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Showing posts from November 2, 2008

Buntings

This is of an old building in the neighbourhood. In case you wonder whether the underwear was what first caught my attention, my answer is a resounding YES. In fact the shot was taken on a footbridge which was just th ree metres away. How embarrassing that the tenants have to dry the underwear virtually in front of the passers-by!  The way of drying clothes like this has its history. In the colonial era (Hong Kong had undergone British colonial rule for over 100 years until 1997, in case you don't know) when I was a little boy, most locals lived in shaggy  resettlement blocks. The apartments were so tiny that meals were prepared in the public corridors and washing had to be dried on bamboo sticks hanging on the walls of the blocks. Imagine the scene: motleys of washing of different sizes and shapes flapping in the wind with the bamboo sticks rattling. We nicknamed them "makwokate", or literally "buntings of all nations". Buntings on bamboo sticks are stil

GX200 vs LX3 vs G10 vs DP1 vs P6000

Wow, this comparison or review of the photos by GX200, LX3, G10, DP1 AND P6000 will be of interest to many of us. The following are photos taken for the same scene by a photographer with various serious compacts (click to see): GX200 LX3 G10 DP1 P6000 What say you? Shed light (also see: the nightshots comparison ): Your Market Research Here

Selected Excellence: St. Paul's Halo

(Courtesy and copyright of Paulyrichard.  Taken with GX200) This is one of Paul's many intriguing works which can be found in his florilegium at Flickr . This shot caught my eye because of the photographer's unique treatment of the St. Paul's dome: its usual (or somewhat dutiful) position should be on the upper part of a photo , presumably giving the viewers a sense of solemnity and enormity, about which I would write a point or two later. Here, the photographer's special viewpoint causes the viewers to stop, look and think, the three essential responses that a great photo will attract. But a successful shot takes more than just that. More often than not, a good shot possesses a message (goal) to give substance to the treatment (means) bestowed on it. The photographer does not do the tricks just for the sake of being unique, but for a purpose. The title of this photo is "St. Paul's Halo". But, where is the halo? First, instead of being at the u