A Quiescent Moment

(Camera: Ricoh GX200)

The desolate road, the empty wooden carts, the waiting man and the dim yellowish light from the street lamps combined to give a dark, gloomy and philosophical quality to the scene. To faithfully render such a quiescent moment was the main concern of this shot.

The lowdown on the technique: a quick tweak to correct the camera's white balance to bias towards bluish green, thanks to the most intuitive WB Correction function probably found only in Ricoh cameras, adding a ghostly tint to the final image. The trick to highlight the centre subject – the man – and blur the peripheral ones was achieved by pushing the camera forward (just) a bit while fully pressing down the shutter release. The effect is to urge viewers to focus on the main subject; hence to think more intensely on his body gesture of loneliness.

Finally, the 16:9 format was chosen to crop out a few irrelevant spots of lights at the upper-left corner, making the image emotionally more intense.

Comments

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).

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