Mm goi sai
Sunday, December 5, 2010
No one does high density high rise like Hong Kong. With literally walls and enclaves of high rise apartments, offices and mixed usage buildings that rise something like 50 storeys from the ground, immediately behind which rise mountains that support more high rise residences, I still cannot comprehend how the narrow laned roads (mostly two and one lane roads, highways may be three and at times, four) can circumvent gridlock that should be anything but unexpected.
On the other hand, shops like Baleno, Bossini, Giordano, Uniqlo, Wanko and the like, together with Ajisen Ramen, Aji Ichiban and then some are quickly found everywhere. Truly, their presence amongst the Starbucks's and McDonalds does nothing to hide that the city is very cosmopolitan and connected.
There's more that's unique to Hong Kong that makes it quite an interesting place, but I'll let the pictures (and their captions) do the talking.
The station nearest to our hotel. Each train station seemed to have a colour assigned to it, and the older ones had colour-tiled wall features that caught my attention immediately.
I had been reading photography magazines for some time now, and I picked up the tip of shooting at a slight angle when doing people shots. The rationale behind it is similar to why women seem to tilt their head slightly when they enjoy the company of another person. There were some occasions when I got too carried away with the tilt, though. This is one of them, and I had to crop the picture afterwards.
I like this shot in particular. In the center of the frame is a tram that runs on some roads. Hints of how old it is clearly shows in the small passenger capacity and outmoded controls not seen beneath the stick-on advertisements here.
We visited the Madame Tussauds Hong Kong, where Lee Kwan Yew's wax replica also resided. Shame I didn't get a nice shot with him though. For these shots I knew clearly I had to try out Mark's 50mm lens, and I think it really paid off.
Doin a duet with Donnie.
There was a green screen behind Mr Depp here.
More trials with Mark's lens.
I like this shot, but my friends didn't seem to share the same opinion :/
The 30-40 min cable car ride to the tourist trap that was Ngong Ping 360 offered pretty nice views, if not for the slight fog. Here I decided to do away with that and B&W it.
It was 8 to a car, and the trip nicely accommodated for just that.
Another train station, this time taken with the 50mm.
This was a candid shot. I like it for the reflection of the church in my friend's Ray Ban, but the Bossini shop in Macau spoils the shot completely. I tried just cropping the reflection out, but it wouldn't do.
Here's that landmark icon that never fails to appear when one searches up Macau. The St Paul's Cathedral facade.
Up above fortress hill, the site the Portugese had chosen to defend their colony from against the Dutch invaders. All cannons could not help but point themselves at the sprawling urbanised landscape below. (or in some cases, parallel or even higher than the fort)
Our brief trip to the lighthouse, apparently the smallest in the world, let us see two wedding photo shoots in a short span of time. It's apparently an extremely popular place for such shoots.
Here's my friend, a regular on a Mine Countermeasure Vehicle, (MCmV) with his own D90. I'm perplexed by his spending habits. He had bought the camera many, many months back but only tried it out much later.
There was a cable car ride down a small park we had walked to. It took something like two minutes, and it's probably the world's cheapest ride at HK$2, or something like 36 Singapore cents.
Macau proper, or at least the area where small residences resembling greater Hong Kong gave way to sprawling, majestic and glassy casinos and hotels. This here is the tallest hotel in Macau, the Lisboa. At night, the strip was just as you see it in movies; bright, sleek and dazzling, just this time it was right before your stunned eyes.
I usually have something to say about 'shoe shots', but this one was truly unique. Below our feet was the stand of the Macau Tower at 233m. It is the tallest Bungee Jumping site in the world, with the second place belonging to some site that only rises to about 60+m, I believe. 17-20 seconds of insane free fall was yours if you were willing to fork out the equivalent of 300+SGD. You be entitled to a walk around the tower at that level first, outside of the building proper, on a ringed outcrop where you'd be strapped to a harness. Talking about balls of steel, three women completed the jump while we were there.
"Why live on the edge when you can jump right off?"
Not all of us wanted to wait for the sun to set and the lights of the city to come on; we had booked a five star hotel for the one night, and the amenities were crying out for our presence.
Here we are back on the mainland, more or less on our way home. I thought at first that the picture was wasted, but I hesitated in deleting it. I turned it B&W and to me, this seems to draw the viewer in an intriguing manner to the center of the frame.
posted by joseph at 8:27 PM
Sunday, December 5, 2010
I spent last week visiting Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Macau with some of my ex bunkmates from the Naval institute, arranged by a HK native himself. Parts of the city were entirely unique to the country when compared to other Asian cities, but others were ones easily replicated elsewhere.
