One Frame 010: 3 Red Dots

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The vernacular railway trip up the mountains to reach the Benedictine Monk Retreat at Montserrat in Barcelona, Spain is a spectacular journey. The cable car is another option but I would recommend going up by vernacular and coming back on the cable car. After reaching the top, the air is clear and the views are spectacular. There is also a peaceful quiet only interrupted by the church bells every so often.

I noticed these three red dots on the window before heading downstairs to the exhibition and decided to wait to see if someone would walk into the frame. I had imagined a single person or possibly a couple but a few seconds later these three people walked past and I captured this picture. I shot 6 more after this one but there was no point, I already had the shot I needed. Time plays tricks on you and I had it in my mind that this was the last picture of the sequence rather than the first.

See more pictures of Montserrat HERE

SHOT WITH FUJIFILM X100T & WCL-X100 CONVERSION LENS (28MM FULL FRAME EQUIVALENT)

10 Travel Tips for Photographers

Sorry if the title for this post sounds a bit too much like click-bait, but it's exactly what it says on the tin, 10 quick tips for traveling. Some for photographers and some about travelling in general. It's not the definitive list by any means, but it's what I've found on my travels.

1. Plastic Belts designed for air travel are available from Amazon for very little money. They usually consist of a plastic buckle and a webbing material for the main part of the belt. This means you don't have to remove your belt at airport security.

2. Plastic bags are provided at airports for small bottles of liquid. Use one of these bags to place all your coins and then put it inside your camera bag.

3. Buy a camera bag with a sleeve at the rear to slide over the handle on rolling suitcases. Don't carry when you can wheel.

4. Remove everything you need from your hand luggage that you will need during the flight (book, iPad, magazine, reading glasses, sweets...etc) and stow away your bag in the overhead bins for the rest of your flight.

5. Invest in a quality pair of noise cancelling headphones, preferably over the ear ones. I use Bose, they're a bit spendy, but well worth the money.

6. Travel as light as possible, you don't need to take every lens you own. On my latest trip I packed an X100T plus the Wide conversion lens (35mm & 28mm in FF), the X-Pro2 with the 35mm f2 and the 18-55mm f3.5-f4 (27-83mm in FF). Maybe when the 50/2 comes out I take that instead of the zoom, but the 56mm is heavy and bulky (in mirrorless terms).

7. Pack a smaller camera bag in your luggage just big enough for one camera and one or two lenses. I take Rob by Millican because it can be packed really flat and it doesn't look like a camera bag and if anything looks old and worn. Put all non essentials in your hotel room safe and use the smaller bag to travel light. I tend to wear one camera and have another one plus two lenses in the Millican bag.

8. Camera bags are an easy target for thieves and pick pockets. Wear your bag in front of your body if possible, or turn it so that the opening side is against your body and if possible, use a luggage strap around it to make life harder for thieves.

9. Hotel room power outlets can be a bit sparse sometimes. Take a multi socket adaptor from your home country and you will be able to charge 4 or 5 pieces of equipment from one outlet.

10. With so many devices using USB to charge these days, it's worthwhile taking a couple of of double USB chargers. I use an international version that has interchangeable adaptors for UK, US, Asia & Europe. This can charge a phone, tablet, power bank and even cameras like the X100T at the same time.

Paris By iPhone and Hipstamatic

I wanted to shoot a lot of iPhone pictures on a trip to Paris earlier this year as a way of doing something different from what I normally would have. I had my Fuji's there too and I shot loads with them too, but to make sure I followed through with the iPhone plan, I set myself the goal of making a Blurb book as soon as I got back from the trip. We arrived back on the Friday and by the Saturday night, the book was put together and ordered.

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Paris is a beautiful place with fantastic people and they don't deserve to be killed and maimed in the name of any god. I love to travel and if I want to complete a major project I'm working on right now, I will need to visit a number of countries. The world is a very dangerous place for everybody right now and as usual there is oil and religion involved. At least we have proof that oil exists!

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The Catacombs Of Paris

We walked down a spiral stone staircase and felt the temperature drop with every step. The Paris sun above had been blistering hot and we welcomed the break away from the heat for a while. We walked slowly through the dimly lit tunnels for a while, a little less impressed than I had expected. Then just as I started to wonder what the big deal was about, we walked into the next section and there it was, stretching out through the passageway.

A German kid reached out with a single finger and poked around inside the eye socket of a human skull. A man with a thick french accent called out in english "Do not touch the bones, this is a cemetery!". The kid pulled his finger back out and moved on until out of site of the skullkeeper, then continued to fondle and prod as many skulls as he could until being told off again, this time from a voice in the darkness that made him jump.

