Change of Scenery

Nothing like a complete change to keep you on your toes! I have now said good bye to Hong Kong, maybe for good who knows? It certainly wasn't a planned move as such but then spontaneity can be the most exciting side of life, so they say. I will be in sunny England for the next few weeks at least until after the New Year, catching up with friends and family. Looking forward especially to hanging out with my brother in London he runs seeper and has some pretty big names on his books.
After my UK trip I will probably head back to New Zealand for a while until my next adventure comes up unless I get a better offer!! Just in case your wondering what a "better offer" might be it could be a number of things but a couple spring to mind... free beer.. dancing girls... fast cars yeah yeah every guys dreams. Seriously right now the opportunity to travel and take pictures would be a great offer, since I left New Zealand a year ago I have sort of caught the travel bug and I am enjoying my photography more and more. So if anyone is reading this and would like to pay me to take pictures anywhere in the world, please do get in touch!!

Will do my best to post some stuff from the UK I am hoping to have the chance to get out and about and see how a British winter can be captured on camera.

Night Photography - Hong Kong The Peak

After spending quite few months in Hong Kong I thought it was about time to take a trip up the peak and shoot the city from above. You may wonder why I haven't done it before? Well its not as easy as it sounds! Due to Hong Kong being one of the most densely populated areas on the planet combined with heat, humidity and the hideous amount of pollution that drifts over the border from China, most days you can't even see the top of the tallest buildings. If you watch the weather very carefully every now there are gaps in the smog and Hong Kong presents itself in a way most visitors are only likely to see on postcards. Don't get me wrong Hong Kong is a pretty impressive sight. Even on a hazy day you can't help but be in awe of the mass of towering concrete, steel and glass, but on a clear day it is breath taking. One of the best view points on one of these special clear days is from the Peak. The Peak is literally that, its pretty much the highest point on Hong Kong Island and top of the list when most people visit the city. Historically the peak was used for signalling ships and then later was home exclusively to rich expats and is still one of the most exclusive and expensive areas of Hong Kong. The best way to get there is by the Peak Tram which is operated on a cable system which drags the tram cars up the hill at an incredibly steep angle. Incidentally the tram system has been operating for 120 years this year, luckily they have made a few updates to the original construction! After a trip up the steep incline you will really appreciate what it must have been like before the tram was built. The favoured way up by expats in the late 1800's was by sedan chair, this is basically a chair with two poles running in front and behind and is carried by two men!

Once at the top, in typical tourism style you are forced to walk through a gift shop full of overpriced goodies that you will never need and then into the Peak Tower. Its last renovation was completed in 2005 and its now a full blown shopping and tourist centre with restaurants and even a Madame Tussuad's. You can pay the extra and take the zig zagging escalators to the viewing platform at the top, but I would recommend the free option using your legs and taking the 2.6km walk which takes you all the way around the peak. On the day I was up there it was pretty quiet and the path takes you through some lovely nature and with a great sunset on one side and the spectacular view on the other I was spoilt for choice!

Hmm I wasn't meaning for this to turn into an excerpt from the Lonely Planet but I thought I may as well stick a bit of extra info in for anyone interested...

So to the picture side of things - I wanted to get some nice shots of a clear Hong Kong which as I mentioned before isn't easy. When I first arrived I snapped a couple in daylight and some nice ones as the light started to soften, but what I was really waiting for was dusk when everything comes alive like lights on a Christmas tree. Anyway I have posted a couple of shots and I hope you enjoy them.

Article for "The Real Deal"

Earlier in the year I took on an assignment from New York based magazine "The Real Deal" they wanted to run a small article based on the property boom in Macau.
It was a slightly rushed job as they needed the pictures within 2 days but I happily dropped everything and hopped on a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau. After a day of walking round in 30degree heat I ended up very happy with the images I took home and had a great time! In particular my favourites were the night shots I did on one of Macau's many bridges. Although balancing my tripod and camera gear on what appeared to be a footpath but was a fraction of the width of what you would expect while buses and cars zoomed past was probably quite dangerous in hindsight!

Click here to see a copy of the the article and here to see some of the images I took. I was surprised by their choice of shots but its always great to see your work in print.

Casino Madness - Macau

Take a tiny piece of China smaller than an average city, add decades of Portuguese rule, then make it the only legal place that a billion Chinese can go to gamble....
The result an explosion of mega casinos, hotels, resorts, expensive apartments and a money making freight train that is turning over more in a year than Vegas!

Macau or Macao ( whichever way you choose to spell it ) for years kept out the U.S. casino giants only allowing local operations. This all changed in 2002 and since then the likes of Sheldon Adelson have plowed billions of $$ into construction of mega casino resorts, the most notable of which to date is the Venetian. This particular casino has a couple of particularly impressive facts - its is now the worlds 3rd largest building since the new airport building in Beijing was opened and to compliment this it also has the worlds largest gaming floor. If you like facts and figures it also employs 12,000 staff and includes its own 15,000 seat stadium inside! This giant attracts thousands of visitors a day mostly from mainland china but also from neighbouring Hong Kong which can be reached by ferry in 60mins, ferries run every few minutes 24 hrs a day the demand is so high. The Venetian is part of a master plan to create a Vegas style strip called the Cotai Strip named after the scrub land area of Macau it has been built on.
As I write this the Four Seasons has just opened its doors making it the second on the "strip" although being joined to the side of the Venetian makes it more like an extension than a resort in its own right and it is certainly built to the same lavish extravagance as its neighbour. Opposite and all around are construction sites working 24/7, within a matter of months this area will in some ways mirror Vegas with maybe just one major difference. From a western perspective Vegas has a certain mystery about it, excitement and maybe even fantasy probably due to Hollywood's portrayal of gambling gangsters and card sharks. While from a financial point Macau has already proved it will out perform Vegas I don't think it will ever replace the historic adventures of the real thing.