GX GARNERINGS

(Nokia E7 – 8MP phone camera; post-processed in Lr4) Today GXG features an intriguing shot by a reader, a mother who is turning keen on photography but hasn't really made a sortie into it. She titled the image, To the Right, To the Left. First, some background why the picture turns my head. If you are someone else's mother or father, at some point of time, upon contemplating or looking back at all the efforts put in your children and imagining or seeing them fly or fail one day, you will certainly experience the tension in the form of a climax of feelings yet quietly suppressed deep inside. This climax and the suppression usually go secretly underneath the conscious, with or without the owner knowing it. Look closely, there is the same climax of feelings beamed from the scene to the photographer which somehow urged her to raise the camera and press the shutter release. The posters in uniform rectangular shapes are there in the background as if asking aloud in

(Leica D-Lux 5; Hong Kong has been raining for four consecutive days now) I can venture to say that a seasoned photographer moves towards uniformity in his or her works. This is the one thing that I have yet to go a long way to achieve. Uniformity is not a euphemism for boredom or repetitiveness. It refers to the consistency in photographic themes, subjects and outcomes. In terms of artistic technique, the combination of such is known as photographic style. As tyros just into photography, we seem to be forever fascinated by different cameras. We fancy new gear and contemplate the chance to get additional acquisitions every now and then. We experiment with different photographic themes and carry a camera with us all the time. On one day, we do street snaps and on another portraits or landscapes, so on and so forth. There are some well-known photographers in Japan of whom the works can make clear the point. Hideaki Hamada keeps using his Pentax 67 II with the Kodak Portra 160 NC or 4

(Leica X1) Showcased at the West Kowloon Bamboo Cinema (opening session ended yesterday) are the Portraits of Cantonese Opera done by Michael Wolf, a photographer born in Munich and currently living and working in Hong Kong. A two-time winner of the World Press Photo Award Competition in 2005 and 2010, he has been engaged in photographing various aspects of Chinese cultural identity and local urban architecture. In this Portraits of Cantonese Opera, Mike utilises his lens to capture the essence of Cantonese opera and its locally celebrated performers, documenting the specificity and individuality of each character and their costumes.  His approach of juxtaposing the tradition of Cantonese opera against the backdrop of the old neighbourhood conveys his reflection on the city and its diverse cultural contexts. The Bamboo Cinema was a one-off project, now finished, to provide spectators with performances at the old-day price.  Cantonese opera performed in the setting of a bamboo

(Central Market, c 1960) The Hong Kong University Visual Archive has this to say about the local master photographer: Mak has worked as executive editor for Photoart and Photo Pictorial in Hong Kong. He has been Honorary Fellow of the Chinese Photographic Association of Hong Kong and Asian Photographic Association of Singapore. He strives to combine the documentary and the expressive functions of photography in his work. His albums Fung Mak Portfolio: The Wind, The Sunshine, and The Foliage and Mak Fung: Hong Kong Once Was were published in 1992 and 1997 respectively. From a description of the image featured today, it is pointed out in Mak's Central Market the busy thoroughfare of the market is dramatically transformed by the raking light pouring in from an internal courtyard.  All the components of the photograph aer flawlessly aligned into a filmic narrative, from the Bauhaus-inspired architecture and the opalescent beams of light to the face of the cigarette-smoking man

(Drunken Sailor 1966) Yau Leung was a widely-recognised local photographer known for his fruitful accomplishments in documentary photographs. His works are almost exclusively in black and white, capturing the iconic images of Hong Kong and its people from the 1960s and 1970s. First a photographer working for one after another local film production companies from the mid-1960s to early 1970s, he later started the Photographic Life monthly in 1973 and assumed chief editorship for the Art of Photography monthly in the 1980s. Fame brought him a good number of chances to publish his works in albums and exhibitions both locally and in the Mainland China. Thanks to his sharp eye and deft hand, the frozen moments preserved in the master’s images provide animated records of Hong Kong in his times. Those pictures showing the lives of the grassroots are especially moving, in which permeates the mood of plebeian simplicity. It is exactly because of such simplicity that the inclusion of non-pleb

(Pure Gold and Lace-Ups – An Impossible Dream 1953, at Sheung Wan) Chan Chik was a famous photographers in Hong Kong. His works are among those of the Hong Kong artists documented by the Hong Kong University in its online visual archive , which writes briefly about Chan: In the early years of his career, Chan studied painting in Yongqing Studio under Xu Yongqing. Later, he learned the skills of wood carving and graphic design from sculptor Yu Suoya as well as writers Nie Qiannu and Liu Huozi. During the anti-Japanese resistance war, he worked as a war correspondent for Ta Kung Pao Daily and reported wartime struggles from the east and north of Guangdong. When Hong Kong came under siege, he moved further inland to Guilin where he worked as a teacher in several schools including the Nanning Zhongshan Middle School, Nanning Middle School and Nanning Nursing School. When Nanning also came under siege he moved again, this time to the south of Guangxi. There he taught in the Tianbao Na

The Golden Lens Award is said to be the most prestigious in China's photography community. The 2010 grand prize went to a YANG Shu-huai who took the photo featured above. Below is some background information of the winning image, titled The Zhong Sisters from Yi Huang and a translation of an interview with YANG. Background Information   On 10 September 2010, three persons set fire to themselves in protest of the land resumption which led to compulsory demolition of their houses in Feng Kong Yuan of Yi Huang County in Guangxi. The three seriously burnt victims were immediately sent to the hospital for rescue. But one of them died from seriously burnt injuries. After a series of investigations, several high-ranking officials were sacked, including the Party Secretary of Yi Huang County Party Committee who was the de facto head of the county. Interview with YANG Reporter: Under what circumstance was this shot taken?  Yang: It was taken for the yearly special edition of

Today, let's enjoy a set (and many more here ) of amazing yet mind-boggling photographic works of Bolin LIU from China.  He took and, by painting on himself  to blend into the background, modelled for the picture.  Simply clever!

