Short Cuts and Back Roads

If you are into photography, having bought a camera or two and read lots of camera reviews but scantily books on photographic techniques, my counsel to you is: "How sacrilegious!"

If photography is about anything, it is least about cameras. In the film era, at least in Hong Kong, there was quite some number of advanced photographers being keen on using low-end point-and-shoot cameras to do great photos by using their photographic skills to work around the cameras' limitations.

Maybe I have forgotten more than what I have read, but I have read quite a number of materials on photographic skills. Most of them were borrowed from the libraries. But we all want to take short cuts and back roads to get to the destinations easier and faster, don't we?

Just in case you have missed it, one of these short cuts is to scan through the masters' works. If you asked me, I try to see from the shooters' perspective for the intriguing photos which catch my attention: What did the photographer try to express? Why did the photographer do the picture this way? What if the shutter release was pressed a second earielr or later. These are some of the questions I usually ask.

The photos (screen captures) in this post are the weekly best pictures voted by the editors here. For more, see here. Don't skip the books though.

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A Real Hero

(Grip On Reality: This photo was taken on my way to work. I was walking past trucks parking on a cul-de-sac when the ropes caught my attention. The light was right, the colour was right and the criss-crossing pattern was perfect and I held up my GX200. People passing by checked me out and wondered what could be made out of such a boring scene. To me, the fun in photography is that the photographer makes something interesting out of what is not obvious to most at the scene. The ropes tied in knots somehow reminded people I know who are in the grip of the recession) You must have also known a friend or two, or even yourself, being baffled by the spiral downturn of the economy. Bank went bankrupt and the rich was faced with a shrinking wealth. A friend of mine has just had his salary cut by over 10% and some of his colleagues started to be shed. But, wait. Was this done really for the sake of continuing the business? Or is there a factor or greed in it? I wonder whether the

New Low Prices

The window shopping some hours ago has almost provoked my AgIDS illness. Just in case you’re in Hong Kong or are coming here, and have the money to burn (All in HK$/ body only): GX200 = $3,280 GRD2 = $3,380 LX3 = $3,180 G10 = $3,280 Prices are available form a gear shop on the 1st floor of the Mongkok Computer Centre. Besides these new low prices, I found that Wing Shing Photo (55-57Sai Yeung Choi St., MK Tel: 2396 6886/ 91-95 Fa Yuen St., MK Tel: 2396 6885) is offering a Sony A700 + Carl Zeiss Lens package for HK$9,980 (hopefully, a bargain will make it some hundreds cheaper).

Eye Contact

(Leica D-lux 5) The digital era may make it easier to end up with fave shots. Even lousy photos may be turned likable after a few clicks in the post-processing workflow. But if digital advancement or amendments have any bearing on the cultivation of personal style, no photographers will need to discover his or her own photographer’s eye. Undoutedly, this is out of the question. Only with a trained photographer’s eye can we give a thinking gaze and capture an eternal moment, in our unique style. Style is the soul of a great photo. A few posts have been written in GXG to touch on the topic of photographer’s eye. Instead of finding an answer, which would require academic discussions, the posts are intended to give my general reflections and spark interests in moving towards further exploration of the topic. The posts can be viewed after the links: 1) Photographer's Eye: Storytelling 2) Photographer's Eye: Little Show of Observing 3) Photographer's Eye: Sight-Worthy 4

GX GARNERINGS

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