Another Hong Kong Photo

Shot on the streets of Hong Kong and manipulated slightly in Photoshop

Daily photo from Hong Kong

I plan on posting a photo or two over the next few days from our recent trip to Honk Kong, enjoy this one, won't you?

This one is of ‘Nathan Road’

Hong Kong Photos on Flickr

See how other folks on flickr photograph Hong Kong?

Friday 9:30 am Hong Kong

This may well be my final post here from Hong Kong, the internet access I am paying for here in the room runs out at about 3:00pm local time, it's now 9:00am, so whether or not I get a chance to post again remains to be seen.

Thursday was a funny one, really, wandered around a couple of shopping districts, on the penninsula intending to do a bit more ‘culture’ only to discover the 2 cultural institutions we wanted to see were closed. Nik needed to do some more shopping so after a nice lunch, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel, uploading pictures to flickr and catching up on e-mail as well as chatting to Ed. The evening saw us, having cocktails at a bar called Felix, (designed by Philip Strack) on the 28th floor of the Pennisula Hotel (Hong Kong's swankiest) overlooking the harbour, (awesome view) followed by dinner in a swanky restaurant, called Spoon. Great restaurant experience all round, but the food and service really took the cake!

Currently have uploaded 79 photos, from the trip, all up I've taken about 806 photos, I've only loaded the ones that required the least correction as I prefer to use my CRT monitor to make these desicions, so more images will be added to the Honkers 2005 set probably during the week next week, when I am at home.

Live from our Hotel in Hong Kong

Yesterday we went to Macau, it's a strange boat journey of about 50 to 75 minutes, depending on the boat, you catch. Macau, is a nice island bigger than we/I thought and we only spent a couple of hours there, had pizza in a small side street, checked out the streets and architecture, we caught the wrong bus back to the ferry, and had to quickly catch a taxi, to back track!, The cost $10.00 Hong Kong Dollars, roughly $2.00 Aus, truly amazing. Nik had trouble with the boat, but gladly didn't need the «bag», I was only worried about the odd surge here and there. The trip it was in a catamaran, both ways, but the one coming back was bigger, and faster and smoother, than the one coming over.

It's weird being surrounded by the Asian tourists. You get so used to seeing them in Aus and being bemused by them and now here we are surrounded by them and in a manner of speaking connected to them in more ways them one. It's been overcast nearly everyday, and this has played havoc with my exposures, normally I set program mode to -1 stop, ( I like using program in these situations allows for more spontaneity and quicker work) this underexposure covers me for Aussie lighting conditions, but here it seems too much! Done lots and lots of shopping, some Museums and Cultural stuff, Nathan Road is just bizarre and everywhere there is decay and rust, usually augmented or surrounded by Neon. Spruikers constantly harass you around the hotels, mainly for getting tailor made suits. The crowds don't really peak till around 7 or 8 at night, with shops not really trading till 11:00 or so, so Nik can shop till almost 9:00pm, every night if she wants?

Monday saw us on Hong Kong island, via a tour group, (fuck I hate those thing), still it was only for a few hours, and as a consequence I got to experience this small temple overlooking a bay, Stanley Bay. The tram ride up and down Vic peak was awesome, and the views were great despite the overcast conditions. We left the group behind, after the Victoria peak part of the tour, and made our own way around various parts of the island, even found a small photo-gallery or two.

We had dinner that night up at Victoria peak, a very pleasant end to a hectic day.

I've added the photos to date of Hong Kong to flickr

Day two in Honkers

Well it's day two here and we have covered a few miles indeed! Got to check out several districts around the place and have ended up here in this little groovy bar called MiX. Which has, again free WWW, but not only that this time I am writing from a cute little iMac! This place is in the bustling business district, the language spoken here seems to be, mainly English, which sounds a bit strange after spending the last couple of days hearing the locals talk, with barely a tourist in sight! The main things we have done today, are, visit the "Jumbo" floating restaurant with a rip off ride on a Sampan, visit Stanley Bay, and actually get past the tourist traps that are supposed to be markets, and see the city from Victoria peak. We were given as part of our package, a "tour" this is where you usual get dragged around like sheep kind of tour and see the sights, one of these sights was a jewelery making factory, which in reailty are nothing more than thinnly veiled attempts at making you part with you dollar, we survived, without a. falling asleep or b. parting with any cash

The best part today I think has been the view from Victoria peak, despite the pollution.The other execllent sight today was the small temple that few of the other toursits on our free tour bothered to visit at Stanley. Yesterday's pic count barely made it to 200 and today I've taken less, mainly because we've been stuck in a bus with a couple of loud yanks and a handful of whiny poms! Still when I do get around to uploading, will try tonight form the hotel as I have checked it out and it all seems to work nicely, there will more than enough to choose from.

Hot off the press from Honkers!

