Exit

Exit zone, originally uploaded by heiko_w.

Just like the guy making his way through this temporary walkway, I'm going through some stuff. The frequency of posts have been wavering as of late and I'm afraid the infrequency will likely continue. I wish it were easier to write about the photos that I love, but the truth is that at times writing is like pulling teeth. Years of leaving concise yet unspecific comments around flickr and elsewhere have left my writing sensibilities dull and decrepit.

I've tricked myself into thinking I could do a handful of things in my life all at once, but I sadly cannot. So while I look forward to continuing to share my thoughts on my favorite photography at clickclickclick, and while recognizing that continuing to write here regularly is one of the only ways I can hope to improve my writing, I confess that it's too much for me to attempt five, or even four, posts a week. Overexcited by this new project, and passionate about it to a fault, I have neglected to prioritize my life properly.

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Though his features are not visible to us,the man in the photo still appears to be sure-footed and certain of his destination. While darkness surrounds him on all four sides, his path is lit and he is about to turn the corner with a resolve that I contrastingly do not have. I know the pathway is a temporary one and that it serves to cover you between here and there but I still hesitate. So again I apologize. I will be posting much more infrequently from now on -- at least until I get myself from here to there.

Bokeh

let me see, originally uploaded by kestra_400.

Bokeh describes the blurry quality of out of focus areas in a photograph. At large apertures, in the right settings, sometimes the light is transformed to resemble little Christmas ornaments. That's bokeh. Different lenses all have their own characteristic bokeh. In some of the flickr groups you can run across lens arguments debating the "good" or "bad" bokeh of one lens versus another. This post isn't about what makes good bokeh, though. I don't know anything about that.

I'm just here to show you this photo and tell you that kestra_400 is one of a band of photographers that does beautiful low light/available light photography. And he does it on film. My own experience shooting film is limited to my Holga and an old, crumbling Nikon that I have in no way wrapped my head around yet so there's not much insight I can offer into the way this photo was shot unfortunately. All I know is that it's not always easy to find places that bokeh beautifully.

I wonder if it has to do with the city. Many of the most beautifully executed photographs that feature predominant bokeh are set in the metropolises of Eastern Asia: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei. It could just be my affinity towards tiny points of shiny light shooting out of the darkness. Drop one sharp subject in there, and I'm pretty much guaranteed to drop my jaw in return. I really like how in this shot the person in the foreground seems to be peering into the distance, admiring the lights just like we are.

It's great how there not only a variety in the colors, but also intensity, and nature of the blurred out lights. There are the blue solid lights that are clumping at the bottom, a similar clump to the left of orange lights, a row of red lights coming down diagonally, and then translucent-seeming bubbles of yellow and dark red floating up to the top. Staring at those lights, I can't help but guess what I'm looking at. I try to piece together a scene in my mind, but everything dissolves as soon I start to make any sense of it.

Perspective

chiang kai shek memorial grounds at night, originally uploaded by formica.

Sometimes the difference between a regular snapshot and a striking photograph is the perspective. Instead of taking a shot from 5 feet off the ground, why not take it on the ground? Different angles force interesting perspectives in different situations. Here, more than half the scene is dominated by the tiles of this plaza, giving us an ant's-eye-view of the distant gate. With this super low angle, all the lines draw the eyes up and into that gate.

I like how all the bright illumination on the gate is mirrored in the ground as a watery reflection, giving the photo as a whole more body, and adding another element of interest to this already full frame. It doesn't become overwhelming, though, helped in part by the photo's predominantly monochromatic blue tone. And while the focus is soft, there's a feeling of sharpness as a result of the great contrast throughout. And yet somehow, the brightly lit white gate hasn't been overexposed.

If you can read Chinese, you'll be able to just make out the four characters that have since been taken down and replaced. "The Golden Mean and the Way of Righteousness" have given way to "Liberty Square" and what was once the CKS Memorial Hall is now the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. I only lived in the country for three years, so I feel like my understanding of the politics behind the changes go way over my head. Nonetheless, the controversies revolving around words and monuments in Taiwan help to further throw images like this into greater perspective.

It's been a little over two years since I first saw and was inspired by this great shot. This, and a handful of other photos, all shot by a plastic camera called a Holga, convinced me to purchase my first "toy" camera, and simultaneously dive into the awesome world of medium format film. While the Holga is known as a lo-fi toy camera that produces selectively in-focus, heavily vignetted, square photographs, I love the Holga because of it's sometimes surprisingly crisp and high quality results. With a list price of $50 (cheaper on ebay) the camera is capable of producing stellar photographs. Like this one.

Shinjuku

Night_of_Shinjuku, originally uploaded by clarice & ....

Here's a glorious example of cross processed slide film out of a Lomo LC-A. This is a great night time shot filled with plenty of interesting detail. For me, this photograph has become iconic of one of the busiest districts of one of Asia's busiest cities: Shinjuku, Tokyo. Shooting from a pedestrian overpass, Clarice was able to capture the towering neon billboards and store marquees illuminating the busy street below.

