I caught the earliest ferry from Lamma Island at 6:20am. 15 minutes later it arrived at pier 4 at Hong Kong, with the X100 ready to go. I wanted to get on the streets of HK early enough to shoot people arriving for work and avoid the 36 degree heat.
Hong Kong is a fantastic place for a street photographer, but being here early in the day was just magical. I was listening to an album on my iPhone called 'Flumina' by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Fennesz. It's a mixture of ambient synth and piano, it couldn't have been any more suitable for shooting street in such a Blade Runneresque city scape. I walked and shot on the HK streets for around three hours and it was like therapy. All I had to think about was what was in my frame.
This was also my first proper street shoot with the Fujinon 18-55mm f2.8-f4. I hadn't thought of it as a street lens, but it focuses pretty quick on the X-E1. The light is amazing in Asia and the colours from the X-Trans sensor look so great that it's a crime to convert some of them to black and white. For that reason, I'll post some colour shots from this crop on my photography blog (link at the end of this post). The shot bellow was created with a combination of long exposure and zooming. The one bellow that was a long exposure shot with the camera on a window ledge. I used a two second timer to avoid camera shake.
Street photography is a loaners sport. You need to get in the zone and in my opinion, that only happens when you're alone. it takes great concentration, but it should never feel like you're concentrating. I think I've said it before on this blog. It's photography jazz, you learn your scales (or in our case shutter speeds and apertures) and then you don't have to think about it. You just feel.
That's it for this post. Don't forget to have a look at my other blog for some colour shots by clicking HERE. And if you missed my post on the equipment I'm carrying on this trip, click HERE. I'll post more street photos from Asia as soon as I can. I've just got back to Hong Kong after a two day trip to Macau, so I'll have some shots from that crop soon. I'll also be in the Philippines soon.