So here we are tavelling around (In Hong Kong), this time only for a week though. I'm writing this from a hotel coffee shop just off Nathan road (crazeee). It's Sunday arvo here, and even now the streets are teeming with people. We have already braved a small street cafe for lunch, which was inresting and reasonably priced. The flavours were not the typical Chinese flavours that we get at home, and yet they weren't the same as any other flavour of Asian stryle food we eat there either! With an interseting ordering sytem that revolved around a tick sheet that was handed in at the counter on the way as you paid, it was fun to eat there. Will be prepared to give it a go again, for sure, like we've got any choice really, as the hotel food prices are... well... hotel food prices. Beer on the other hand is going to be a bit of a struggle I think some of the local 7-11's are looking ggod at this point.

The flight, here was not too bad, got a bit of a kip on the way. It was a night flight that left Melbourne after 11:00pm, so there wasn't much to see, except for a stunning sunrise over the wing of the plane this morning, stay tuned for the pix from flickr no doubt, I'm hoping to upload from our hotel room, which has paid broadband in the room. The day before I left I got a chance to wander around twon and make a few images in the laneways around Fed square and in Fed square itself, again if I can get them up to flickr from the hotel room I will. Shot around 200 images which for me is lot and speaks volumes about how digital has changed my approach to my image making. I have shot 133 images already in the few hours we have been here in Hong Kong! None of which will suspect will be really capable of giving off the right feel about the way this city just seems to teem! On this short trip, it's a real different feeling not having to worry about rushing off somewhere. Unlike our last trip which seemed to be one constant run from one hotel room to the next station to the next hotel room and so on. Gven the time we have here, and the fact I am using free internet, expect to see at least 2 or three more updates here while we are gone!

1 Year Old Today!

Well it's one year today since I started jotting down all sorts of things that relate to Photography, Photoshop and my own cybertravels. How things have changed in the short space of a year. When I first started I was still struggling with CSS (I am still am to a certain extent) and was disappointed at my percieved inability to add images here, worried that I would not be able to write enough, and planning for the big trip Overseas. Now of course I have a pro account at Flickr, and can link back here to add some images or link to my own site, have travelled around some of the large cities of the world and am about to embark on a new trip to South East Asia, albeit for a short week this time, and surprisingly managed to write a few words at least once or twice a week.

In terms of the whole idea of building some sort of readership, pffft, well that was never going to happen, really was it? But some of my friends do read this (thank you all), and on this trip overseas, I'm pretty sure internet access won't be as difficult as it was in parts of Europe,(I hope). So hopefully I can keep folks in touch with our next journey. I know that flickr folks will get to see plenty of pics after the event. As for posting pix during the event and whether or not I will be able to write here whilst gone, well we shall see.

I know I rave on about Flickr a lot, and I'm sorry if you are bored by this but I'm going to rave some more today too. A couple of things have become apparent to me thanks to the whole GNE (game that never ends) idea. Firstly, flickr is addictive, I find myself whiling away many hours reading comments, posting comments, adding work to groups, administering my own groups (3), keeping my portfolios/sets organised. Now after almost 5 months of membership, I'm starting to see who (on my contacts list anyway) are the photographers I really like, who are consistent and who pull the odd shot out of their arses so to speak. Here's my favourite list of flickrites so far. In no particualr order, (and apologies if you aren't mentioned here I can only skive off work for so long).

• Irregulargirl, daring confrontational, edgy and poetic, is the only way to describe this chick's (with 'tude) work.
• Macartsit11, produces, colourful, consistent and creative work, a solid eye, and a recent Mac convert to boot!
• Shoegazer, works closely with Irregulargirl and sometimes their work is swapped and crossed over, so it's difficult to tell who shot what, still great work nonetheless.
• Swissmiss' work is minimal and exquisite, and she occasionally visits an Aunt and documents small impromptu performance pieces.
• Jengray, produces solid analog work often with a 6 x 4.5
• Lunaryuna, a fellow urban photographer, shares similar interests to my self and her work is excellent, she is also quite passionate about the squared circle group.
• Scootie, is the not only one of the few Melbourne members of flickr, who's work is consistently of a high standard, but I have also met him, in the flesh, (as a consequence of joining flickr), two other excellent Melbourne photographers are Mitchie Girl and Subsonix, aka, Dj Mudgutz who happen to be former students to boot!
• Ozlomo consistently produces fine, lomo-shots and is also Melbourne based
• My life as a Haint, is prolific and suitably bent, he manipulates heavily to the point where his images are barely recognisable as photographs.
• Sam_ produces very beautiful urban landscapes, that have a fairly bleak look about them but are strong images nonetheless.

I could go on but I don't want to bore you with ALL the details, suffice to say that if i covered all of my contacts todate I'd have several screens of text for you to plough through.

