*Urban Meditation*
Fuji GW690iii + Kodak Ektar 100
Back to some 10000 Buddhas Monastery statue photos, in colour this time. In this one I wanted to capture the proximity between these magical places that from another angle would look so remote and the city (Sha Tin in this instance.)
*Bodhisattva Bokeh*
Fuji GW690iii + Rollei RPX400
I love the subtle bokeh of the GW690iii, but it’s not always easy to find the right conditions. It took me a long while to find a statue at the 10000 Buddhas Monastery that was not leaning against a corrugated iron fence, that was in the shadows enough that I could open up the lens and that looked good. But I did (this was the last shot in the roll!)
*Buddhist Trio*
Fuji GW690iii + Rollei RPX400
I was quite taken by these three statues and the sign above their heads. I kind of wich I hadn’t cut down the base of the statues, but my angle of view wasn’t wide enough. Still, there’s a serenity here that I find quite striking.
*Bearded Bodhisattva*
Fuji GW690iii + Rollei RPX400
So all of the statues that line the path up to the 10000 Buddhas temple are painted gold, but some of them are fresher than others. I think the ones I liked the most were the older ones where the pain was seriously flaked already. They had a more statuesque feel to them, especially in Black & White.
*Sweeping the Nun’s Shadows*
Fuji GW690iii + Rollei RPX400
I’m not actually sure that these female figures represent Nuns, or if they are female Bodhisattva, but I liked the alignment of statues casting shadows, and the leaning broom breaks that alignment nicely.
*Flaky Abbott*
Fuji GW690iii + Rollei RPX400
Despite our inability to travel over the christmas holiday (same as everybody else) we tried to make the most of it and check out HK spots that we’d missed so far. Such was the 10000 Buddhas temple in Sha Tin. A long strip of concrete path lined with lifesize buddhist statues leads to the temple itself up the hill. Fascinating place and great opportunity to shoot portraits of monks, abbots and stranger things.
*Nature takes back*
Fuji GW690iii + Kodak Portra 400
I never really had the opportunity to do much urbex, and I don’t suppose it’s qualified as urbex when it’s a few houses from an abandoned village on a jungle island, but I quite enjoyed our short trip to Yim Tin Tsai and while the village was both more recent and smaller than what I expected, I still found it fascinating.
*Catholic Cemetery*
Fuji GW690iii + Fuji Neopan 100 Acros ii
On the tiny Island of Yim Tin Tsai, there’s an abandoned Hakka village that was evangelised in the XIXth century. The island was abandoned in the middle of the XXth century but can still be visited. In addition to the derelict houses, there’s a chapel (still in use) and a catholic cemetery. I liked the hillside cemetery a lot, with its mix of Chinese and Catholic iconography.
*Harbour Regatta*
Fuji GW690iii + Kodak Ektachrome E100
This was only the second time I shot Kodak E100, a mythical and long discontinued slide film that Kodak brought back to market a couple of years ago. I have to say that on the whole it’s not for me. Very very limited exposure latitude and brutally unforgiving. I’m sure some can do great things with it, but I can’t. Of a whole roll I shot from the Wan Chai Ferry observation deck before and during sunset, this is the only shot I like. But I do like it, and it highlights a side of Hong Kong that few outside the city know about!
*Backseat Nap*
Fuji TX3
Quite a few tuk tuk or small van drivers could be seen sleeping in the back of their vehicles in Luang Prabang which led me to believe that naps are as sacred in Laos as they are in China!
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