*Buddhist Lipstick*
Fuji GW690iii + Kodak Ektar 100
One of the most striking features of all these buddha statues at the 10000 Buddhas Monastery was the red paint on their lips. I kinda like it!
Urban Meditation
*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
*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
*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
*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.
Flaky Abbott
*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.
Big Buddha
*Big Buddha*
Fuji TX2 (XPAN) + Cinestill 800T
In early January I headed out to Shanghai for work. I had a half day off at the tail end of the trip and headed out to the Jade Buddha Temple where I’d been only once on the very first week we moved to Shanghai. Despite the gloom and rain, it was even better than I remembered. I had thankfully packed 800 ISO film, and while the light wasn’t exactly the best, I got a few good shots including this one of one of the larger buddhas.
Buddha and Acolytes
*Buddha and Acolytes*
Fuji XT3
Guangxiao temple in Guangzhou is quite spectacular even if the outside buildings are nothing to write home about (especially when wrapped in scaffolding). But the brass statues (at least I’m assuming it’s brass) are quite spectacular, as this trio showcases.
Buddha in the Mist
*Buddha in the Mist*
Fuji xpro2
The Lantau buddha is quite spectacular in size, and a few hundred meters above sea level. As a consequence, even when the weather is relatively nice by the shore, it’s often shrouded in mist. I wanted to capture that the last time I went there and I was lucky enough that there was a dense fog that veiled the massive statue. Moody, don’t you think ?
Dark Buddha
Dark Buddha
Canon EOS 7D, 80mm, f/2.2, 1/60s, ISO 100
Late last year I volonteered to do a series of Chinese fruit and vegetable photographies for a charity cookbook that should be released this year. As a sufferer of gear acquisition syndrome, I immediately went and bought a lightbox (thankfully, it’s cheap here, although one of the LEDs is already blown out…) I had to try it out, and struggled to shoot my veggies on a proper white background. I then thought it would be an interesting challenge to shoot a black subject on a black background, so I grabbed this plaster statue of a Buddha that we brought back from Vietnam. As you can see, I failed to shoot black on black, couldn’t keep the background truly black, but in the process created a Harcourt-esque background that’s really quite cool.
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