IG Monthly Best - May 2021

Abandoned village, snake bone bridge, minibus sign, and Smiski

Due to my unquenchable GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) I have bought one camera after another, each more expensive, and more feature-rich. One day I decided it's good to get back to the basics, and loaded my first roll of Kodak Portra 160 into my Agfa Solina, with Pronto shutter (B-1/200) and f/3.5 coated Color-Apotar lens. The camera is fully mechanical and fully manual, so I didn't forget to bring my rangefinder card to the shoot. The vibrancy of color and level of contrast amazed me when I got the scan back. Not sure if it was the film or the coated lens, shooting into bright sun and high contrast still ended up very impressive.

In 2020 I visited the abandoned village in west Ma Wan with two of my friends. We had a great time shooting photos of the village and each other. This year, I wanted to bring another friend of mine, who's just gotten into analogue photography with 35mm film this year. When we got there, we were confused and disappointed by the fences surrounding the village. The village is now a construction site that's off limits. While it wasn't difficult to hop the fence and get in, and likely nobody was inside on a Sunday, we didn't trespass.

This photo was taken just outside of the village, all that can be seen are behind the fence. The sun was high and bright that day. At 32℃ we soaked wet in sweat. We walked around the abandoned village, and ended up finding two abandoned houses outside of the fence, and got to shoot what we came for.

It's common to think places such as the Ma Wan abandoned village, Ocean Park, or the Peak Tram would last forever, and there's always a chance to visit whenever we want. No, you probably have at most one or two chances, before they become something else, and you'd have lost the chance to visit in their original form forever. Nothing stays the same, so it's best to take the chance whenever you have.

Last time when I used Hitchcock 250D with AGAT 18K on a cloudy day, the result was very disappointing, with muted color and little room for postprocessing. Switching to Hitchcock 50D gave me better results on the Agfa Optima 1535, so I thought by using 250D on my Optima I'd get something better—as they are both Kodak Vision3 films. Their datasheets look almost identical except for the suggested ISO. Both adjusted for 5500K daylight...why do they come out feeling so different? Also, why do people on IG like this photo so much…?

My friend and I went for a photowalk from Tai Wai to Fo Tan. We passed this bridge that looked like a very long fish (snake?) bone. It was very difficult to get a shot without any people if we shot from one end of the bridge, so instead I told my friend "we can hide the sight of people if we shoot from this angle". Looking at the vanishing point of the photo on the left, you can still see a guy in red clothing. Well, the color matches the bridge so I guess it's ok.

Many great street photographers have said that patience is an important quality of a photographer. Wait long enough interesting things will happen. Or wait long enough, you'll get a scene when nobody is in the frame.

Back when I was shooting mostly cheap films like Kodak ColorPlus/Gold, I have always noticed it’s either too yellow, or too flat in color. This photo was shot on Kodak Gold with AGAT 18K, at golden hour. Probably that’s why this one looks acceptable. The Industar-104 glass lens on the toy-like AGAT 18K is capable of producing amazingly sharp images. Like in this one you can clearly see the text on the sign and tree branches at the back. And an AGAT 18K photo won’t be complete without the light reflection from the camera chamber on the top-right corner of the photo.

That day I waited for over 10 minutes under the afternoon sun before the minibus came. Getting so bored with waiting I pulled up the AGAT 18K and took a few shots, and this is one of them. Guess I was trying to see how sharp the lens gets at close distance and it was surprisingly good.

I guess boredom and detailed observation (albeit kind of forced) sometimes make good pictures. Instead of drowning all attention in the sea of information presented from a rectangular screen of a smartphone, look wider into the surroundings and let the world flow into you is also a good way to pass time.

Over the past year I grew to dislike budget film stocks like ColorPlus/Gold because they are bad guarantees—you get good pictures when all the boxes are checked: amount of light, color temperature of light, contrast of the scene, etc. And one is unlikely to get lucky with all 36 shots there are. One or two photos may come out good from the roll, while the rest are mediocre. Maybe it’s just me being bad at it, even though I did score less misses with UltraMax 400 or Portra 160.

Not a film photo. In 2020 I specifically bought a OnePlus 7T which has 3 separate lenses (wide, normal and tele as one would expect) for daily impromptu photography. The color has always felt off but somehow it’s not getting any better simply by changing whitebalance. Something is wrong with the curve they use.

As mentioned above I went to Ma Wan with my friend for the abandoned village but was locked off by the fences of the construction site. We later found 2 abandoned houses to still do the photoshoot as originally intended in reduced scale. That’s where we took out the little figures we brought for the shoot. See, with figures like these the place feels less abandoned, less lifeless with the absence of humans, some-”thing” came using the place and that’s the effect we intended.

That’s why I chose this photo as my personal monthly favorite. This photo definitely hits the bull’s eyes in bringing the place alive with the Smiski figure’s presence. It no longer looks somewhere abandoned but somewhere alive, where if you look harder, a Smiski may just be around.