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The skeletal remains are expected on this trip underground, but it's the sheer volume of them that is shocking. The bones from all the cemeteries in France were brought here between 1786 and 1788, always at night under a black vail and lead by priests. Walls of bones and skulls are stacked neatly into walls 5' tall (sometimes floor to ceiling) and at least as deep. There's even the odd roundabout made of bones. The tunnels stretch for miles below the streets of Paris, under blocks and blocks of houses.

Oddly, I came across a small pile of old photos placed on top of a stack of bones. These were the last things I expected to find here and they were like an electric shock, a sudden realisation that all of those bones were once regular people, families with kids.

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Then suddenly another stone spiral staircase rises steeply in front of us. The climb felt never ending and after days of walking the streets of Paris, my calf muscles could have done without the haul back up to the streets. A quick security check to make sure my camera bag didn't contain the odd skull and we were outside again in bright sunlight and fresh air. I had no idea where we were, but I knew we had travelled a great distance underground. I glanced back, wondering if the German kid would emerge from the staircase holding a skull like a bowling ball, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Hong Kong Diptychs In Lightroom

I've been looking at maybe buying VSCO 6 and noticed that they have a 40% discount on all film packs at the moment. As I'm not sure how much I would use said film pack (as I tend to bake my own). So I started mucking around in Lightroom and made a new preset. It's a desaturated look, but with the reds and blues pushed back up. Add a bit of Contrast and Clarity, through in a vignette and bingo. I did add a bit of yellow to the shot with the trams, just to bring up the yellow grid on the road.

I'm pretty happy with the look of this preset, but working on these has made me miss Hong Kong. Maybe next year!

Asia 2013 part 6 :: The Philippines & The Wrath

Arriving in the Philippines from Hong Kong hits you like a slap in the face. "Life is hard and then you die", I don't know who said it, but they probably said it in the Philippines. It's hard for me to take photos here. Outside of the compound I'm staying, I'm pretty much the only white guy. Everybody sees me and everybody stares. Even in Hong Kong when I walked to areas that were Chinese only, I still felt my invisibility cloak was working. But here is a different story.

We visited my mother-inlaw's grave yesterday and the sky opened up. Thunder, lightning and torrential  rain, the full deal. Fe told the kids that Lola (Grandmother) was angry, because we had visited the swimming pool before visiting her grave. Superstition is a big thing for Filipinos. The guy (above) asked if he could hitch a lift on the back of the van (converted to a small minibus) that we were traveling in. He was a character.

There's so much beauty here, but such terrible conditions for the majority of the population.  We live such a privileged life in the west (all though I think that's changing), even struggling photographers should think themselves lucky. If we can afford to buy a camera and a couple of lenses, then we're doing ok in my book.

Janel sulks in the corner of our hotel in Cebu (above) . This doesn't happen too often thankfully. I look at my kids on this trip and hope that these will become amazing memories when they get older. I tell them how lucky they are to be able to travel to places that their classmates at school will probably never see. I hope that some day when I'm no longer here, they will sit around a table with their own kids, looking at grandpa's photos and telling them what a great childhood they had. I hope so! They're sitting a few feet away from me right now, watching Filipino TV with Fe. I've got tears in my eyes and I'm grateful for what I've got' The keyboard is getting blurred, so I'll just stop typing here and leave the rest of this post to photos. and captions. It's a short life...LIVE IT NOW!

Fe let's the kids stroke a small  stray bird in the airport.

Blind musicians play at Cebu airport.

It turned out that the plane we flew in from Cebu was the same one that went off the runway a few weeks before.

My nephew Ken, a really nice dude.

Full circle. The wrath of Lola.

Asia 2013 part 5 :: Leaving The Lights Behind

So that’s it for Hong Kong. I’m typing this on the flight to my first destination in the Philippines. By the time you read this, I’ll have shot the first part of the orphanage project for the NGO, then another internal flight to shoot the second part. I don’t want to say to much about destinations at this point as the Philippines is a poor country and I’m carrying some expensive kit. But I’ll post more details at a later date.

Part of the gear I packed for this trip was a Joby Gorillapod Focus. I've carried it half way around the world and I hoped it wasn’t for nothing.  Luckily It turned out to be a good move as I’ve shot quite a bit of long exposures. I've also shot long exposure street photography with interesting results. Take a look HERE for a couple of those shots. I also wanted to capture the breathtaking views of Hong Kong lit-up at night. So here are a small amount of what I’ve taken and I hope you guys enjoy them. The first three were shot with a tripod and the next three were handheld.

