Absence, updates, and future

Hello friends and visitors,

You'll notice that again, I have disappeared from my website for a long period of time. I know it's becoming my go-to excuse, but it still remains true that balancing photography with life is difficult when life entails being a full-time mechanical engineering student that is also heavily involved in Formula SAE, finding a job/internship, and other campus activities. This is going to get much busier, too, since I will be starting my honors thesis next semester in addition to taking more difficult classes. How to balance this with photography? I honestly don't know. I do know that I wish to start shoots again, both portrait and automotive, because, even if they take a large amount of time, they're still fun and I do enjoy them. 

If you're here from my Instagram page, you'll see that I'm much more active there, simply because it's easier to upload a photo, add one of my several standard list of hashtags, and call it a day. But I know an Instagram page isn't serious enough for the work that I want to do.

As the new semester approaches, I've already made several internal commitments to activities that dropped out of my life in addition to photography. While I wish to commit more to updating this website, I fear again I will put it on the back burner. 

Alas, all I can really say is let's see what happens. Hopefully I will commit again to updating this website. I've been considering making it more of a personal website, too, where I can upload photography-related randomness since club and personal activities take up more and more photography time. Regardless, here is a selection of some of my favorite photos I have taken since my last post and now. You'll notice that many of these are now in my portfolio pages, as I have started to update them. There's a lot of work to be done here, and hopefully I will follow through.

Photos from Taiwan, Pt. 2

Shilin Night Market

Night markets are a wonderful part of Taiwanese culture and something I really liked while I was last there 5 years ago. I brought my camera along to Shilin Night Market, even though I didn't think I would be able to take many photos due to the low lighting, packed streets, and cramped quarters. However, it turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to try out street photography for all of the reasons that I thought would be hindrances. I certainly could never take photos like this here in Arizona, or anywhere in the United States.

At first, I only took photos of the entire market to capture what it looked like as a whole. But after a little experimentation with my lens and camera settings, I realized I could get some pretty good shots of people and other isolated subjects in the markets. And thus I went about trying to capture the atmosphere of a bustling market filled with people from all walks of life, eating, shopping, and having a good time, all under the night sky and neon signs.

Here's a little blurb about Shilin Night Market, again taken from Wikipedia (yes, kill me English professors, I'm not sorry though): "

Shilin Night Market (Chinese: 士林夜市; pinyin: Shìlín Yèshì) is a night market in the Shilin District of Taipei, Taiwan, and is often considered to be the largest and most famous night market in the city…. The night market encompasses two distinct sections sharing a symbiotic relationship: a section formerly housed in the old Shilin Market building, containing mostly food vendors and small restaurants; and the surrounding businesses and shops selling other nonfood items….

In addition to the food court, side streets and alleys are lined with storefronts and roadside stands. Cinemas, video arcades, and karaoke bars are also prevalent in the area. Like most night markets in Taiwan, the local businesses and vendors begin opening around 16:00. As students begin returning home from school, crowds reach their peak between 20:00 and 23:00. Businesses continue operating well past midnight and close around 01:00 or 02:00."

I really wish I could have spent all night here taking pictures. It was an entirely new experience for me to take shots like this and I could have experimented for many nights. Each second was a new frame as people hustled and bustled around. Plus, I would never go hungry with such amazing night market food. Until next time, Taiwan.

Photos from Taiwan, Pt. 1

Over winter break I got to spend a week in Taiwan. Naturally, I had to take photos.

Ximending

The first location is Ximending. Ripped from Wikipedia since it can explain it way better than me, "Ximending (Chinese: 西門町; pinyin: Xīméndīng) is a neighborhood and shopping district in the Wanhua District of Taipei, Taiwan. ...Ximending has been called the "Harajuku of Taipei" and the "Shibuya of Taipei". Ximending is the source of Taiwan's fashion, subculture, and Japanese culture. Ximending has a host of clubs and pubs in the surrounding area. This area is in the northeastern part of Wanhua District in Taipei and it is also the most important consumer district in the Western District of Taipei."

After first seeing it at night, I knew I needed to come back for photos. The brightly lit signs, the upbeat atmosphere, the amount of people and energy around, I just had to try to capture it.

