Houtong – Cat Village
At its peak, Houtong was a thriving and often fatal mining town, at its height under Japanese rule. Now, it’s silent and decrepit. BUT! It’s now a super duper tourist attraction because it has, wait for it, CATS! Yes, there’s a bunch of semi-feral cats and people now tour out to pet them. Oh the [...]
Easily pleased – Demotix Front Page
It seems that when I’m in Taiwan I end up involved in newsworthy stuff giving me the opportunity to post to Demotix. The folks I know here are politically active, concerned that Taiwan maintain its independence and countering the propaganda from China regarding Taiwan’s status. This activism extends to maintaining strong links to others who [...]
Sucker for sunsets
If we all have a dirty little secret photographic cliché, then sunsets are mine. I’ve shot them in California, Taiwan and assorted points in Europe. They are always different and always lovely. This one was shot 300m up the mountain at Maokong after a lovely tea with the local brew. And cake. On a photographic [...]
Taipei Twilight
A rare thing. A clear night and some nice twilight. Shin Kong Mistukoshi tower just lighting up. I need to get a tripod. Related Posts:No Related Posts
Disabled Robot Gymnastics
I *think* I know what this sign is trying to say, but you never know. Related Posts:No Related Posts
Taipei Sky – Colour or B/W?
So we had the torrential rain again. If you look at the satellite picture, Taiwan is surrounded by cloudless ocean and there’s a blob of cloud parked over the island. Ho hum. Still, it just cleared and we got a lovely bit of golden hour sun. I dashed up on the the roof and shot [...]
Papaya tree: resurrection
Most days we walk past a decrepit Japanese-era building owned by the university. There was a nice papaya tree with fruit growing right in front. Then it disappeared, lopped off about four feet off the ground. But it’s back! We’ll be watching it in our last two weeks here. Related Posts:Taiwanese foodFrom the inside looking [...]
Shi-Da purveyors of deep-fried goodness
This is a paradoxical country: everyone eats hugely and widely, yet on the whole, people remain resolutely skinny. Which I think says much about the Western diet. This stall in Sh-Da night market is our occasional stop-off for cauliflower, mushroom, tofu and chewy fishy thing, lighty battered, deep fried then powdered with salty pepper and [...]
Yeliou volcanic rock, Taiwan
On a geographic note, Yeliou is volcanic rock carved by the waves into interesting shapes. There’s a famous “queens head” formation but we didn’t make it out that far as it was too hot! Gov’t info here: www.gio.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=32397&ctNode=4056 On a photographic note, this is B/W from the D300 with the 50mm f/1.8 lens. Rather good [...]
The big blue room
It put in an appearance today. Which was nice, so rather than being 35C and disgustingly humid, it was 39C, breezy and relatively dry. The cloud came over and denied us a proper sunset. Good excuse to bring out the 12-24mm lens though Related Posts:Taipei Sky – Colour or B/W?Stunning golden waterfall, JinguashiCanon S90 Taipei [...]
From the inside looking out: cheeky fag
Cheeky fag outside Salty Peanuts café. Been a bit uninspired these last few days. There’s something about 40C temperatures that just drains the will to do anything. Related Posts:Taiwanese foodCanon S90 Taipei Street NightHoutong – Cat VillagePapaya tree: resurrectionFinal Call for Shi-Da night market
Japanese colonial house, Taipei
These fascinate me. These kinds of buildings, which I guess can best be described as bungalows, are dotted around Da-An, our area of Taipei. They once housed important people of the Japanese occupation era and are now generally neglected and hidden behind high walls. After the Japanese left, many of these passed into the hands [...]
Dave’s links of the week, 28 June 2010
And this is what’s been happening in Dave world over the last week and a bit. On my Facebook photography group: Taking macro shots with your phone camera. Not convinced about this. If you try it, let us know! Some incredible oil-spill based photos from Jane Fulton Alt. Go. Now. How to get photographic inspiration [...]
Taiwan has four seasons….
Too hot, too wet, mosquitoes and earthquakes. Sometimes all at once. Related Posts:Canon S90 Taipei Street NightAfter the rainJapanese colonial house, TaipeiTaipei, Shanghai and Futai Street MansionTaipei, protest against the ECFA
WordPress and Photoshelter Integration
That was easy, if marginally spendy. As you can see, I’ve changed my theme again. It’s the “modularity” theme from Graph Paper Press. This costs $45 for four months for access to all their resources but you can cancel any time and you get access to all the themes. The thing to note is the [...]
What’s hot this week, 20 June 2010
It’s Sunday, time for one of those “what’s been popular this week” type posts. And here they are. What you’ve been clicking on to go visit: The great, bitter, twisted Jaded Snapper Joana’s photos of Lisbon Shameless plug: my Facebook page! Tripod technology – Something I definitely need to look into further And Bob Holme’s [...]
Experiments in Alienskin
For a while now, I’ve been interested in the cognitive effects of “film effects” on a digital image. Many times I’ve taken a colour image that ticks all the boxes in terms of composition, exposure and so on and had little or no reaction. Once converted to black and white, suddenly, the response is much [...]
Photography links of the week 17/06/2010
It’s nearing the end of the week and you want some inspiration for shooting at the weekend? Here’s what’s tickled my fancy this week. Of course, if you want them as they happen, all the smart, beautiful people are in my Facebook group! Also, I changed the theme of my site (again). This is the [...]
After the rain
The traffic lights outside our apartment reflecting nicely on the tarmac. Looks like we’re set for a week of this with 30C heat. To be viewed listening to this. Hopefully one day the sun will come out again. Related Posts:Taiwan has four seasons….Canon S90 Taipei Street NightJapanese colonial house, TaipeiTaipei, Shanghai and Futai Street MansionTaipei, [...]
Is right-click-save image theft?
A friend has taken umbrage at an iPhone app which lets you take a copy of images in a web page. This function has been available since the dawn of time as right-click-save or even indeed as a screen grab. I’ve uploaded music pictures to myspace, my attempts at art to flickr and my blog. [...]
Annie Leibovitz shoots Keith Richards
I have a love-hate relationship with Annie Leibovitz. The book of her early music work “American Music” where she tours the states getting available light portraits of the stars of the day is inspiring. Her early staged shots such as the one of John and Yoko hours before he was shot is a classic. Her [...]
Yilan and Hualien road trip
We finally did it: rented a car and hit the East coast. A 750km round trip over 5 days took us first to Yilan then to Hualien. We ate lots of fish straight out of the pacific, saw aboriginal art, stayed in some lovely B&B’s, saw stunning landscapes, white water rafted and generally lounged around. [...]
Danshui – Taipei’s Boardwalk
Today was sunny so we took the MRT out to Danshui. Whilst not actually being on the sea, it has all the trapping of seaside-ness including arcades, fried stuff and tat shops. The nearest parallel in the UK I can think of is Southend. Still, we had a nice 5km ramble up towards the shiny [...]
Mahoosive list of photography blog sites
OK, here’s a big unstructured list of photography blogs sites culled from around the interwebs. I reckon I have around 20 of them in my RSS feeds and I have a cunning and dangerous plan to do something with this list. Watch this space. They should probably be categorised too. In the mean time, your [...]
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