I know I said I wasn't going back to doing anything like this, but I'm a liiiiiaaarrr but I'm not really. It's just toting a point-and-shoot camera around. Anyway, in the words of Alfred Stieglitz, according to Ansel Adams, "I have the desire to photograph. I go out with my camera. I come across something that excites me emotionally, spiritually, aesthetically. I see the photograph in my mind's eye and I compose and expose the negative. I give you the print as the equivalent of what I saw and felt". He was a giant and pioneer of modern photography, but what he says is so simply human that it applies to anyone, even a dork with a digital point-and-shoot, no?
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| October 17, 2:53 p.m. - Keelung River and Maishuai Bridge #2, shooting north from Maishuai Bridge #1. There are not many public places named for western figures. Roosevelt Rd. is one, and these two bridges are named after that handsome devil MacArthur (麥帥). |
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| 4:38 p.m. - Xinyi District's burgeoning skyline from Neihu. When I first got here, it was just the Taipei 101 tower sticking out and giving me the finger. Now we have the complete set! |
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| October 21, 4:08 p.m. - Huashan 1914 Creative Park. |
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| 4:19 p.m. - Public sculpture probably made from local found detritus from what was here before, a sake brewery rings a bell. And including the rail ties!: |
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| 4:30-4:39 p.m. - Right behind me in the previous pic, but not in plain sight I discovered these abandoned railroad tracks on the northern edge of the park, barb wired and fenced and covered with overgrowth (I'm sticking my arm way out through the fence and shooting blind taking the first shot, one of many until I got one level). I imagine these would have emerged from the underground Taipei Main Station less than a mile west, and heading to points east and down the coast. Even in my time in Taiwan there were surface trains and level crossings in eastern Taipei, but they've all been moved underground since. |
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| 4:43 p.m. - This walkway follows the still-visible remnants of a small industrial railroad which was used by what was here before. Would a sake brewery need a railroad or a smokestack? Why not? The reason I was here, though, was because the Guanghua Digital Plaza is a block away and I was getting a new battery for my Canon IXUS 860 IS. All of the above were shot with my Ricoh Caplio R4. |
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| October 23, 3:16 p.m. - Taipei Fine Arts Museum Park. The rest are shot with the IXUS 860 IS. |
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| October 28, 4:49 p.m. - Songshan Airport. |
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| 5:00 p.m. - Songshan Airport observation deck. |
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| 5:05 p.m. - Shooting north with clouds rolling over the Yangmingshan range. |
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| October 29, 4:35 p.m. - I was wondering why the hell I was taking a picture of a wall, but after I got home I noticed the reflections in the windows of the wall behind me of the Eslite Spectrum building creating interesting patterns. |
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| 4:38 p.m. - Said Eslite Spectrum building and said wall on the right side. |
If I had to choose a favorite of the month, it'd probably be the airport observation deck.
