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| WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 8:52 p.m. - Benefits of digital: shoot schedules for later reference, not for photography. |
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| 10:26 p.m. - Blurry Hong Kong. Ricoh Caplio R4 doesn't do well in low light. |
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| THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 12:20 a.m. - Hong Kong lodging. Having learned my lesson from my previous HK visa run, instead of staying at Taoyuan Airport overnight, I flew to HK the previous night to take care of visa issues first thing in the morning. |
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| 8:31 a.m. - Hong Kong first thing in the morning. |
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| 8:38 a.m. - Hong Kong cat first thing in the morning. |
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| 11:07-11:08 a.m. - Victoria Peak. Doing touristy stuff after taking care of visa issues and waiting to pick up documents in the afternoon. |
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| 11:34 a.m. - coffee and view. And the U.S. can't get its story straight about China currency manipulation (it depends upon what's politically expedient, facts be damned). |
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| 12:39 p.m. - Peak Tower. |
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| 12:41 p.m. - colorful bug. |
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| 12:54 p.m - Iconic Hong Kong buildings. |
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| 1:25-1:39 p.m. - I took the tram up to Victoria Peak, but walked down to look for shots. |
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| 1:45 p.m. - Still walking down. |
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| 5:27 p.m. - Mission accomplished, returning to Taiwan. |
Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN. I don't know what it was about shooting Hong Kong in black & white. I was pretty confident about the Nikon's metering abilities, but something about the December Hong Kong light was particularly harsh and difficult to work with. And more than that, many of the shots had to be rotated beyond my usual claim that one of my legs is shorter than the other. When I got the CD-R of the photos, I was wondering whether I was drunk in Hong Kong and how? I didn't bring alcohol and the photo of my lodging doesn't suggest much of a hotel bar. The tilt was unfathomable. Was it something about the buildings and the lines that confused me? Jetlag despite being in the same time zone? I'm not going point out which photos are rotated because it would be just too embarrassing, but odd crops can be telling.
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| OK, I'll point out this was rotated because the composition and lines of the original were just too confounding. My first rotation attempt made the building vertical, but it was rotated so much that the subsequent cropping to keep a rectangular image made it completely unremarkable (photograph a thumb and try to make it interesting). This rotation focused on the railing and making it horizontal while keeping it in after the crop and the building is still tilted, but . . . what can you do? |
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| NB: only shots not involving direct sunlight were workable. |
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| No direct sunlight. |
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| Later in the day, back down at the waterfront. |
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| Final shot of impressive Hong Kong tower blocks before heading to the airport. |