The photos above are only the "front" main area. Once you walk around inside, you get greeted with "miniatures" of this space filled with people and signs, but on small streets. Both vehicular and foot traffic busily coexist here.

Furthermore, there are many side alleys where smaller shops are located. In addition to these, there are large "walk-only" areas within the district filled with foot traffic and shops.

Presidential Office Building

Nearby Ximending is the Presidential Office Building. Again, ripped from Wikipedia, "The Presidential Office Building (Chinese: 總統府; pinyin: Zǒngtǒng Fǔ) houses the Office of the President of the Republic of China. …It became the Presidential Office in 1950 after the Republic of China lost control of mainland China and relocated the nation's capital to Taipei at the end of the Chinese Civil War. At present, this Baroque-style building is a symbol of the ROC Government and a famous historical landmark in downtown Taipei."

In previous nights it was brightly lit. I don't know if it was the time I came to shoot (around midnight) or if it was the day (December 31st) that was the reason why the lights were off, but nevertheless, I grabbed some pictures while the undercover secret service agents guarding the area outside watched me. 

 

 

 

New Year's Eve, Taipei

Every New Year a huge fireworks show occurs on the Taipei 101, the tallest building in the city, the country, and the world until the Burj Khalifa was completed in 2009. This being a city of nearly 3 million people and also a tourist attraction, especially for the New Year celebrations. 

My hotel was located close to the Taipei 101, roughly a mile and a half away. It took around 30 minutes to walk one-way, but there was no way I was getting close to it that night due to the crowds. Instead, I set up shop around a kilometer away from the building (yes, I'm mixing units, but as an American I can afford the luxury of doing so). Unfortunately, while I could see the building perfectly, this location did not give me a good photo-taking view of the building. It did however, put me in the middle of the crowds walking closer to it. Thus, while waiting for midnight, I took long exposures of the crowd, and, after filming the firework ceremony, taking photos of the aftermath:

Everyone was so courteous, making sure they weren't in my way, making sure not to hit my tripod's legs, etc. 

Taiwan was amazing, and I will hopefully have the rest of the pictures up soon.

Dalton and Rachel's Mustangs- Rolling Shots

It's funny how life works sometimes. I've seen Dalton and Rachel's Mustangs at car shows aplenty in the past, but they were like most of the other cars in the show: amazing machines, but faceless and without an owner. I could admire and tag photos on Instagram, but I wouldn't have a face-to-face conversation with the owner. 

Fast forward to the spring 2016 semester at ASU. One of my friends posts on her Snap story that she's riding in a Mustang; "Oh, ok" I thought and was about to quickly go through the story, until something caught my eye: what looked like an air tank in where the backseat should have been. Sure enough, the next photo was a red Mustang GT, the same Mustang GT I kept seeing at car shows. And that is how I met Dalton and got to know about the man behind the machine. Being a photographer himself as well and seeing my work, both Dalton and I vowed to set up a photoshoot. One day, at least, since we were both engineering students, meaning time was not abundant.

 Fast forward again to last weekend, and after enduring our classes, Dalton and I finally got a plan together to take photos. With a date made and a location and time set, it was going to finally happen. Then, Dalton let me know that his friend, Rachel, would also like photos. Turns out she's the owner of the now-Nardo Grey (or as she calls it, Nardo Gay) bagged Mustang that I would also see at car shows. And, I had also gotten to talk to her before at a Pavilions Meet, shortly before the police came to kick us out.  My friend volunteered to drive my car so I could take rollers, and we were all set.

We took the rolling shots on the way to the static photoshoot location. In hindsight, we realized we should have dedicated the entire evening to either rolling shots or static shots due to lighting, but alas, it is what it is. The rolling shots were at the perfect time of day, with the perfect amount of reflections and sun for tasteful lens flares and golden highlights. The trip though was short, only around half a dozen miles, and the opportunities to take photos were further reduced by the need to merge behind them to get into exit lanes. Our route was down the State Route 51 from Bethany Home Rd, down to the I-10 West until we exited at 7th Ave. Looking at a map, you can see that it's not the longest of trips. Still though, 3/4ths of my body was out the window of my car, much to probably the shock and confusion of the evening traffic behind us (which, funny enough, didn't dare try to pass any of us), and I got these shots. 

Stay tuned for the static shots, as well as more information and detail about the cars!