Some of the other interesting things that have happened to me whilst being involved in the community that is flickr is, I've met folks who are passionate about Vegemite and aren't from Oz. A Cabbie in Brisbane regularly photographs his passengers in his cab, and discovered the joy of walking around looking down.

So happy birthday to you s2arts.blogspot.com, and thanks to all the folks at flickr who are shaping the site into what seems to be a damn fine community, one of those fabled cyber communities I've been hearing about for so long!

Pictures to follow ; )

Twelve months is a long time in the blogosphere!

Well tomorrow is the date that marks the 12 month mark for this blog, given what's coming up over the next few days I doubt I'll be able to do anything particularly exciting, we'll see maybe the day after?

Washington Post reader definitions

Once again, The Washington Post published its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate word meanings.

1. Coffee (n.), a  person who is coughed upon.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.),  appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller
10. Balderdash (n.), a  rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a  humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the  formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately  before he examines you.
13. Oyster (n.), a person who  sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
14. Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.

You mean these words have different meaning to these?

Thanks to Chris for sharing

Easter, a quiet time all round really?

Both of my readers, who know me, will know that I am a big fan of Apple computers, here's an interesting timeline that shows the development of the macintosh as a personal computer

Still posting away madly at flickr

Still using Lobster to manipulate my images in PSP

Recently we were in Sydney to celebrate our 3rd wedding annivesary, took 400 plus photos over the 3 days, and after almost a week of editing and post-production produces this resulting set on flickr.

I can't sing enough of the praises of lobster the plug-in for photoshop that compensates for the colour shortcomings of the app

2005's must see photography exhibition

This exhibition will be in Victoria soon.

High Speed Photograph

Most viewed image on Flickr

Lewis Baltz - George Eastman House

One of my early influences in photography

Lobster-Photoshop comparison

A side by side comparison of two images, one manipulated in Photoshop using Lobster and other tools, the other straight out of the camera, (with a small amount of un-sharp masking applied).

Photoshop, Farker, Lobster, Flickr, Striker!

Downloaded a new app. today. It's called Farker, and it's an RSS news-reader that displays somewhat goofy headlines from all over the world, also allowing folks to comment on them, some pretty hilarious stuff in there.

Here's an example:-

"Backstreet Boys plan comeback tour. Publicity stunts begin with drunk driving charges"

or this one:-

Aromatic Patrons of CA library asked to leave, proclaim, “… reading stinks anyway!”

pffft, what can I say?

Over the last couple of Mondays, been attending a workshop on Photoshop, run by the inventor of Lobster™ a powerful editing plug-in that gives photographer's complete and correct control over their colour manipulations in Photoshop. Download the demo version, and download the notes/tutorials that go with it you'll be amazed at how it transforms your digital darkroom approach. I have been enjoying the workshop from several aspects, being taught again by a former teacher ( who is an excellent teacher by the way) and seeing how someone else teaches the Photoshop™, as well as getting to peek at Photoshop™ from a slightly different angle, and using it in a slightly different way.

Flickr has been down for some time today, bit of a worry I hope they don't do a dot bomb on me? I'm planning on using the service for some serious artistic investigation over the next few years. I also wanted to link to a couple of the images I made whilst on the School camp over the weekend, will have to wait awhile I guess, or maybe I'll just embed directly here?

On a different note I am not working today, because, and I quote

TEU representatives met with the Vice Chancellor recently to continue negotiations to seek to achieve an agreement for a 2008 expiry date and 22.5% pay rise as outlined in the NTEU's Position Paper on our  EB settlement.
The Vice Chancellor was adamant that she would not be agreeing to either the 22.5% pay claim nor the 2008 expiry date for the agreement.

My small contribution to the news aspect of blogging.

Digital Images from NYPL

A new free online service is being offered by the New York public Library. It allows people to download any of their 250,000 images to do as you please with. A real nice research tool I guess and I suppose depending the quality of the files maybe even possible to own a classic photograph or two.

Final Days of summer

Off to the annual "Kamp Krusty, this year it's shaping up to be wet and possibly wild. This image was made about the middle of the year, last year, during a mid year camp we held, so this in itself will be an interesting return journey for me.

This region of Victoria has had a fascination for me for many years now, I think I have been camping there on and off for 20 or so years, focusing on a couple of spots in particular in the Otways. One place Stephenson's Falls (see image above) has had a special connection for me, and after all these years I have a series of images made there that could constitute a body of work. So dear reader stay tuned as I prepare to head off west for the weekend several cameras under my arm ready to shoot shoot and photograph anything and everything that catches my eye.

10 years is a long time to tread water

Sunday's thought for Monday, with thanks to anti-pixel dot com, who has managed to say it in a much more poetic and veracious way than I ever could.

Beware of incompetent people:
"Incompetents have fewer options for self-preservation than the rest of us and will fight like shithouse rats when cornered and expected to perform. Their cunning is often inversely proportional to their talent, and it is this, sycophantically applied, upon which they rely."