No one does high density high rise like Hong Kong. With literally walls and enclaves of high rise apartments, offices and mixed usage buildings that rise something like 50 storeys from the ground, immediately behind which rise mountains that support more high rise residences, I still cannot comprehend how the narrow laned roads (mostly two and one lane roads, highways may be three and at times, four) can circumvent gridlock that should be anything but unexpected.
On the other hand, shops like Baleno, Bossini, Giordano, Uniqlo, Wanko and the like, together with Ajisen Ramen, Aji Ichiban and then some are quickly found everywhere. Truly, their presence amongst the Starbucks's and McDonalds does nothing to hide that the city is very cosmopolitan and connected.
There's more that's unique to Hong Kong that makes it quite an interesting place, but I'll let the pictures (and their captions) do the talking.
The station nearest to our hotel. Each train station seemed to have a colour assigned to it, and the older ones had colour-tiled wall features that caught my attention immediately.
I had been reading photography magazines for some time now, and I picked up the tip of shooting at a slight angle when doing people shots. The rationale behind it is similar to why women seem to tilt their head slightly when they enjoy the company of another person. There were some occasions when I got too carried away with the tilt, though. This is one of them, and I had to crop the picture afterwards.
I like this shot in particular. In the center of the frame is a tram that runs on some roads. Hints of how old it is clearly shows in the small passenger capacity and outmoded controls not seen beneath the stick-on advertisements here.
We visited the Madame Tussauds Hong Kong, where Lee Kwan Yew's wax replica also resided. Shame I didn't get a nice shot with him though. For these shots I knew clearly I had to try out Mark's 50mm lens, and I think it really paid off.
Doin a duet with Donnie.
There was a green screen behind Mr Depp here.
More trials with Mark's lens.
I like this shot, but my friends didn't seem to share the same opinion :/
The 30-40 min cable car ride to the tourist trap that was Ngong Ping 360 offered pretty nice views, if not for the slight fog. Here I decided to do away with that and B&W it.
It was 8 to a car, and the trip nicely accommodated for just that.
Another train station, this time taken with the 50mm.
This was a candid shot. I like it for the reflection of the church in my friend's Ray Ban, but the Bossini shop in Macau spoils the shot completely. I tried just cropping the reflection out, but it wouldn't do.
Here's that landmark icon that never fails to appear when one searches up Macau. The St Paul's Cathedral facade.
Up above fortress hill, the site the Portugese had chosen to defend their colony from against the Dutch invaders. All cannons could not help but point themselves at the sprawling urbanised landscape below. (or in some cases, parallel or even higher than the fort)
Our brief trip to the lighthouse, apparently the smallest in the world, let us see two wedding photo shoots in a short span of time. It's apparently an extremely popular place for such shoots.
Here's my friend, a regular on a Mine Countermeasure Vehicle, (MCmV) with his own D90. I'm perplexed by his spending habits. He had bought the camera many, many months back but only tried it out much later.
There was a cable car ride down a small park we had walked to. It took something like two minutes, and it's probably the world's cheapest ride at HK$2, or something like 36 Singapore cents.
Macau proper, or at least the area where small residences resembling greater Hong Kong gave way to sprawling, majestic and glassy casinos and hotels. This here is the tallest hotel in Macau, the Lisboa. At night, the strip was just as you see it in movies; bright, sleek and dazzling, just this time it was right before your stunned eyes.
I usually have something to say about 'shoe shots', but this one was truly unique. Below our feet was the stand of the Macau Tower at 233m. It is the tallest Bungee Jumping site in the world, with the second place belonging to some site that only rises to about 60+m, I believe. 17-20 seconds of insane free fall was yours if you were willing to fork out the equivalent of 300+SGD. You be entitled to a walk around the tower at that level first, outside of the building proper, on a ringed outcrop where you'd be strapped to a harness. Talking about balls of steel, three women completed the jump while we were there.
"Why live on the edge when you can jump right off?"
Not all of us wanted to wait for the sun to set and the lights of the city to come on; we had booked a five star hotel for the one night, and the amenities were crying out for our presence.
Here we are back on the mainland, more or less on our way home. I thought at first that the picture was wasted, but I hesitated in deleting it. I turned it B&W and to me, this seems to draw the viewer in an intriguing manner to the center of the frame.
Labels: holidays, interesting, navy, photography
posted by joseph at 8:27 PM