Reportage Panorama

Central station, Sydney

I took these two photos the other day, and wanted to put them on the Panorama group in Flickr. I had a wander there and found almost of all photos there were landscape. My photos are still under scrutiny by its organizer, I am not sure if non-landscape fits into their tastes.

But I really like to do more with my phone-cam on "reportage panorama". It is easy, quick, still fresh form of photography, and most of all, it's non-intrusive: iPhone (once again, mine is not) photography is for dummy only.


Non-intrusive I think is the best weapon in reportage.

To Be Or Not To Be HDR

Whats Ahead

When people think about HDR photography, a crystal clear, full latitude picture may jump into their mind instantly.

When I firstly read about HDR technique, I looked at all those example photos, I did not find any appeal there to me. Definitely, I was amazed by its capability: digital photography finally beat Ansel Adam’s invention into child play. The laborious effort by Kodak, Fuji and Agfa really had gone to hell and forgotten.

Like it or not, I gave it a go and gamed on it. I gradually discovered a way it can fit into my own practice. Such as the above photograph, it dose not look like any other popular HDR, you may even think there was no need/ evident of using HDR.

Actually this shot consists of 7 different exposure individual photos. The advantage I get is I have a ‘typical’ flat lighting original to start with. Like a blank canvas, I can selectively tone, burn & dodge, or apply various filter effect. Then again I add texture and choose layering effects.

Ironically, some details I got from the HDR ‘rescue’, I ‘destroyed’ them later in the process. Overall, I am happy with the result I have here, and they could not be reached without the help of HDR.

Old Glory

Visually, Sydney is a very dreadful place. In terms of history, it is very short and with the convict mentality, there is almost no grand construction(private or public). On the modern side, its economy is one of the smallest cousins in the OECD family. Cityscape is not a easy subject.


There is a Technology park near Redfern. Some of the buildings are modified from the old train maintenance industry. Organizer put out some old train carriages, steel cranes and other machineries as theme decorations. Unfortunately, there are CCTV cameras, colourful advertising flags, modern lamp poles and so many 'eye-sore' around that makes photography a very hard job. 


I went pass there quite several times and thought it would be a good shooting location. Finally I went there purposely last weekend, only got home quite disappointing.

Happy Evening

I don't know when did Hong Kong goldfish hawkers start using this way of selling. Fishes stay in the plastic bags, I guess, for the whole day. If not sold, will they be allowed to go back into the big tanks? It is not too bad if gold fish really has only short term memory, at least they will have happy evening all the time.

Heading Home

Shot from the top of Taipei 101 Building

Cherry Blossom

Cherry blossom in the East represents the coming of Spring. There are countless of art works through out thousands years of history depicting it.

There is one cherry tree in my front yard. Every year I watch it blooms after the coldest months, and see the pedals falling to the dam ground later.

I had never picked up my camera, for I could not find a new angle or technique to handle it. Until this time (Australian is in Spring Northern people), I think I have nailed it.

Tech Bits: Infrared, Texture layers, with CS5.

Seaside Impression

This is a photo that I posted on Flickr and deviantART, and both of them received quite some attentions.
This one is a typical example that I though I screwed up when I firstly saw it in a patch. Later, I gave it a second look--a very long second look then I saw some merits inside.

However it still took me some significant time to iron out the final result. I am particular fond of the distant waves and mist. The shape and colour remind me the signature brush strokes of J. M. W. Turner. Please don't laugh--just a very faint of similarity. 

The original ugly duckling

Forgotten Place III

Forgotten Place II

Another Photo from the trip to the abandon Mental institution.

Forgotten Place

In less than 10k out of Sydney CBD, there is an abandon mental institute, now I think it has turned into some sort of office of medical board. It is a big piece of land especially when we consider the land price here. Most of the constructions are in ruin.

I went there the first time with a bicycle group, just rode a quick around. I hardly found a soul this time on a Saturday. Took some photos. It reminded me some of Diane Arbus's pictures. Not discriminating mental patients, but I can't confront them even hide behind my camera. It takes a dark soul to explore another one.

Smart Phone Camera Trick

I used an iPod before. The only feel good experience was when I sold it, it retained quite good resell value.

Apple products have good quality. I sold many dozens of iPod, iMac and Macbook when I worked in retail. I only hate iTune, which is the most excellent marketing tool for Apple----not a good utility for me.

You buy a microwave, a printer, or a chopping board, once you paid and walked away the manufacturers have already lost your contact. You buy an iPod, everyday you use iTune you are being ‘poisoned’ by Apple un-knowingly. It is just brilliant.The only problem is I hate marketing twist. I am a very old man, I don’t have time to waste on ad/marketing material. That is the reason I don’t watch live commercial TV. You spend 2.5 hours for a 1.5 hour movie. On that ratio, if your life expectancy is 80, you will spend 32 of 53 waking years on watching ads!Back to Apple. Amazingly, there are so many people like to offer free marketing for it. There are always rumours for iPhone4, 5, 6...on newspapers or various websites, Steve Jobs has a little sneeze is big news too.Some time last year, there was a New York Times or some similar big-shot photojournalist using iPhone camera to cover Middle East war! Yeah, I read his feature and a dozen photos on a quite serious photography website (may be Exposure Compensation).Different medium has its own special features, that’s why somebody still insists on shooting film. There are Holga, Lensbaby, 4X5, and Polaroid. Each gives you the unique character that others hard to provide. But iPhone. What the............what!A simple $200 snap shot camera can do more and better job than an iPhone. All those fancy effects you can get them from legally free software download from the net. Obviously that journalist was riding on Apple’s fame to get his fame, or just happy to be another free human billboard.If there is any fun thing for a phone (I am using Google phone), I recently found out it may be the panorama function. It is handy and quick. Of course you can achieve better result with photoshop handling DSLR big RAW files. I tried, it took quite some processing power. And, to be honest, these type of extreme panorama only fun for a limited time. You try a few times, then I am sure the novelty wear out pretty soon, why bother with fast machine and big RAW.