I really enjoyed taking these long exposures, it’s extremely relaxing and I’m sure it’s the fishing or golf for the photographer. I wrapped the Gorillapod around railings to get the first three shots. I used the X-Pro1 for these and set it to full manual. Shutter speed dial was set to B (Bulb), with an aperture of f18 and ISO of 200. Each of these three shots took a 20 second exposure to capture. There’s so much light coming from these buildings that they illuminate the clouds and then the clouds act as a huge softbox, sending light back down on Hong Kong.

This shot is straight out of the X-Pro1 with no editing at all. I wanted to show what these cameras can do in extreme conditions. Setting on this one and the other handheld shots are 1/30th of a second at f2.8, ISO 3200. There is noise there, but I’ll fix that in Lightroom 5 later and I know it will do a fantastic job. But I wanted to show this totally untouched straight OOC. It’s a kind of eerie look with the clouds so bright at night.

This is the view from Victoria Peak at night. I was here in the day time in 2008, but it's a completely different experience at night.  I recommend visiting around 6pm to catch day, night and a sunset to boot. But go early as cues can be very long and there’s a bit of pushing and shoving to get on the Tram (boy is it steep!).

So Hong Kong is a wrap. I’m sure I’ll post a lot more when I get home next week, but these photos are a good place to leave it for now. We’ve stayed on Lamma Island at the house of friends, while they were abroad So a huge thank’s go to Andy & Honeylet for the use of their beautiful home. You get the best of both worlds staying on Lamma, an island with no cars and an amazing contrast to the hustle and bustle of Central. It’s been a pleasure to arrive in Hong Kong by boat each day, most of them listening to an amazing album by violinist Daniel Hope, called “Spheres’. It was the perfect soundtrack to the breathtaking architecture of Hong Kong, a place I’m extremely sad to leave.

I’ll do a post soon about my workflow on this trip, especially file management and how I set the file structure up before leaving home and how I’ve backed up my work and tried to keep the files same in case of theft or disaster.

Asia 2013 part 4 :: Macau

Macau is probably based described as the Chinese Vsgas, but although the later is better known, Macau actually takes in more money than Vagas. It takes one hours be boat to reach and the first thing that catches the eye as you get close, is that the water is very brown, huge patches...I wouldn't swim in it!

As you can see from above, the skyscrapers are not exactly conventional. This golden monster is the Grand Lisboa and is probably the most striking building in Macau, if for nothing else, for it's plant style design.

You know there's money in town when helicopters shuttle people to and from the ferry terminal to the various hotels. This goes on all day long.

Just like the Brittish with Hong Kong, Macau was leased for one hundred years to the Portuguese and this is very obvious in the architecture. The Portuguese actually renovated a lot of the buildings in their original bright colours prior to the handover of sovereignty (to the Chinese) in 1999.

I don't know who I felt more sorry for in the blistering heat, the couple or the photographer...who am I kidding, it was the photographer. With no umbrella to shade hime from the sun and wearing jeans (very casual over here), he must have been having the worst day, especially having to shoot in direct sunlight.

We stayed in Taipa, which is just over one of the bridges from Macau. This is the flattest of the three (first night shot) and looking from Taipa to Macau. You can see the Grand Lisboa just at the end of the road. This shot give a better idea of it's hight, with the round entrance section just visible at the base.

The bridge above (second night shot) is the Taipa Bridge with the Macau Tower to the right. You can do lots of crazy things here, including a skyward or bungee jump like HERE.

The shot's on this post were taken with either the X100 or the X-E1.

Asia 2013 part 3 :: My Favourite (Travel) Things

Fuji X System Cameras (iPhone photo)

This one is really obvious, But I stands out the most when traveling just how fantastic it is to be shooting the Fuji X system. There’s no way I could have brought three cameras and the equivalent to a 35mm, 50mm, and a 27-84mm. The 35mm being fixed to the X100, but if I was shooting a DSLR system, it would be a 35mm f1.4, which is not a small lens. It’s amazing to see all these moms and dads running around with big DSLR’s because they think that’s how you get great photos.

