blackandwhite

Underground Commute

Underground Commute
Fuji x100f, 28mm, f/4, 1/15s, ISO 1600

I remember spending a fair bit of time in the NYC subway shooting passers by at shutter speeds of around 1/10s or 1/15s. You get a lot of blurry shots, but when you manage to stay steady, you capture some of the motion. With a wider angle lens (a 28mm in this case) it’s a bit easier and I find that at 1/15s I can more or less consistently shoot a sharp shot. I liked those columns and the contrast produced by the black band of tiling, that’s why I chose this Tokyo underground spot.

Subway Reflection

Subway Reflection
Fuji x100f, 28mm, f/2, 1/60s, ISO 1250

Compared to the Paris metro, the Tokyo metro is clean as a hospital. I wanted to capture all this white and thought that doing it in a mirror would be a little more original. I guess it would have been more effective at rush hour, maybe an idea for the next trip…

Tokyo Underground

Tokyo Underground
Fuji x100f, 28mm, f/16, 12s, ISO 200

In many ways, Tokyo is even more of a vertical city than Hong Kong where I live. Hong Kong mostly grew overground, which makes sense when you realise that most of the high-riser areas are on reclaimed land. Tokyo on the other hand seems to me as much underground as overground with multiple layers of commuting, shops and walkways superimposed. That means lots of colonnades and interestingly graphic things to shoot with a wide(ish) angle lens!

Spiral Wave

Spiral Wave
Fuji x100f, 28mm, f/2, 1/60s, ISO 400

From the top of the San Catalina tower in Valencia, the view is magnificent, but the best thing is looking down into the narrow staircase. Looking back at this picture, I find it verging on the abstract, and it reminds me of the graphical world of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas…

Hand in the Shadows

Hand in the Shadows
Fuji x100f, 35mm, f/2.8, 1/30s, ISO 1600

As one would expect, there were a lot of churches in Valencia, but my favourite was clearly Santa Catalina. Unlike the fancier cathedral, it felt like having macerated for a while, with bordeline creepy iconography. This statue (and the resulting shadow) struck me.

Wood & Stone

 

Wood & Stone
Fuji x100f, 28mm, f/5.6, 1/75s, ISO 200

The weather wasn’t glorious during my short stay in Valencia, but you make the most of what you have. That’s why I went for a somewhat bleak processing of this old palace entrance near the Central Market. Goes with my series of Père Lachaise shots from a few months back.

Fractured Sea

Fractured Sea
Fuji xpro-2, 27mm, f/16, 12s, ISO 200

I know this doesn’t look exactly like the best holiday weather (and it wasn’t), but you make the most of what you have, and I definitely like this haunting long exposure of the fractured rocks by the Cook Straight in Wellington.

Fascinated

Fascinated
Fuji x100f, 28mm, f/5.6, 1/100s, ISO 1250

I’m not one to blame people for being fascinated by their mobile phones, it happens to me too. Here in Hong Kong though, I sometimes get the impression that this fascination trumps everything else.

Masked Squat

Masked Squat
Fuji x100f, 28mm, f/5.6, 1/100s, ISO 800

Anyone living in Asia is familiar with this posture that I have taken to calling the Asian Squat. It’s mostly men that squat like that in China, but occasionally you’ll see women as well. I’ve seen this in China, in India, in Malaysia. Most of the time these days there’s a mobile phone involved, but not here.