These are from six occasions. The first two were watching her apply her make-up in a mirror. The next was when I noticed the interesting way the bedside lamp was lighting her. Then there was a more deliberate attempt at doing something interesting with lighting, based on the film noir aesthetic. The close-up […]
eggshell
Taipei Times article Taipei Times photo page Wu Yao-cheng (吳要城), 84, holds up a white porcelain bowl to the window in his studio home in Yingge District (鶯歌), New Taipei City. It is painted inside with auspicious symbols and outside in a scene of monkeys. Wu didn’t paint it: his specialty is making […]
dancers
camel
It was one of the most abidingly sad, haunting images I have ever seen. A lone camel pulling a cart through the roads of my remembered childhood, The abandoned creature shuffling through the leafy suburban streets. That swinging shuffle, mesmerizing the creature, Its eyes staring straight ahead but surely not seeing, The weight on its […]
da
The following anecdote I wrote soon after the fact. Christmas Day 2011 Dad took the dog for a walk after dinner and had him a tumble. A local man appeared at the door with the dog and said dad was down the road but not dead, he had somehow punched his own face with the […]
pingtung confession
On the second Sunday of December some 15 years ago, in a small village named Wanjin, 30 minutes outside Pingtung City in southern Taiwan, we chanced upon a curious “inspection tour.”
lyricism
The street in India is so rewarding, and not simply because of the sheer amount of activity found there. This activity is variously, and often simultaneously, intense, authentic, informative, open, lyrical, poised, majestic, curiously intimate, spontaneous, unaware, welcoming, indifferent, unassuming, routine. The simplest, most mundane, prosaic tasks can be done with such lyricism, and it […]
on being shorn, and other animations
The researcher warned us to take everything told us by the Doms and their assistants with a grain of salt. They said that, as part of the cremation ritual at the Manikarnika Ghat, the chief mourner would have a complete shave before the proceedings could start. This man was having his full beard shorn in […]
temple door
I’m finding these temple festivals increasingly difficult to find the enthusiasm to go to. The interest nowadays is purely photographic, and I don’t even lift the camera to my eye anymore unless the idea is new or, if it is similar to something I have already captured, an improvement on what I already have, or […]
new/ old
Both of these pictures were taken over two years before I actually got around to printing them. This was a deliberate delay, useful because of the changing relationship you have with photos over time. After a certain amount of time you lose the enthusiasm to print because of any lingering associations you have at the […]