For over 50 years the World Press Photo has its yearly photo contest held as its core activity, which invites participation from serving photojournalists.  The 2010 contest has been announced and we have noticed many intriguing winning images which we can also call street shots.  Some of those images were done by Michael Wolf who won the first prize in the Daily Life category with his project, Tokyo Compression . Michael Wolf was born in Germany and spent his childhood years in the United States.  A graduate from Essen University, he has been working on his photography projects in the Asian countries.  His interest is in the culture of this part of the world. The images are reproduced by courtesy of, and with copyrights held by, Michael.  You may visit his site for more inspirations.

Our long-time reader, Christopher Guy, sent us some of his shots surrounding a theme "City Rhapsody", showing us around the city in his photographic eye.  He uses the Panasonic LX3.  Enjoy!

An email sent to Chung, the young film photographer, got a surprising reply.  The email was meant to ask for his permission to release his Flickr address . The young man wrote: "It is my honor to show my photos on your blog. I would like to release my flickr address too. "The camera I played with in the cafe is Leica, not Nikon. Honestly, I have lost my interest on photograhing because of many assignments. I hope that I can get it back and share more photos with everyone." Such is the suffocating city life many has found in this busy city.  Maybe it has been so busy that he is quitting for the time being.  But I think it is exactly with a busy life that we need some hobby. Photos featured today are all Chung's film images.  

The appeal is in the personality of film, the unique layers and textures which are nicely told by the young photographer, Chung, in today's images. Just click open the images for a larger size to check out the fine grains which are so fearfully avoided by digital camera users in general.  The feel is unmistakeably film. These shots give out an atmosphere of serenity.  Fact is, this quality is found in most of Chung's shots.  A side note is that, compositionally, the dead space behind the subject in the first shot is less satisfactory.  Putting the person on the right side of the image is preferred for that matter.  Luckily, the patterned ceiling somehow reduces the adverse effect of the dead space.  The up-left to down-right rippling lines naturally guides the viewers' gaze to the lower right corner.  The texture of film add an extra dimension of interest to it.  Just imagine if it was a digital shot made spick-and-span.  The ceilings look more heavily layered in this fi

Chung, a young man aged around 19, was toying with a big black camera which caught my attention when I was sipping a cup of aromatic coffee in the cafe.  He was with his friend who got a big black camera too.  It didn't take a photography master to tell that the young chaps were holding two old film cameras. Curiosity caused me to go over and ask Chung, a name I knew only at the end of the conversation,"Wow, are you shooting with film cameras?"  As I moved closer, the eye-catching "Leica" on the ridge of his camera was unmistakable.  What exactly the model it was just slipped out of my memory. "Yeah, this is a Leica film camera," he replied, beaming a smile of pride. "Good for you!  It is not usual for young men like you and your friends doing films rather than going digital.  Why not?" I said to Chung while his friend was being more reserved in the background, shooting with his tool. Chung nodded his head, saying, "I just don&

This intriguing picture was the work of Riddick Douglas Ning who graduated with distinction in Creative Media from the City University of Hong Kong. Riddick won the Creative Media Award 2009. The scene of this image bears a strong resemblance to Jean-François Millet's (1814-1875) Des glaneuses dit aussi Les glaneuses in 1857. The French farm ladies become Hong Kong's troop of old-lady scavengers while the outline of the farmhouse and the landscape are replaced by the skylines of Hong Kong's skyscrapers. Riddick has done a photography project titled Hong Kong Happenings which considers the relationship between photography and painting. His intriguing pictures retouch some key Western paintings with satirical overtones using modern Hong Kong as the background. In addition to this poetic work The Scavengers, The Spoiling of Adam is another example. The picture, alongside with other great ones featuring Hong Kong photographers' works, is to be exhibited by DIORAMA PR

This post wanders a little bit off GX GARNERINGS' track in that the photographer, Dean Dorat, did these wonderful shots not with a serious compact. But who cares? Great football matches are the order of the day and these shots are great! Now, I strongly recommend rolling down to the bottom of this post, clicking on the video and checking out the pictures with the music playing. Dean is a french photographer based in London . She does photography and graphic design. The pictures here were done for his Beautiful Game project, now available in a book for purchase here . This is what she has written about the project: These photographs were taken during the 2006 World Cup, when I divided my time between London and Paris, going from pubs to bars, trying to catch the essence of each football match through people's expressions. Each spectator was so intensely absorbed in the matches that they forgot about the camera pointing at them. These photographs draw us into the emotion of the

When I first learned photography, in many of the photography books I read revealed the secret of an effective jump-start – learning from the masters.  The world renowned National Geographic photographers are some of the great contemporary masters. There are many more great photos you can learn from on NG's website.  A webpage I recommend is here where the photographer comments on the best photos he picked.  A great way to boast our photographic skills.