A lot can happen in a year and this year is no exemption. Sometimes in the busyness of every day life we forget about our pictures. I usually have a sense of a picture being good or not good when I take it, but not always. Sometimes a picture sits for months and may even be forgotten, but these pictures are worth rediscovering. Anyway, I just want to encourage you to take some time to sort through last years pictures. What did you take that was worth remembering? Here are some of my favourites from 2021. The first several ones reflect a more somber tone.
There are some small water falls off the MacLeHose trail near Shui Long. The picture reflects raw nature. It is green, untamed and free. The picture is both peaceful and disturbing. We welcome the sunshine as it brings warmth and light. We welcome the water as it refreshes. There is no need to hurry here. Time seems to come to a stand still if we let it, but this isn’t easy. There is something that almost cringes inside of us. We can end up feeling almost haunted by the disorder. We find ourselves wanting to fix it and given enough time and man hours we could impose our sense of order on it, but sometimes it’s better to accept natures disorder. We don’t have to always fight. Sometimes it’s better to re-imagine a shot.
This next shot is a bus stop. I think subconsciously many of us here in Hong Kong think, “Why would you take a picture of a bus stop.” People don’t go to bus stops because they want to visit the bus stop. They go there to go somewhere else. Plenty of people have told me that they wouldn’t live where I live because you have to walk 8 minutes to get to the nearest bus stop to go anywhere. If it is raining, you could get wet, and then once you get there you have to wait for the bus. It’s all very inconvenient. In addition, look at all that construction around. The air is full of dust and sometimes it is noisy. Yes, I understand if we had enough money, we probably would buy a car and try to delete this bus stop from our lives. But then owning a car would bring with it an entirely different set of problems and complains. Sometimes it is just better to just accept the bus stops of life.
I took this picture while hiking on the Eagles Nest Hiking Trail near the Kowloon reservoir The last 3 years have been hard. Protests against the government and Covid19 pandemic have been at the forefront of many people’s minds. Currently, we are on our 5th wave of Covid here in Hong Kong. Lock downs are in place, restaurants close at 6pm, schools are online, vaccines have been mandated, and lots of people have lost their jobs. Like this picture our immediate surroundings look pretty barren. Yes we keep doing what we know to do. We hold onto our loved ones and pray for a better tomorrow. There are still traces of a path in front of us, and we can still see splashes of light on the path, but much of what we thought would be has withered away. There are dead branches and dead leaves on the ground. Yet some how some way we have to go on and keep hoping for green foliage around the corner.
Parking in HK is not easy. Fortunately, it’s easier with a motorcycle than a car. I shot this picture of my bike near the MOS shopping mall at night. Honda has been making this CB400 for over 40 years now. They are well loved by many people for a lot of reasons. Mine is a 2002 and I think there were 5 owners before me. Anyway the bike has been taken care of and runs well. It is unique. One of the previous owners bought a third party muffler to give it a unique loud sound. The bike has vtec so once you get up to 6,500 RPMs, it doubles the number of values being used, drinks more gasoline, gets loader and goes faster. I tend to be a conservative person, and most of my friends probably see as pretty predictable. I am thankful that this bike has given me a new avenue for self expression. Oh… one modification I made to the bike is the raised seat. I am a tall guy. I rode the bike for about a week and my back was hurting from sitting too low. I had the seat raised about 3 inches. I think this helps the bike look a little more vintage. Anyway it rides much more comfortably for me now.
Okay lets move on to some brighter happier pictures. My neighbor invited me for a motorcycle club ride hiking event. Even though I didn’t understand a lot of the conversation. We still had a really good time together.
While I was hiking with the motorcycle club, we found Mr. Lizard all alone on the path. Of course, there are seasons of life and sometimes we need space to be alone. But in general, it is not good for man or woman to be alone. I’m not sure about lizards 🙂
I think SaiWan is becoming my favourite beach here in SaiKung. Actually there are 4 beaches there. It used to be that you could drive into the park to go there on your own, but now only vehicles with a special permit, taxis and buses can enter. I didn’t know this until I got there on my motorcycle. So I parked outside the park and took a taxi through the park to the hiking trails entrance. For this picture I planted my mono-pod in the sand, slowed down the shutter speed and experimented a little. The water looks relatively calm at first then turns more aggressive. These are a few of my favourites.
Unfortunately, time was limited and if I went back the way I came, I would have been walking in the dark. Thankfully, I was able to get the last ticket for a seat on the last speed boat taking off from the beaches. I shot these sunset pictures from the boat. Good memories.
Young people do some pretty crazy things. This was shot at Brides Pool Falls. I don’t recommend climbing the falls. But then again, they didn’t ask me. I just took the picture. I used my ND filters on both of these. Beautiful
Light painting has become popular among a lot of young people. Every year my school WFLC does a singing competition just before the Christmas holiday. Given the pandemic restrictions, there weren’t nearly as many people in the hall as there would have been in previous years. Most of the students watched the competitions from their classrooms streamed over YouTube, but their were a lot of upper form students seated together waving light sticks. Conditions just kind of naturally presented themselves for this shot. It was pretty dark except for the light sticks and the lights on the stage. I didn’t personally bring a tripod that day, but I looked around and there was one set up and waiting. I decided to make use of it. Of course, I didn’t have the bracket for the mounting plate on the tripod and if I had gone around asking for permission to use it, I would completely missed the shot. Instead I just stabilized my long lens on the tripod and adjusted the shutter speed and f-stop accordingly.
I’m not sure if you can feel the stress in this small room or not. Maybe you can identify. So many meetings, workshops, and services are all being done online now, and for the people who make it happen, it has a tendency to be stressful. As the laptop says, “ON AIR”. We are live… It’s great when everything goes smoothly, but just talk to any person who is in charge or any team member and you will understand that there plenty of times when it doesn’t go smoothly.
I know everyone is tired of wearing masks and social distancing, but we make the best of it. I shot this picture after the Christmas singing competition. Most of the students watched the live stream from the classroom TV’s. Even though you can’t physically see these students smiling. I think their eyes tell you that they are. We have goods times together in spite of Covid19.
Last Chinese New Year was my wife, Tracy’s, parents last Chinese New Year in ChoiHung Estates. It’s a government subsidized housing area. The accommodations there are very basic. Both the plaster and the paint are pealing or falling from the walls and ceilings. The living room functions as both a living room and a dinning room. Every time they ate a meal, someone needed to open a folding table and to arrange the furniture, but they never complained. It seemed that food and each other were their highest priority and they always seemed happy.
Tracy wanted to take mom and dad outside for this picture but they weren’t up for that, so I made the picture outside. Hahaha
This is our first Christmas Tree in Hong Kong. Growing up my parents always had fake trees so I didn’t mind the fact that this was fake. It is a good quality fake tree. I was really thankful to have Tracy to set it up and decorate it with.
Last I would like to leave you with a rainbow. They come and go and I barely had time to run and get my camera to take this one. Likewise life is full opportunities, so keep your eyes open and your cameras ready 🙂
