Monday, September 27, 2010

Views of Hong Kong - Day and Night

Today I am posting more images from the trip to Hong Kong. When it comes to photography, this city has a ton to offer. Lots of color, many different types of architecture and, of course, some pretty amazing views of and from the harbor.

We landed in Hong Kong and, as we exited the airport, I looked up and saw this really cool shot of the clouds reflecting off of the top of the airport. So I dropped my bags, grabbed my camera, and shot this image.

I usually do not do "drive by shootings" from inside a moving car, but when I saw this view of the sprawling city of Hong Kong in the distance, with the suburb in the foreground, I thought that it told a story. Unless you have been to Hong Kong, it is hard to understand how many people are crammed into one small place.

These next shots were taken from the Kowloon side of the harbor. We were shooting some videos from this side, looking back at Hong Kong Island, when I saw this old boat cruising by and had to get a shot. As you can tell from the images, it was not the clearest of days. The weather was really hot! Most of the time we were out shooting in 90 degree weather with 90 percent humidity. Fun huh?!

This images was taken on Sunday and many people were out sailing. Much like the other image above, I liked the way that these four sailboats gave me a foreground subject while highlighting the mass living in the background.

This photo spoke to me because of the colors in the image. I really like the way that the sails of the boats mix with the colors of the buildings in the background.

They are very proud of Bruce Lee. In the markets, we saw countless shirts and other "stuff" with Bruce Lee's image and this new statue was erected on Kowloon. 

As we were walking back to the ferry building, I saw this building which was casting some really cool shadows and, of course, had to stop and shoot some images. After taking a bunch of shots, each of us took turns shooting portraits of each other in this location.

You can't go to Hong Kong and not go up to "The Peak". This is one of the great vantage points from which to see the whole city. We were lucky enough to complete all of our work during the day so that we could get up to the peak before sunset. Again, not the clearest of days, but I was hoping that the night shots would be more impressive.

And then, the sun dropped out of the sky and the lights of the buildings came on, and voila! I took this photo just after sunset, making sure to highlight the last sunlight (which was setting off to the left of this shot) bouncing off of the tall building on Kowloon.

And then it was my favorite time to shoot photos. One of the great characteristics of Hong Kong, and other large cities in China, is the lighting and colors of the buildings. The scene is always changing, providing a different look with each couple of seconds.


This is one of my favorite shots from the evening. After standing at the peak for more than 3 hours, I got to the point where I was "shot out" and had nothing left to capture. I met some very nice people while shooting, and while showing some of my past night shots (on my iPhone) to a nice girl from Holland, I came across a zoom shot and thought "that would be a cool trick to try now." So I shot for another 30 minutes and came up with this one.

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