There’s something that fascinates me about a person concentrating upon a view of their reflection in a mirror. Compositionally it presents a challenge, and yet is quite simple. It’s the eye, stupid. It is the eye that is looking, the eye that it the center of attention, and the eye that may well be the […]
olduk
This is just a random selection of photos from the UK, from around 2005 to 2015. There’s not a lot to link them: I was just looking through some old scans the other day and chose these. There’s the one of Alex taking time out as I’m searching for photos to take, knowing that I […]
set
Back in 2014 we made a couple of shorts. The first was a read tribute to the recently deceased Philip Seymour Hoffman; the second was a reconstruction of an interview between Truman Capote and David Frost, on the nature of relationships. It was my introduction to the use of lighting, rather than purely available light. […]
馬蘭舊站
Chinese New Year 2017, spent in Taitung with the family. The night before we had visited an old friend of the mother, and had gone for an evening walk along the old disused railway, past the old school they had attended half a century ago, to the platform of Malan Station. The next day we […]
noir
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 […]
praying at the feet of the Buddha
Taipei Times bilingual article
stairs; door; track
There are certain objects in the physical world, often related to ideas of movement or transition, that lend themselves to metaphor. Stairs, for example, allow ascension, relocation from a lower level to a higher one. People at the top may seem, or feel, powerful, but also exposed; people below could feel, or appear to be, […]
wheel
Wu Cheng-hung (吳正宏), 77, is the 23rd generation of a line of potters that started in Cizao town (磁灶鎮) in 5th century China. His grandfather, Wu Ji (吳及, 1878 to 1949), left Cizao at the end of the Qing dynasty to make a living in Taiwan, bringing the coiling technique and kick wheel technology practiced […]
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 […]
南園
Wouldn’t it have been nice, I was thinking to myself at the end of a day at the Nanyuan Land of Retreat and Wellness (南園人文客棧), if we had been completely free to walk among the traditional southern Chinese Jiangnan-style architecture, roaming at our own leisure through the rooms tastefully decorated with carved scenes of […]