Tracy and I did a lot in 2025. We traveled overseas, went back to the states for home visit, visited friends, went to a variety of places in Hong Kong and even invited Watoto boys to come live with us twice. At the time, many of these events seemed like a blur together for me. I didn’t have time to really fully appreciate the moments as they happened, but I did however have a camera in hand. You probably did a lot as well. Whether you had a camera or smartphone in hand is secondary. I want to encourage you to take time to cherish your memories. Don’t forget 2025 Favourites. Go back and look at your photos. Of course, 2026 will have lots of special moments and it’s important to enjoy those moments as much as you can while they happen, but we live in a fast paced culture. Just because something is new doesn’t mean you should forget about what’s gone before it. Your memories from 2025 are still worthy of cherishing. Hopefully, my sharing these memories from 2025 can inspire you to take sometime to cherish what was special for you. Special moments can be planned out events that cost you money, but they don’t have to be. Big take aways can also come from small happenings. Normally, I publish my favourites blog at the end of each year. This year I ran into some technical challenges – Embrace Challenges in the New Year, so this is coming to you a little bit late.
Trip to Egypt
My first favourite memory came during the Christmas break of 2024. I know technically it’s not 2025, but I decided it was close enough. Tracy and I joined some friends for an adventure in Egypt. It was an unforgettable trip. If you would like to see more click here – Takeaways From Egypt. I was the only the only guy in my group and people warned me that people would look at me as though I had a lot of wives. Actually, one too many. You are allowed to have up to 4 wives in Egypt. Egypt is very much a male dominated society. I won’t say that Hong Kong is female dominated, but women here have a lot more power than they do over there. One of our friends told us woman have no status in Egypt. Big take away here, you and I have a lot to be thankful for.
Women in Egypt
Pyramids and Camels
Of course, we went to the pyramids, climbed up to the top of one of the pyramids, and visited museums. The pharaoh pictures brought me back to my middle school history classes. It was hard to believe that we were now standing in the country where so much of ancient history too place. One of our teammates, even took a ride on a camel. I shot all of the pictures and videos for this trip on a Panasonic GX85. We were warned about the possibility of having our cameras confiscated and I just didn’t want to take the risk of losing my new full frame Panasonic S1. Another take away is don’t wait till you have it all together to do something that you love. Make it work with what you have. A relatively cheap camera can still take good pictures.
Please Buy From Me
It was normal to see people trying to sell us something. Many of the sellers there are really poor and need money. We found it hard to constantly be telling them no. Too bad there isn’t another way for them to make money. At one point we were admired a weaver who was making this beautiful rug. Then a large man approached us and politely asked us if we wanted to buy anything. When we told him no, he rather directly told us to leave. No more politeness.
Traffic Issues
Traffic in Egypt is unlike anything I have ever seen. The lines on the road are only suggestions. When you consider how close they drive to each other, it’s a wonder there aren’t more accidents.
Trash City
Our guide thought we were crazy to want to visit the Coptic Christians in Trash City. There was a lot of poverty, wild dogs and men outside chatting with each other, but I don’t think we ever saw women outside relaxing. We did occasionally see women around town and on the trains. In the picture above, it looks as though the older girl is trying to protect her younger sister. I wonder if they were in any danger. A colleague used to have the words, “We respect each other”, engrave on a plaque on her desk. Whether a person is male or female, it shouldn’t matter, we should all extend the same respect to them that we would want for ourselves. The car right next to the girls has a pornographic symbol on it. Pornography turns women into objects and therefore encourages men to violate the respect that women deserve. “We respect each other”, is another big take away. I’m sure you’re not supposed to take pictures. I tried to be as secretive as possible.
Churches and Mosques
We visited both mosques and churches. After Christmas Sunday service, I was struck by the show of police presences to protect Christians against Muslim attacks. Evidently, some years prior many Christians were killed, while attending church on Christmas Sunday.
Egypt’s Cars
One of our taxi drivers, was a retired US diploma who spoke perfect English. He told us a lot about Egypt’s car history. Apparently, Egypt started making the Nasr car after the Egyptian revolution in 1952. Nasr is a state owned company. It was there second attempt at making cars. The Nasr was both practical and affordable. Many Egyptians bought one. By the 1980’s the car was very popular. The company stopped production in 2009 and then Egypt faced another revolution in 2011. In-spite of more that 20 years passing, we still found Nasr cars on the street. Our taxi driver referred to them as coffins on wheels. I can’t recall the reason they earned that reputation, but I do remember him talking about how the car was unable to keep pace with Egypt’s foreign car competition. He himself was driving a Kia car from South Korea. I also noticed that many of the taxi drivers were also driving Kia cars. Again if you want to see more of Egypt click on – Takeaways From Egypt.
Flower Festival and Leisure
The flower festival took place in Victoria Park from March 14 to the 23rd. It was great to see everyone out having a good time. Both the young and the old enjoy flowers. I took all of these pictures with my full frame Panasonic S1. At the time, I only had the 28-105 Panasonic lens. It offers a great range and some decent background blur. Of course, F4 is not considered a fast lens. Still, it offers good results. It was around this time that I bought the new version of Capture One. My journey with Capture One began a little over 5 years ago with version 12. Today’s version 16 is faster and more feature rich. The layers and masks and AI features in version 16.6 really make a difference. For example the program offers a mask option called subject and it is able to pick your subject and mask it with ease. Very nice. I was impressed at how quickly I was able to for example accent the flowers from the people in the background. Of course not everyone appreciates flowers. I found a number of adult guys playing with their radio controlled cars as if they were boys again. Then I found older men playing chess and chatting.
