break from the hustle and bustle between hollywood rd and wellington street. he was next to a staircase so i was able to shoot him inconspicuously from above. i think without the shoes this shot might be a little bland.

project 365 - G12... 18-01-11

circles

the sky was kind today. blue with white clouds but not too bright. this allowed me to shoot this building without the huge contrast between highlights and shadows that you can get sometimes when shooting into the sky. the composition is a little off-putting and makes me feel a bit dizzy... fun!

project 365 - G12... 17-01-11

shadowy figures

i snapped this in central today. the light source is the sun reflecting off one of the glass high rise buildings.

the real story (and most thought provoking photo) of the day was quite bizarre and disturbing. on my way home up eastern street, i saw what i thought was a typical offering/burning taking place at one of the dried seafood shops. but there were two guys laughing and poking around the flames which was weird. i took a closer look. turns out they were burning a live rat! banging and poking it with a screwdriver! i couldn't believe my eyes. it still amazes me how cruel people can be. what would your response have been to this scene?

project 365 - G12... 16-01-11

macro flower

i was taking some shots today to increase my stock portfolio, so i thought i would test out the macro feature on the G12. let me say firstly, if you walked up to this flower in a garden, switched the camera to macro and took a photo you would not get a result as nice as this shot. this was setup with tripod, lighting and background etc so it purely tests the cameras ability to shoot macro. not bad i'd say. this flower is about 5cm across. depth of field is a bit of an issue though only being able to stop down to f/8.

as a reminder, you can click on this or any of the shots on this blog to view them at a higher resolution.

project 365 - G12... 15-01-11

teen

i'm becoming a little more bold and comfortable with taking shots of strangers now. it's refreshing to see their candid expressions. this girl seemed so lonely but who knows, she may have been waiting for her friends to join her. we'll never know. but it raises a question; is it an invasion of privacy to photograph someone without their knowledge if they're in a public place?

project 365 - G12... 14-01-11

rest

i was watching this old man on the star ferry, he seemed so deep in thought. his expression didn't change at all; even when he nodded of to sleep! incidentally, the sun is setting on this man's left. the light on the right of his face is from reflection off the high rise buildings.

thailand...

some new images posted today from thailand! many are posted on the 4D images website. there's also a few on the facebook page. 

project 365 - G12... 13-01-11

steps

i saw these lit stairs in causeway bay today and thought they would make for some good silhouettes. i used -1.7 exposure compensation, which left just enough detail to show that the guy is wearing a suit. i tried with various numbers of people on the stairs, but this solo guy looked the best.

project 365 - G12... 12-01-11

western

this shot was taken in western district. i took a few, then waited for some buses to come by. they're what make the more interesting and unpredictable yellow light trails.

project 365 - G12... 11-01-11

grass

i left my run a little late again today! but i remembered a shot that i had imagined of the grass plant on my rooftop with the city lights blurry behind. what i came up with here was not what i'd pictured and i feel it's a limitation of the camera. so i popped back upstairs with the slr and within 10 seconds i was able to get much closer to the shot i'd imagined. learning the limitations of the camera is a good lesson though.

i've included a low res version of the shot taken with the slr. it's not a finished product, it's just to give an idea.

slr version

project 365 - G12... 10-01-11

queens road

this was taken on queens road, sheung wan. the scene caught my eye, then it just needed a point of interest... enter pedestrian.

project 365 - G12... 09-01-11

dot matrix

i spotted this on an airbridge at bangkok international airport today. it's one of those large advertising stickers you see on windows that has a picture on one side, and is black on the other so you can see out. there was bright afternoon light shining through, casting dotty shadows on the pole behind. 

project 365 - G12... 08-01-11

other worldly

this is the first 'studio' shot i've done with the G12. this is a large salt crystal i picked up at a salt mine in namibia. i set it up on a tall glass filled with christmas lights and a black background. there's a flash behind and to the left and a weaker flash above and to the right. the shutter was open for 2.5 seconds.

project 365 - G12... 07-01-11

lost in translation

the first self portrait of the project. this was taken in my hotel room in kansai, japan. what you see here is the lights of the airport and the reflection of me in the room. i thought the shot had a 'lost in translation', dreamy feel.

project 365 - G12... 06-01-11

centre street

back in hong kong now, this is not far from my home in sai ying pun. i spotted this modern high rise with each column of windows facing a different direction. this allowed me to get six different views of the buildings across the street.

project 365 - G12... 05-01-11

monks

this was taken on the morning before leaving chiang mai. with only an hour to hit the streets to get a shot before spending the rest of the day in airplanes and airports, i'm pretty happy with this shot.i like the way the lines of the shot lead your eye to the point of interest, the monks on their way to 'work'.

project 365 - G12... 04-01-11

white

this is the white temple between chiang mai and chiang rai. it is the reflection in the pond flipped 180 degrees to appear 'normal'. at first i didn't like the look of the algae in the pond but after a while, if you use your imagination you might see an abstract, cloudy sky! and fish swimming upside down in the sky!

project 365 - G12... 03-01-11

umbrella

day two in chiang mai amongst other things saw a trip to the 'umbrella village' where parasols are still hand made and hand painted. there were hundreds of umbrellas laying around in various stages of completion. by the way, you can click any of these photos to enlarge them.

project 365 - G12... 02-01-11

tiger

i'm very fortunate to have had a chance to visit chiang mai, thailand in the first week of my project! although the shots are posted a little late, they have indeed been taken on the days shown. visiting a tiger park allowed me to get up close and personal with these beautiful creatures, and get some nice shots. i chose this one as shot of the day.

project 365 - G12... oops...

well i've gone away to chiang mai, thailand. that's the good news... the bad news is that i forgot to bring a memory card reader! i'm getting photos every day as planned - they just won't be posted until i get home on the 6th, stay tuned...

project 365 - G12... 01-01-11

soho

well, i made the project hard for myself on the very first day! after new years celebrations, i didn't leave the house until 8pm. oops! so i had to come up with something in the dark. after narrowing it down to 5, i like this shot taken in soho the best. i like the pattern the light made with the taxi wheels. i like the red, yellow and blues and the road lines leading into the other pedestrians. should be able to post this just before midnight!