GX GARNERINGS

(Camera: Samsung WB600) Some photographers query the addition of the fun colour modes to the Sony Alpha cameras.  Those stuff are for, they may argue, causal cameras like the point-and-shoot WB600. Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so to speak. One really has to try the convenience of seeing a scene the fun way and doing away with the PP process to like the fun functions. Of course, if you really enjoy the gruelling PP process to get a result of your taste, such functions are not for you. But if you ask me the new addition of the colour modes is a great move.

(Camera: Ricoh GX200)   This shot was done at the risk of the photographer or his camera. The tattoos on him reveal his likely connection with some criminal  brotherhood, which is an entrenched culture thing in Chinese societies. Such brotherhood, believe it or not, was connected to SUN Yat-sen, the founder of modern China, and his affiliates. SUN was also the founder of Taiwan's KMT party of which the forerunners had a deep working relationship with such-brotherhood-turned triad societies.

(Camera: Ricoh GX200) On the street, a group of Chinese tourists are waiting for probably pick-up. With oblivion to the surrounding, this man changes his vest for an unknown reason to the author taking the opportunity to do a snap shot of the scene of an indecent taste.  The increasingly common sights, or eyesores considered by some, of people squatting in front of shops or in the thoroughfares, together with more billboards written in simplified Chinese, seem to push this international city towards the Chinese characteristics of the Mainland cities. The other day when the author visited the the aquarium and panda's home in the Ocean Park, there were, among the swamps of tourists, conspicuous signs saying, "Keep Quiet" and "Don't Use Flash".  The management of the Park has obviously deployed a much bigger troop of attendants to carry the signs around. On one occasion, one of those attendants was so annoyed that she went up to a tourist and made a big long...

(Camera: Ricoh GX200)   A young father full of confidence in his gaze is passing with the pram in which his precious child is resting. Look at the little foot stretching out of the seat, which suggests the radiance of life that could be the reason the young man is so confident of what he may be conjuring up in his mind's eye. Can we call this happiness? Probably yes. Happiness is considered to be the most essential experience in  life. It certainly is. But let's close our eyes and imagine that he will have a lifetime of happiness ahead of him: Can he bear it? Probably not. No single man alive can bear it; it will be hell on earth. Human beings will never find contentment in a lifetime of happiness. It is the contrast after hardship that makes happiness bearable and felt. As this man is a father of the child, he himself had many a year ago been a child in the pram pushed by his own father. Has the old father the hardship in feeding his own household? We can bet on it. Ha...

(Camera: Ricoh GX200) Why sleeping on a plastic sheet underneath the footbridge! Maybe he has a place where he can call home; or maybe not?  Is he the husband or father of someone? Certainly he is the son of a mother. How gripping will this scene do to the mother's heart? If hope is something with feathers, is his featherless, totally grounded? Life has a beginning and an end. In between the extremes, we live today and leave footprints on the sands of the yesterdays of tomorrows. For this man, does any of this matter anyway? When he gets up, what better can he do than earning enough money for the day and coming back to sleep underneath the footbridge at night, again?

(Camera: Ricoh GX200) Help your dad replace his distress with serenity.  Happy Father's Day.