The wonderful contrast and saturation really makes this image shine. It's likely due to a combination of the 100iso film and the cross processing. The choice of film, Kodak Ektachrome, along with the color temp of those street lamps probably contributed the green cast. The sharpness through most of the scene and the vignetting at the edges are thanks to the awesome Lomo LC-A.

I'm somehow drawn to the motif of striped crosswalks, featured at the bottom of this frame, and pedestrians at night. I feel that it's a key element in the concept of urbanity. While the night encroaches from all sides, the metropolis holds the stifling darkness at bay. The deep patches of black night all around serve to set the lights in brilliant relief. Looking at this photo from a distance, or as a thumbnail, the jumble of lights seem to explode out of that vanishing point, moving not just out towards the edges of the photo to conquer that night, but up and off the page/screen to enforce its super-reality.

Red

Into the Light, originally uploaded by Socwind.

This photo features Jiufen, a popular travel destination for tourists and photographers near the northern tip of Taiwan. For all those who had the poor luck to visit during rainy weather, I'm envious of you for having had the good luck to find yourselves in such a misty maze of alleys and stairways. I never had such good luck. The one time I visited, the weather was clear to partly sunny, chance of shooting mist 0%.

Of course, capturing mist is not all about luck. It's about lighting and exposure. In this photograph, Socwind must have had a hard time getting the shot to come out nicely due to the wide range of lighting in this one frame. However, the orange light off frame at the top of the stairs, the bluish lamp in the upper right, and the red lanterns somehow worked. They melded together to create this web of silhouettes, highlights, shadows, and impressions. The part of the shot that gives me the shivers is that tree creeping in the background. It's awesome how that awning in the foreground just happens to have similarly creepy water stains.

The most striking feature of Jiufen, though, are the red lanterns that hang through all of the alleys and stairways of the village. They light up at night and feature the words (roughly translated): the more night, the more beauty. This photo has captured them beautifully. With the wide angle, we get a great perspective and sense of scale as the lanterns shrink into the distance and disappear in the warm glow around the corner. As warm and dreamy as it all looks, though, I can't seem to shake a feeling of trepidation. It's like I've been here before, lost in a maze of winding streets, disoriented by the lights and unable to find my way. I like how photographs expand past their frames and offer alternate worlds and hidden stories. It's part of what excites me about photography.

So keep shooting and Happy Chinese New Year everybody!

(I wonder if I maybe should start another new blog, psychoanalyzing my blogposts on clickclickclick)

Blue

..., originally uploaded by motionid.

Motionid is one out of a handful of photographers over in Japan walking around with amazing lenses strapped around their necks, documenting what they see on the city streets. I've been hooked on this guy's work as he has a knack for capturing subtle emotions in tack sharpness with scarce available light. Each candid portrait is loaded with feeling. The shallow dof afforded by the fast lens isolates these people, magnifying their expressions.

When I see an image like this, I feel like there's a whole story here. One commenter on flickr described the photo as having a cinematic tone and I agree. It's not just the wide crop and the dramatic lighting, but the sense that we are seeing a single frame from a movie. I wonder what it is that's weighing down his shoulders, causing that subtle lean. I wonder what music this man might have playing in his earphones that might cause him to pause and furrow his brow that way. He's dry, but that raincoat tells me maybe he expects stormy weather.

Looking through motionid's stream and seeing photos like this one has opened my eyes to the beauty of cooler color casts at night. I've always tweaked my photos in post to get a warmer, kodak-like, temp. I realize that I've neglected a world of blues and violets that I now want to go out and capture.

Domo

Catch Me If You Can, originally uploaded by liming.chen.

Here's a recent fav.

It speaks to me in a number of ways. First of all, it's a shot that I tried to take but could not. My girlfriend got one of these domo-kun plushes out of a machine and got me a matching hoodie as a gift. I thought, a machine filled with these things would make a great photograph. When went to take a look, all the domo-kuns were gone and replace with overstuffed, buck-toothed rip-offs. I had missed my chance.

Crane machines are great for a couple reasons. Repetition, colors, bright, high contrast, & scale all add to the interestingness. This machine is even cooler because the prizes look like they're all mortally scared of being picked and are backing away from the claw.

A couple technical elements also add to the image here: interesting elements in foreground, midground, and background; sharp focus; narrow depth-of-field; and tight cropping. There's the claw right up top and super close, telling us where we are. A mountain of miniature domo-kun's work well to multiply the already comical nature of this awesome character. The pair of giant domo-kun's add another point of interest, with that mid-sized guy at the top, completing the domo triangle, mr. roboto.

The narrow dof is something that conveniently just happens when you're taking photos in dark places with artificial lighting. The small f-stop that lets in all that precious light also creates this shallow field of sharpness. That one guy on the bottom right is tack sharp, and the dues behind him get progressively blurrier. It's cool and easy to do under the right conditions (and the right lens).

As for tight cropping, it was a good decision here because you kind of eliminate the machine's front panel while filling the frame with the subject, increasing the sense of crowdedness and fullness. The well on the bottom left kind of detracts from that feeling a little, but is coupled with the claw above, grounding us in the machine. One of these domo-kun suckers is in immanent danger of being picked up by that claw and dropped in that hole.