Hiking
Tracy and I went on a number of hikes during the year. One of my favourites was the Lantao Peak hike. For the last session of the hike, I let Tracy (or maybe she let me) take a break and continued on to the top by myself. At the top, I met some mainland Chinese young people. We talked for awhile and I captured some of the exchange on video. My Sigma 16-28mm lens did a terrific job for both the video and for the pictures. Yes, ultra-wide lens are not cheap, but when it comes to nature, architecture and a lot of video shooting there really is no substitute. When I came down and joined up with Tracy the sun and the clouds just looked beautiful. It was golden hour and the view was just breath taking. This picture of a young guy, shirtless, just soaking in the beauty of nature remains my favourite. It was very memorable. Here’s my earlier blog that includes more pictures and a video – Valentine’s Day Weekend Getaway.
Stony Brook and TaiO Fishing Village
While we were in the states, we returned to Stony Brook it remains one of our favourite locations. Tracy and went there while we were living in the states. As a teen, I used to float down stream on my back with my best friend Stephen. Another favourite location for Tracy and I is Tai O fishing village. We went there shortly after getting married. Now roughly 15 years have pasted, but the scenery is still very pretty.
Luminous Eggs
I already wrote about this event in an earlier blog. Still, I keep coming back to these photos. I love how the eggs lit up the city with different colors and gave Hkers, foreigners and Mainlanders a chance to simply get out and enjoy. I was really impressed at my S1’s ability to take good photos in low light. Having come from M43s, I wasn’t used to being able to boost the ISO so high and still get good results. In the picture directly above, it’s hard to miss the gal with long hair on the left. She took great effort to cover her face so that I wouldn’t capture her face. It really seems like society has changed. People didn’t used to care so much if you took there picture or not, but now they do. Another take away, you can’t control how other people will react, but you can control yourself. Do the right thing. Here’s the earlier blog – Making the Most of Luminous Eggs
Picnic Day School Pictures and TVB
I get similar results (people hide our faces) from the students at my school. A few months ago, we went on a picnic day. My best pictures of the students actually smiling come when they are unaware that I am there shooting. They are just having fun naturally. It seems that sports are the best for this, but other activities can also work. As you can tell from the number of covered faces at lunch time, asking them to smile for a picture may or may not work. The last two pictures were taken at school in the hall during the TVB concert. Here’s a link to the blog. It includes a video – Supper Moment Concert. I was impressed. No special audio arrangements were made. This was full concert audio levels and my S1 handled it really well. It was pretty cool to have celebrities come perform for our students. Many of the pictures here were also taken with the Nikon film camera 50mm 1.4 f-stop lens. For these shots, I paired it with my S1 and used focus peaking. The EVF on the S1 is really sharp. I met the seller for this lens at a shop in ShamShuiPo. He regularly travels to Japan. He loves to buy Nikon lens there and he offered to buy one for me at his cost on his upcoming trip. I took him up on the offer.
The Smiling Tree
The last lens I purchase for my S1 was the Sigma 85mm prime 1.4 lens. This lens is amazing it’s much heavier and bigger than the Nikon lens. Of course, the Nikon lens doesn’t have auto focus. The auto focus on the Sigma is quick and accurate and considering how big the barrel is, 77mm, it’s light weight. Shortly after getting his lens, I took it to a training workshop for the TSA examination. I know what was I thinking? Well, I heard that the campus was nice and I thought I might get some shots around campus. Instead, I found this amazing tree just outside of the school. The tree smiled for me and I took its picture :). Take away you can turn ordinary moments into special moments.
Mom’s 80th Birthday Party
Tracy and I went back the states for home visit. One of the most memorable events was my mom’s 80th birthday party. Originally, we were thinking of making it a surprise, but we then decided that mom would really benefit from being able to add people to the guest list. It was a very memorable event. As Char said my mom is the youngest 80 year old that she knows. If you would like to see more on this event here it is – She’s the Youngest 80 Year Old.
Stephen’s Birthday Party
That best friend that I mentioned earlier Stephen had his 50th birthday party and his wife managed to organize and keep it all a surprise. Pretty skillful I’d say. Tracy and I had a really good time, ate some delicious food and connected with friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time. The big take away here is make time for your loved ones. It was our privilege to be there for these events. These shots were also largely shot with the 50mm Nikon lens. I didn’t have the Sigma 85mm prime at this time, but even if I did it would have been too long for this event.
Watoto Visits Hong Kong
This was our third year hosting Watoto. Watoto is a children’s choir from Uganda, Africa. This year we got to invite Calvin and Daniel and then after that we hosted John and Emmanuel. These pictures are of John and Emmanuel.
Visit to Japan with EGL Tours
Wow, I have not even touched Japan. We decided to go to the Northern part in order to still catch the cheery blossoms. We went with EGL Tours. They did a great job. If you like these pictures and want to know more about the event. Follow this link for the blog I posted after the trip. The trip was very memorable. I think this trip impacted me a lot because I grew up subconsciously admiring the Japanese. So many of the produces my family used on a day to day bases came from Japan. I wanted to see the land that produced our cars, stereos, drills and so on . – Here’s the blog on Japan – The Japanese are Known For Their Politeness.
Hopefully by now you are inspired to look back to the pictures you took last year. What memories do they hold for you? What important take aways did you come up with?