Fujinon 18-55mm f2.8-f4

This was a last minute thing before I left. I’m a prime lens shooter, but I went for the 18-55mm for three reasons. 1). The longest Fuji lens I had was the 35mm. 2). I have the 18mm f2, but I get mixed results with it, I can’t put my finger on it, but sometimes it looks fantastic and other times  3). A zoom is just so much more versatile as a travel lens. The variable aperture bugs me and I’m not used to lenses that extend, but it’s definitely been the go to lens on this trip (so far). I was using it on the X-E1 and body and lens work well together, but it is a bit front heavy. It feels much better on the X-Pro1. But if you own an X-E1, don’t let it put you off.

Apple Macbook Air 11”

I bought the 11” Macbook Air for this trip and I’m so glad I did. I originally intended bringing a Windows laptop, then had the bright idea of buying a smaller Netbook as it would fit in the ThinkTank Retrospective 7 and I wouldn’t need to bring a bigger bag. That idea got out of hand and I ended-up buying the 11” Air. I have it set-up exactly like my iMac, so it’s so easy to edit and organize. The 11” Air was a good choice and I’m glad I bought it. I bought the 128gb version with 4gm of RAM for £600 second hand. It was the current model until Apple announced the latest updates a couple of weeks ago) and in mint condition. The downside of the 11” version is the omission of the SD card reader and the 3rd USB port.

Kingston MobileLite G3 SD Card Reader

So I bought this little card reader on Amazon for very little money and I just love it. It’s simple and does what it says on the tin. It does feel a bit wobbly when the covers are extended at each side (one to cover the USB plug and one to cover the card(s) if you choose to keep them in), but it’s solid when the covers are pulled back and in use. The G3 has slots for both SD and Micro SD cards and takes up very little room in even the smallest camera bag.

Think Tank Retrospective 7

The Retrospective 7 is great for travel or as an everyday camera bag. I have a few dislikes about it (as I do with any bag). The side pockets are too tight for my liking and I’ve ended up using them for the included raincover in one side, which I’ve used and really glad it’s there, and wetwipes and travel cards in the other. I’d liked to have a bit of elastic on one side at least to accommodate a water bottle. On the up-side for travel, being so tight makes it harder for thieves to get at. My second gripe is that the inner compartment should have a few pockets with Velcro lids to keep small items like batteries, card readers, lens cloths, headphones etc... But apart from that it’s a great travel bag that doesn’t look like a camera bag. If you haven’t seen my post on packing for this Asia trip, take a look HERE to see the contents of my Retrospective 7, it holds a lot of gear.

Oh, and one final thing...

Micro Fibre T-Shirts

I bought three of these t-shirts in a sale for £5 each. They’re lightweight and absolutely crease free. At the end of a day, I simply wash one in the shower and it’s dry in the morning and looks like new. These shirts are an essential item of clothing for traveling light.

Asia 2013 part 2 :: Hong Kong - Great Light

It's been five years since we were last in Hong Kong and it's great to be back. We have a ten day stop over here (although two days will be spent in Macau), then it's off to the Philippines to shoot the project for the NGO, which will appear on the Kage Collective site later in the year. I shot these with either the Fuji X100 or the X-E1 with the 18-55mm f2.8-f4 (more on this lens on a later post). At this point the X-Pro1 was still in the bag.

Hong Kong is an amazing city with stunning archetecture and design. It's a living, breathing, pulsating metropolis, a great place to be and an even better place for photography. I don't think I've felt more at ease or safe,  even in the two cities where I shoot street the most in Scotland. Everyone should come to Hong Kong at least once in their life.

I shot a small video of the scene above and it looks so much like ants. everybody just flowing along, moving out of each others way and going about there business.

There's one thing that Hong Kong has in abundance, and that's great light. Of course it's better during the golden hours at both ends of the day, but like my Kage Collective colleague Robert Catto wrote about in his story Brighter, everything does just look brighter and more colourful at this end of the world. I'm afraid the UK lucked out on light.

Hong Kong has many levels in so many ways. But for a photographer, it offers a lot in the way of places to shoot from. You can be on ground level shooting what's around you, or above. In the vast elevated walkways that join buildings like a giant dot to dot. You can shoot what's ahead or behind, or down on to the street. Or you could shoot over at another walkway running parallel. There's just so much veriety of view points.

And finally, here's a couple of locals.....not really, it's my kids, cooling of on the roof of our home for the ten days we're in Hong Kong. Even they are finding the heat hard to bear.

I've posted a number of black and white shots from the streets of HK on my 35mmStreet blog, so click HERE to go there. A lot more coming soon.

Patrick La Roque should be back from Cuba around the time this post goes out (or soon after), so check his blog HERE regularly for more travel shots.

Now...where are those Digital Rev TV guys?