Color, shadow and composition

Still life

Sometimes I feel I don't appreciate still life photography as it supposes to. It is a great form of photography and taking image with small details is very lovely.
Shot at boxing day.

Self Portrait

Slow down

In a busy and fast city like Hong Kong, we just keep working like a machine and have no time to take a break. We need to force ourselves to take breaks in order to slow down our mind and think what do we really want in our life. Family, relationship, friends or just getter rich? what do we what? let slow down and get back to the right track.

Tired at the restaurant

Color

Color is hard for me but not this time. I wish I can read colour better and create more colour works in the future.
Also I read an article(with video demo) from Thorsten Overgaard blog about the processing method , he made things simple and without ruining any natural look of the image, which impressed me. I highly recommend it.

Heartwarming - The use of big aperture

A direct shot, simple which tells the story in the simplest way. It was a reaction shot, I didn't have time to plan for the shooting angle, lighting and the framing, I just fired right the way and it works. Someone say it is not suitable to use big aperture to blur the background in street photography, but I think if it suits the purpose, you can use any aperture. For this image, I don't it will be that impactful if I didn't blur out the background because the background will become the distraction of the mother and son(the subject).

Go close

"If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough." Robert Capa, it is one of the most famous quote about street photography and also it the hardest one to execute because you need to conquer the fear when you shoot the unknown person in such a close distance. It takes me a year to overcome the fear and now I can shoot close with a wide angle lens (28mm field of view in 35mm format) if I needed to. You may ask what do you mean of "needed to", my answer is it is all about the impact. If I can create a strong and impactful image by getting close to the subject, I would try to do it (I will not force it). Shooting close up is only one kind shooting style and it works in some situation especially the subject with unique character.

Old friends gathering with the X-E2 : Indoor Autofocus and shooting at wide open challenge

I shoot mainly street photography most of the time, 3 days ago I had chance to do something different to shoot friends and their kids during the yearly gathering. We started our friendship in Edmonton, Canada more than 10 years ago and now we live in separate places, LA, Hong Kong, Canada… I was having a good time to talk about all kind of things and experiences with them and also I have a chance to take some snaps with them and also with their loving kids!

Contrast

Lights creates atmosphere, if we use it wisely, we can create interesting images in all lighting conditions, such as harsh light, golden light, and flat light. I'm still a student of light reading and I'm trying to learn from using different lighting conditions which is a hit or miss to me. By the way, this image is my early success in shooting at the harsh light condition which I really like.

Street Portrait

50mm is not a versatile focal length for street photography because everything is pretty tight and flat. I used to have a hard time to handle it. The more I shot with it, I found out if the framing are tight, you better go closer to emphasis on the subject and give it more impact. 50mm is not easy for all around shooting especially in a crowded city like Hong Kong, but it is still very useful for some close up work.

Motion blur on the street: A great lesson to myself

Street photography has no limit, razor sharp image, blurry image, as long as it is interesting, you can do whatever you want. This shot was from instinct, I wasn't prepared for it at all. I was ready to turn off my camera and I saw the fantastic light lilted the nice looking legs perfectly then I my instinct moved my finger to press the shutter and the outcome was just fantastic! It taught me a lesson of how to use slow shutter speed and of course I will try more in the future and hopefully to create a series of it.

Fuji X-E2 for streetphotography review

I like my X-E1 it has really amazing image quality, but it is not trusty because the camera has shutter lag and LCD/ viewfinder lag(slow refresh rate which especially at night or low light situation) which cause me some trouble in shooting at night which is the time I do my photography most of the time. When Fuji came up with the X-E2 which promise to deliver better autofocus and also fix all the flaws from the X-E1, so that I bite the bullet and give it a try.