Check out this hallway in the Ritz-Carlton in Hong Kong. This hallway leads to some absolutely amazing restaurants where I ended up eating way too much food! Also, this hallway seemed to be very popular among Instagrammers. I had to be pretty patient to wait for all of them to get out of their egoic selfie zones so I could set up with my tripod.
In the video below, you’ll be seeing a little bit of Hong Kong action. My favorite scene is that one shot of the yacht that’s been abandoned in the middle of government housing.
Daily Photo – Hong Kong Party
This was taken on our first night in Hong Kong when they threw a big party for us at the Ritz-Carlton there. It was the beginning of our Asia-Pacific leg and all the wonderful ladies from that location put together a really nice soiree there in the bar on top of the hotel. The funny thing was, they did it right at sunset, so I kept leaving the party for 5-10 minute stints to go take photos!
Not far from here, over in Sydney, they have a yearly festival where everything gets lit up in crazy ways. This was the winner from a few years ago… prepare for mind blowage. By the way, the music is “Set in Stone” by AMB.
Daily Photo – Light Projections in Hong Kong
Every night in Hong Kong they do a light show here at the waterfront. Note: this post-processing effect here is not the light show, lest you be confused. Anyway, I got all in position ready for a crazy light show, and I thought it was actually kinda lame. It didn’t seem very coordinated and I think it would have been better with some kind of music. You know, like when the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas are timed to music. It would also be cool if all the buildings were like some kind of a giant equalizer that showed bass, mid tones, and treble bouncing up and down to the music. Anyway, I’ve got all these great ideas for these megacities… maybe in some of these Chinese cities where the government has a lot of control, they can force this to happen… It would be cool if China appointed a Minister of EDM.
This is one of the many videos I shared with Passport Members last year about a 12-month commissioned project that took me out to this special area on many trips. Enjoy!
Game Recommendation!
I got really into this game called Subnautica. Man, it’s really well done. It was not on my radar when it first came out, but I heard so many good things about it that I decided to give it a run. It’s got a great story… usually I like strategy games, but this one fills one of my other favorite categories: surviving + building. Anyway, try it! I think it’s on pretty much every platform.
Daily Photo – Chinese Junk Boat in Hong Kong Harbor
There’s a fun boat you can get on that goes back and forth across the harbor. It’s really inexpensive and it leaves like every 15 minutes. In fact, you can just stay on it and ping pong back and forth between the Hong Kong and Kowloon side. We did this about three times and that seemed to be enough to see all the sites! Now, I was not actually on that Chinese junk boat… I decided to get on a different one so I could actually take photos of it.
We recently upgraded the firmware on the Insta360 camera so it is more stabilized. This is the first test of it today for Passport Members! I take you on a tour of my studio and the new art that I have just hung. I swap out the art every three months for each season. I’m a little behind now… as you’ll be seeing the “red” theme for Autumn. I gotta get ready for Winter colors now… as you’ll see the snow outside of the studio too!
Enjoy today’s newly stabilized video of my art hangings in the studio. I’ll stop briefly and tell little stories about each photo. Note that these photos aren’t for sale… just small informal prints to brighten up the mood of the studio.
How beautiful is Hong Kong? I took this from the bar atop the Ritz-Carlton there on the other side of the bay. I tried to not just get the obvious wide-angle shots, but instead to zoom in and get some interesting details here and there. Naturally, there are all sorts of different apartments for different income levels. These are some of the nicer ones over on the Hong Kong side.
Here’s a how-to video where you can see me edit a photo from Yosemite. I hope you find it at least mildly interesting!
Daily Photo – The Rainbow Apartments
How amazing is this place in Hong Kong? It took me forever to find it. I almost gave up, in fact. In desperation, I found another photo of the place and started showing random Chinese people in the neighborhood. Finally, one very nice woman took me to this nondescript parking lot I would have never found! After getting to the top, I finally saw it… Thank goodness I had that idea to find this place. Otherwise I never would have found it!
The team over there in Australia took note of my yacht photo and it’s rather curious description. So that began a nice little interview that resulted in this Click-Baity article!
Here is the photo from the article:
Daily Photo – Layers of Ice and Water in Antarctica
Oh how I wish I could have taken my quadcopter to Antarctica! They gave me the big no-no on that one, unfortunately. That’s a real bummer because I could have gotten so many more shots. Anyway, I was more than lucky enough to take quite a few helicopter flights, and I went photo-crazy on all of them. I negotiated for the best seat (often having to offer bottles of wine) so that I could see as much as possible. One time, I had my camera out the window and the shutter area inside the Sony broke apart. I have no idea how that happened because I thought it was air-sealed in there. Anyway, who knows… but I got this shot right before it broke apart.
Be sure to check out our Workshops page to see the newly announced photo adventure in New Zealand for 2019! Fall is happening RIGHT NOW (it’s opposite from Spring in the Northern Hemisphere) and it’s a great time to check off a bucket list item. Here’s a little video about our photo adventures!
Daily Photo – Chinese Governmental Complexity
This is one of my new favorite photos and I made it by accident. I selected about 10 different images that I wanted to load into layers to re-arrange. Well, as a slip of the finger would have it, I accidentally clicked “Merge to HDR”! Naturally, nothing was aligned and everything was ghosted. It made for a very interesting montage. So then I went into it and began to do more tweaking with various colors and contrasts until I liked it even more.
I have a good show recommendation for you: Billions. I believe it’s a Showtime show… I’m excited because they are just launching Season 3!
Daily Photo – Hong Kong on the Last Day
The commute across the bay in Hong Kong on a rare foggy morning… On our last day here, we took a ferry over to Macau. Right before the ferry, we went through customs because there’s still a whole process to go from Hong Kong to Macau, even though they are both technically China. I had to get a multi-pass (Fifth Element Style) entry Visa for China because I’m going in and out so much. I still find the whole customs process to be so slow, especially in light of new tech. Anyway, at least it was a pretty morning! I took this through the window from my room at the Ritz-Carlton.
Be sure to get the latest version of Lightroom because they moved that powerful “De-Haze” slider up to the top set of tools. I use it quite a bit now, and it was definitely a lifesaver on this shot, which was originally quite hazy!
Daily Photo – Hong Kong at 240mm
This was a new area of Hong Kong for me to visit. Most people go up to “The Peak” which is on the other side of the bay. Sometimes it can take 2-3 hours to get up there because of the line. It’s pretty up there, but I’m not sure it’s worth the wait! Instead, I recommend going up the Kowloon side with a telephoto lens like this. You can’t go wrong!
