(This junk is operated by the Hong Kong Toursim Board to amaze the tourists. People working on board simply sail the junk hither and thither around the Vicotria Harbour. Great for a photo to contrast the modern highrises with it)
Hong Kong has been rather wet for a few days. The Observatory issued the yellow rainstorm warning (which precedes the higher red and highest black warnings) days ago. With the inclement weather, some normal scenes would become more intriguing and photos taken in this weather can give unexpectedly good results.
All a photographer has to do is find a safe place to position your camera, making sure that it is out of the harm’s way as raindrops spatter and splash.
(This is the best to my taste among this lot of photos. It somehow appeals to me as an impressionist painting replicating a scene along the River Seine in Paris but with Hong Kong and the Vic Harbour as the background)
Since the environmental light was low, the camera was duped to come up with an exposure combo only to overexpose the scene, which would have spoiled the gloomy atmosphere. As I was using the manual mode on my GX200, I just dailed the combo down two stops. Otherwise, the hazy shapes of the building on the other side of the harbour would have disappeared in the final image.
(This family appeared to be tourists as they strolled around the harbourfront aimlessly just to admire the scenery in rain. The space behind them in the photo is dead space which should be avoided. The active space in front of them shows a sense of moving direction of the subjects, which is normally prefered in an image)
Another thing is that if you stand under a building, the waterdrops can land from the ceiling right on your camera. So beware. I'd got a near miss when taking these photos.
As the wind and the rain intensified, the raindrops spattered towards my position. Not hoping to risk my GX200 and being quite happy with the photos I did, I walked away just in time to spare myself a thunderstorm some half an hour later.
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