Materialism in China

In a few months ago, I took a picture of the busyness at the Apple Store in Arndale Centre, Manchester. The level of people seeking for new high technology is going to be crazy. And I knew that it is even worse in China. This week, I read this news, Chinese Teenager Sells Kidney For iPhone.

It is just another case to proof this image, domination.

Some portrait shots from the latest films

In the past year, I struggled to finish every roll of film because I did not want to waste any films, I thought so much before to take a shot, that made me to spend a long time to finish a roll of film. I need some proper themes for my film photography rather than just doing snap shots. I think portrait is quite suitable theme for B&W photography, so maybe start another project of portrait.

Here are some portrait shots from the latest films. These images were taken on a Canon New F-1 and a Nikon FE with two rolls of Ilford HP5 400 film and scanned on Epson V700.

These two young boys are our common customers of our family chip shop, they might have got some talent of being models.

6.4.

There were something Chinese people must not forget.

Demonstration to Commemorate the 22nd Anniversary of June Fourth

My 5 minutes video

Chatting on the sunny day

This is my first video which I used the editing technique I learnt form the Hollywood Cinema lecture. I tried out Kuleshov Effect in the video. What is Kuleshov Effect? That is explained in a funny way by Alfred Hitchcock. Another thing I experimented was the technique of continuous editing which has been popularly used in Hollywood cinema. It was fun to try out after reading a lot of theory, although the editing doesn't look very continuous in the video. However, it is acceptable because I was impromptu to record it. Film makers need good preparation for every shot.

The sound in the video is not so good. The environmental sound is much louder than the person who speak in front of the camera. I think the reason is the internal microphone is built on the top of the camera and I was getting too close to the person who was speaking. Next time, I will take care of the recording distance or get an external microphone.

Oh! yea! Footage was taken on the Sony Nex 5 and edited on Sony Vegas Pro 9.0

Bruce Nauman - Good Boy, Bad Boy, 1985

I have seen this video installation at Tate Liverpool in 6 months ago. I was sitting down to watch the whole thing, In Berlin, I have seen that again. I was still sitting down to watch the whole thing. I love two video playing at the same time. They seem responding to each other, although the actor and the actress are reading out the same poem. The poem is very philosophical. Do we all think ourself is a unique person, but in fact, we are just living like a robot?

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.