Streets of Hong Kong

Some more sights around Hong Kong. The usual backlog of images, already more than 2 weeks passed since visiting the city the 5th time this year. There is so muchmore to explore. From the main city centre to the islands ! I will go there for another time for sure. Just avoid the hot season and book hotel early enough.
The bird market. A huge variety of small birds in even smaller cages. Spiced with some tourists wearing the SARS and birdflue masks !

Streets of Singapore

Our recent outing exploring the streets of Singapore finding areas that still look un-renovated. On the road with Xpan and Hasselblad Arca.

Fotoman 617

A long dream came true. Years of staring at Linhofs and Fujis are over ! We flew to Hong Kong last weekend and picked up the 617 camera from Paul (Fotoman Camera). Much bigger than the XPan (of course), its using a large format lens (Super Angulon XL 90mm) and exposing on 120 medium format film. Its a great tool, I just love it from the first moment. Shot couple of slides and bw in Hong Kong.

Here you find larger versions (Streets of Hong Kong I, Streets of Hong Kong II)
Why buy a film camera in the 21st century ? Get your hands on it and you know !

Cemetery

The cristian cemetery in Georgetown (Penang). A very special place, hardly renovated and not dominated by any tourist signboards and shops. The final resting place of some of the early european pioneers including Francis Light, several early governors, Stamford Raffles' brother-in-law Quintin Dick Thomas.
I feel attracted and the same time still feel respect, even the people are burried more than 100 years. You find this place in Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah.

The Print Swap

Do you want to get your hands on other photographers prints ? Then go for the ThePrintSwap project running at the panorama gallery.
Check out ThePrintSwap website and join !

Square Format

So far I was completely focusing on the panoramic format on this page, but I wont start a separate page for 6x6 ! I will share some of the Penang 6x6 images with you.

Penang Pans

Finally made it to scan the xpan shots, most of them done with APX100 bw film.
Great place to go, would fly there anytime again. OK, no more words about it:

Penang Trip

Last weekend we spent 2 days in Penang, probably the most famous island of Malaysia, situated on the northwestern coast. It is very intersting mixture of nature, beaches and its colonial history in Georgetown. I shot with 6x6 and XPan, mainly black and white, especially the old shophouses (you find plenty of them) give a feeling like Singapore might have look like 20 years ago.
Penang continoulsy upgrade and clean up the place, so if you want to go for the ruins and the rindown stuff, better go soon. But even the upgraded version looks very nice (they dont try to create the mickymouse history style like other places do). Not to forget about the food, which is just too good !

One story not to miss:
On the last day we were going around until 6pm (flight back at 9.10pm), finally went for dinner at 6.30pm. Because we had all our stuff in the car boot I decided to leave the 6x6 there (not Hasselblad) and bring my "green" bag along. I even decided to put the already exposed films (about 10x 120 and 135) into it and bring it along to the dinnerplace in case the car would get robbed, then at least I still would have the films and the XPan. You know what happened ?!
Suddenly heavy winds came up and parts of the foodcourt flew around us, so we decided to finish dinner quickly to make our way to the airport ! At the airport: what was missing ? The green bag with the xpan and the films !!! Jaw dropping, sweating, heat, heart beats faster, apocalypse, all gone, gonna cry,..
My wife was more conscious and asked me to drive back (45min), ok-ok, during driving back try to call the handphone which was also in the green bag, and ...... someone pick up after a couple of attempts, the boss of the coffeeshop. Relief no.1.
Coming there pick up the bag (relief no.2), giving the honest guy (thank you!) a rewards and head back towards the airport, 8pm by now (at this time the normal traveller and passenger is checked-in already) ! I saw us already in a nearby hotel waiting for the next days flight, but we can try, nothing to loose ! We drive (Penang style!), drop the rental, run to check-in ! The checkin lady was about to close the counter, we checkin, go to the gate and get our flight (relief no.3) !!! Time to relax.....
First time ever I was on the edge to loose equipment ! Now the green bag is glued to me.

I have a slight backlog with scanning slides and bw neagtives, so gonna upload some pans soon.