GX GARNERINGS

The importance of the captioned utterance of annoyance is where you hear or say it. When this was spoken, I was startled by the lady taking photos of her kid at a hotel swimming pool and aggreviated by the kids of the Mister who, rightly so, were left to kick, jump and run on the shallow side of the pool. Naturally, the water splashed on her Canon P&S camera with the lens fully extended, uncovered in whatever way. I said "naturally" because that was a POOL! So the lady fretted and fussed about the children and hinted the Mister to stop'em to apparently no avail. The Mister gave the lady an unfriendly glance and said and did nothing. There I was startled the unreasonable ego of her. A swimming pool is for swimming in the first place. She had probably no sense about this nor knowledge about the availability of some all-weather tough camera. This brings us to a not-so-new-yet-not-so-old tough camera (forgive me, this is not a serious compact to be in line with this ...

Now that we photographers are going to have the weekend all by ourselves (which for some unknown reason reminds me of this ear candy ) without the tiring weekday works, this is time to pursue our true photographic identity (just like Batman after dark) and flex our photographic muscles. Burrard-Lucas photography has announced its second photography contest which offers over $2,000 in prizes. The contest is themed on "Mysterious Places". The first thing springs to mind is what the excellent digital marco function of my GX200 may afford to produce on this theme. There are going to be 12 winners. The prizes on offer are: Prizes 1x Overall Winner: Lensbaby Composer + Optic Swap SystemSmugMug Pro Account (1 year) + $50 print credits($565 total value) 1x Peoples Choice Winner: Lensbaby Muse with Double Glass Optic + SmugMug Pro Account (1 year) + $50 print credits($350 total value) 2x Runners up: Lensbaby Muse with Plastic Optic + SmugMug Pro Account (1 year)($250 value per pers...

Ricoh has just released another firmware ( here for downloading) to address the following problems: •With the combination of the following conditions, it will not properly appear the image in the position display window that is shown when you playback with enlarged.- [Auto Rotate] ON- There are both horizontal and vertical images in a camera- Playback enlarged images with the ADJ. lever. •When using long time exposure, the orientation information (horizontal or vertical) of the image may not be recorded correctly.

^Up the ladder to the truck from where the scaffolders climbed to work on a height of the fourth floor. Legend has it that the inventor of bamboo scaffolding was Youchao (literally Have Shelter), a legendary character in ancient China who built the first tree house in human history (Oops, I had thought that it was Tarzar's parents). Scaffolding is an old trade indeed. ^The scaffolder is without a safety helmet, which is apparently against the law. The bamboo scaffolding is as aesthetic as technical which we learned in two old posts here and here . Not all scaffolding is built with the same method. Whenever I find the bamboo scaffolders erect the huge masterpieces in a day or two, I cannot but exclaim with utmost admiration. ^A scaffolder earns around HK$1,000 a day which is not much because they do not have work on a daily basis. The best part showing courage and skills is none other than their swift movements of drifting effortlessly from one corner to anot...

Canon has come up with a new USB transmission protocol betweent the camera and the lens ... ... NOT Actually, this is a 2GB USB memory device worth of HK$220 which Canon is giving out to buyers of its laser printers for free. The cheapest laser printer costs a wee bit over HK$800. If you are considering a printer and crave for this giveaway, read here . Well, it is a promotion for Hong Kong Canon only.

Today's post features Leo K.K. Wong (1932- ), the last of the three masters of photography for this masters series. ^Autumn Fantasy 1983 Much like Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), the American modern photography reformist who pioneered straight photography in the 1920s and devoted to establishing photography as an independent art form like painting and sculpture, Leo K. K. Wong, a seasoned photographer of Hong Kong, was already a breath of fresh air in the local pictorial photography scene in his early years. Wong pursued typical pictorial aesthetics during earlier days but later became deeply influenced by the spirit of Chinese calligraphy and painting. This resulted in an evolution from the representational to the abstract as he began studying the intrinsic qualities of photography. He was the first to show a new way to further explore Hong Kong pictorial photography that has gradually evolved into a new standard. Wong has lots of insights in photography under his belts. ...

The second master of photography from Hong Kong for this week is Hing-fook Kan (1921- ). Let's learn from this respectable senior. ^Water Palette 1953 In 1861, British portrait photographer Jabez Hughes (1819-1884) classified photography into three categories: mechanical, art and high art. In his view, high art photography served a loftier purpose than art photography through its ability to instruct, purify and ennoble. This function of promoting culture and refinement stressed by Hughes became a spiritual goal for artists who pursued pictorial photography of the time, including KAN Hing Fook. In His Own Words First of all, let's hear some pointers from Kan about photography: "Throughout my photographic career, works that stand the test of time, that allow me to savour them anew, are few and far between. The majority of my past best works no longer satisfy me. There will be no room for improvement if one only clings to past successes and forgoes innovation, the...

This week, we are going to learn from three local masters of photography by looking at their pursuit in creative artistic photography. Today, let's meet with Fou-li TCHAN. ^Life is But a Dream 1996 An Account of Tchan and His Works Tchan was born in a Guangdong Province in 1916 and graduated from the Guangdong Provincial Second Normal School in 1934. Influenced by his father who loved painting and music, Tchan greatly enjoyed Chinese painting and classical Chinese poetry. His sound knowledge of literature and art provided a solid basis for his launch into photography. In 1944, Tchan immigrated to Vietnam to run a business where his interest in photography blossomed. He acquired sophisticated darkroom techniques of film development, colour temperature and gradation control. In the early years, he was also impressed by the creative ideas and style of Lang Jingshan (1892-1995), a first generation master photographer in China. These resulted in photos which resembled Chinese pai...

These fruit traders are pushing their cartful of boxes of fruits along the road leading to the highway where the sliding flyover joins.  What are they thinking really? Have a nice Sunday.