Documenting a Cantonese Opera

I was asked to document a Cantonese Opera which was held at RNCM by a London amateur Cantonese Opera society. (I can't find any information of this society on the internet. I understand that because almost no teenagers are interested in this type of opera today so no one helping them to manage a website is reasonable.) Except the amateur actors and actresses from England and Holland, the famous professional Cantonese Opera actress in Hong Kong, Man Kim Faye 文劍斐 (Sorry, I can't find her official English name) was also invited to join this performance.

The person who asked me to do this job was a voluntary teacher from North West Chinese Art Centre. He have thought my photographic skills are good so he asked me to document the event for his friends who managed it.

I used my Canon 5D Mark II with the 70-200 f4L lens to take most of the shots. I was afraid of the lens would not be long enough but fortunately, I got a seat at first row. The zoom lens was able to give me some long shot to medium close up shot. Although I had mounted my camera on a tripod, I still had to use ISO 1600 to increase the shutter speed to 1/160-1/200s to freeze the actors and actresses' movement. The photos don't look bad under the 5D Mark II's excellent high ISO performance. I had taken more than 400 images in large size RAW files. It took me a long time to edit them. Hope the members of the society will be happy with the photos.

Man Kim Faye is a female but she always acts as a male character.

This was my first time to watch a Cantonese Opera. I thought that was going to be boring, but it was surprisingly funny. Hong Kong people should really treasure this unique Cantonese culture.

Something Fun

The screen of the Sony Nex 5 is just too bright.

I really like this idea and I am going to do some more.

Creative Transit Meeting

We just had a meeting at Cavendish Bar where is the place for our exhibition. Luckily, I found a place to put my paper work, where is one of the slots in the following images. The kind boss of the bar lets me move the heads so I can use those slots. Oh! I will only need to use one of them.

I had also been taking some snap shots to test out the cheap cheap China made CCTV lens 35mm f1.7 on my Nex 5. This is a C mount manual camcorder lens but people found it can be used on M34 and Nex series cameras with a suitable adapter. It is not only cheap, but also it has a large f1.7 aperture which creates a very shallow depth of view. That is why this lens has been popularly used in Hong Kong and China recently.

Bang! Captured the bee with manual focusing.

The shallow depth of view. The resolution at the edges of the lens is pretty low but I like the effect.

Lady's underwear.

Another shallow depth of view shot. The bokeh is not bad.

Quite serious pinch distortion, but it is acceptable from a £20 lens.

Chorlton Green Festival

Chorlton's Big Green Festival

Holy crap! I just knew the theme that was Bike To The Future this year. I was only focusing on 'green' to make my sculpture. Anyway, making something different is good for the show. Never mind. This guys was not doing anything about bikes too.

My work: The Odd City

In the Green Festival, I set up my piece of work, The Odd City near the church. The sculpture seems growing up like a flower that represents cities' development. The pure color means the structure of cities is dull. I also placed some little figures on the platform of the sculpture. That means some people living in cities are looking for colors.

Andrea's installation.

Bikes fashion show.

Performance with bikes.

This was a great experience. It was unpredictable crowded, especially at 2-4:00pm. So many people came to the festival because there were so much interesting things, such as food, performance, diverse stalls, etc. It will be good to come to this festival again next year.

Some more Paper Sculptures

It is just a little bit changed from that paper sculpture I have mentioned in the previous blog. The previous idea was for the exhibition which was supposed to be held at BlankMedia. However, Creative Transit could not book a place at BlankMedia for our Exhibition, so we found another place where is Cavendish Bar. Thanks for those people who found this place for the exhibition. Because of the place is a bar, my previous idea was not suitable for that. Therefore, I made a little change.

These are only some experimental pieces, I am also making a bigger one that will be displayed in the Chorlton Green Festival.

Photo in the Photo

This image was obviously edited on Photoshop. I actually wanted to do it with a real print but my printer was out of inks at the moment. This is my first try of this idea. I want to use it on many many people. And that could be a photo in a photo in a photo in a photo...

Long Exposure with a Laser Pen

This is just a long exposure shooting. There is nothing difficult. However, I would like to do some creative images with this method.

Changed it to black and white.

So far, I only have a red laser pen. I have seen there are some laser pens in different colours. That is good because only red is so boring.

It was not good to shine on objects in black as the black surface completely adsorbed the lights. Nevertheless, if I took a longer exposure and I had longer time to illuminate the whole scene, the object would become more obvious.