Busy, and busy planning for Shanghai!

Madness right now. I'm just trying to finish my first chapter of my M. Phil. thesis on Joseph Conrad. So my desk looks something like this again, although this is an older photo from when I was doing a proposal for a different academic project (and, surprisingly, it's my second most popular photo on flickr. Messy desks seem to resonate with people...). But work like this really eats into the photo time, you know? I've got to get it done this week, though, especially because I've decided that next week, during Easter, I deserve a break, and I'm heading off to Shanghai.

Never been there before, although I've been living in Asia for ages, and in China for between 5 and 8 years (depending on your definition of China: I lived in Taiwan for three years before moving to Hongkers). So I'm totally excited at the prospect.

This means I get to play my favourite Flickr game: plan-your-trip-by-using-our-search! (I outlined it in yesterday's post). And there are some crazy photogs in Shanghai. I've stumbled across these folks already: lifemage, theshanghaieye and tommyOshima.

Still working out the details, obviously want to take in the Bund and the view of Pudong, but not 100% sure about what's available in Shanghai, so I'll be doing more research on this during breaks from my other research. If you have any ideas or recommendations of what to do in Shanghai, give me a shout out in the comments section.

Gear wise, I'll have to travel quite light, and I'm toying with the idea of just hooking up my Nikon D300, a 50mm 1.4 and a 20mm. Only. No zoom, no macro. Not even a flash, maybe. Just want to unencumber and focus on getting great people and street shots with these to tack-sharp, creamy-buttery-bokeh nikkor lenses.

Cantonese Opera Again!

After running all my Cantonese opera shots through Lightroom ( which is a total Godsend, I can't believe it's taken me this long to get involved in it) I've found that I have quite a few that I really like. Stage lighting helps, but I think the thing that contributed most to the final look of the day was my new Nikon D300.

This camera rocks, seriously. Much better in low light than my old Nikon D50, which couldn't go above ISO 800 in most situations, and which didn't have the megapixel depth for much cropping and post-processing.

You can clearly see a differnence between these two cameras, if they are used side by side under the same conditions.

Here are more of the shots, and I have to point out that these were taken during a performance of a very famous opera company, with no flash allowed and very tight angles (I had to duck down at the fornt of the stage and not bother anyone who was trying to appreciate the show).

Enjoy!

First Post!

Well, here's my Hello World moment. Been putting this off, because although I've felt that I should run a blog for a while, it just seems that there's never anything to write about when I sit down in front of the screen - and especially hard to kick it all off.

So I'm just biting the bullet here and rambling away. I intended this blog to be a vehicle for the rambling thoughts (photographic and otherwise) I am having at any given time, so I could come back and view them and maybe be able to act on them later when I had an answer or a new idea to try out.

Whether this happens remains to be seen, but if you don't start, you don't finish. So I'm starting.

First up, a little about me

Turning thirty this year, and been taking photos for just over half of that time. Things have gotten much easier since I got a job (photography is many things, but it is not cheap, and tough for a teenager or student, as the choice between film and beer is hard to make) and since digitial came round - no film costs. That said, I miss the darkroom time you used to have to put in, and the feeling of rinsing out a canister of films after the chemical wash, and unrolling them to see if you got anything, and whether any of it was any good, just can't be replicated in the digital world.

I really don't grudge my new kit, though: a Nikon D50 kit, to which I've added a 70-300 Sigma and an SB-600 flash. The D50 was an Xmas present a couple of years ago from my lovely wife, now starting to feel a little tired and in need of a new body ( and I'm talking about the D50, people, not the lovely wife). I find the camera and lens configuration perfect for 98% of photographic scenarios and assignments, and I love the Nikon CLS system. The camera also manages very well under some fairly intense exposure problems, and I can't say that I've ever been anything less than impressed with it's preformance. And yes, I have tried Canon, and think it's on a par. I used an EOS system for film. Now, though, I doubt I would go back, because of the significant investment in Nikon equipment. So don't start an equipment flame war, guys. Funny how it's always the guys, I've never had an argument like this with a woman photographer. Some inadequacy issues, maybe? Anyway, it's not the camera, it's the eye. I've seen some incredible images taken on plastic toy cameras like Diana and Holga, and seen some very impressive rigs out here being used to much less effect.

I've also become a fairly heavy user of Cokin Filters - a Polarizer, a light yellow and a couple of graduated ND's, which I think are essential for interesting skies out here in Asia (I'm looking at you, yellow filter) and for getting good sky exposure balance anywhere during the day.

The photographic potential of my new home - Hong Kong- is unlimited, and the biggest problem I have in getting my own projects done here is keeping focused on what it was I came out to shoot in the first place. And remembering what it was I saw last week and thought "Hey, you've got to come back and get a shot of that at dusk / dawn / dragon boat festival / Chinese New Year." Which is another reason for this blog - to record those thoughts and run with them. Plus, it's to motivate me to get out and pursue my own identified projects, which can be a tough ask after a hard week's grind.

What this blog is about

Well, hard to say at this stage. The aims are hazy, but I would like to see projects proposed, researched, shot and discussed here. I'm always ready for a new challenge, and I am always looking for new places and events to shoot here in Hong Kong and elsewhere. I'm very open to discussion and other viewpoints, and I find that it's something I don't really get enough of in HK, so I'm hoping that there will be a comment or two posted telling me what solutions there are to my problems, or what your experience is of similar issues and ideas.

Going through the next few weeks, I'm going to go over a few highly inspirational blogs and photographers, and start work on my project for this week: night shots in Tsing Lung Tau. So watch this space, and if I get a break in the weather (which has been very bleak here over the last bit, wall-to-wall rain) I'll be posting my shots. This is what I got last time I went out there:

Which was pretty promising, but a lot more can be done out there. Plus, it's close to home for me, so I can get down there quite easily. You can look at my flickr photostream to view it large, and see some other shots from around that area:

http://flickr.com/photos/daveb_za/

Have a look, and watch this space for more!