Hong Kong, Circa 2009

Way back in 2009, I went on an all expenses paid trip to Hong Kong (ie, a family holiday). I was only 16 at the time, and the whole world was in front of my pimply face. I attribute a lot of my works inspiration from experiencing the culture there over three years ago, inspiration which is still flowing.
The other day I found a 4GB class 4 SD card in my draw. I wondered what could possibly be on it, as I tend to be quite anal about backing up my photos. On it was nearly 900 photos I took in Asia back then,  which non of such had been looked at for a few years.
After panicky backing them up I decided to select a few I quite liked, and upload them. Why not 'eh? They were doing nothing else except rotting away on my HDD either way.

I wasn't exactly rocking the best equipment back then. All the following photos were taken with a $150 10MP Kodak camera. It was a nice little camera for someone of my demographic. It was my first digital camera and I literally saved up for it by working for $8 an hour at the local KFC. Dark days indeed, but I guess I was 16. Funny side story actually; the day I flew back into Perth after this trip was the day I rang up and quit. Don't mean to rant or anything, but damn that was a shit job.
Anyway without further ado ladies and gentleman, Hong Kong.

New Camera (ie the most exciting thing to happen yet)

Bah! I'm sick. So, so sick. I shouldn't really use this blog to complain about something as moot as a cold, but damn it sucks. Luckily though, on Tuesday (the day before this sickness started to get uncomfortable) my first ever DSLR arrived. Last post I briefly mentioned this, and I also wondered how reliable FedEx were going to be. FedEx, were great. What wasn't so great is that their services stopped at the Belmont depot and were then carried on by Australian Air Express to my house. I've had lots of problems with AEE. They're suppose to deliver the package straight to my door, but they never so much as knock to check if you're home. They just leave a slip in your mailbox telling you to pick it up from the post office, which pretty much defeats the purpose of paying for a courier service in the first place. It's happened to me at least three times, and numerous times to other members of my family.
Enough complaining though, I said I wouldn't use my blog for that. I don't want to lie to my fabulous audience (hey, that's you!).

It's a Canon EOS 1100D, which I bought in a pack that came with a 75-300mm telephoto lenses. I bought it through JB Hi-Fi's Direct Import service. What they do now is grey import products through their website and it's so much cheaper than buying in-store. I worked out I saved around $250, if you don't factor in postage.
JB are running a very competitive service compared to other local grey importers. It is a little bit more, but the one bonus that sold me is that it comes with a one year JB warranty. If it kneels over within a year, I can just take it to a JB storefront. I don't have to mail it off back to Hong Kong or whatever and worry about it never coming back. They also did other small things like making sure you received an English instruction manual and local power cables. The instruction manual was photocopied, but it was photocopied damn well. It also came on a disk so you could read it on the computer in PDF.

This was also incidentally the first picture I took with the Canon. The joke is I took it in auto mode because I hadn't read the manual yet. Yes, I know. I'm hilarious.  

The actual package it was posted in was A-grade in my books as well. It was wrapped well in several layers of bubble wrap, as well as a tough outer package. It was a pain in the ass to open, but it meant it was posted safely so I can't complain about that, not on this blog anyway. I don't want to break that promise more than once.

Taken with my phone as by this point I had run out of working cameras. 

Going from a point and shoot to a DSLR is a huge jump. My point and shoot was fairly decent (as well as having a kickass retro exterior) but I felt it was time to move on.
I'm still getting used to the all the settings on offer as I've only had it a few days, but I'm determined to use it properly and not just be one of those dudes who has a DSLR for the sake of having one and takes all their photos in auto mode. I would probably have a few of my photographer friends disown me I did turn into that guy anyway, so it's for the best. I spent quite a lot on this eitherway, so I would just be wasting my own money if I treated this like a glorified point and shoot.

Anyway, here are some photos I have taken so far, some in auto mode, some where I have been a bit more adventurous...:

An ode to Retro Game On... 

Taken at 1/60th of a second to let that perfect amount of light in.

10 second exposure.

Some basic light painting. I plan to go full retard on this once I get my greasy mits on a tripod.

I'm still obviously a novice, but I plan to really work at this. Stay tuned as I hopefully improve.

Even More Abandoned Photography!

I don't get to take photo's of abandoned things as much as I would like. It's a hobby I immensely enjoy, but something I seldom get a chance to do.
This long weekend I went camping out in the Twilight Zone, seriously, in the middle of nowhere. I think we were at least two hours drive from the nearest McDonald's  D:  Good fun though.
Anyway, that's what that looked like:

Faces obscured because lets face it, no one wants to be seen hanging out with me. 

As we were leaving Bat Country, I saw this diamond in a puddle and we stopped for some photo happy time:

I have no clue as to what 'DSP' stands for, Googling it returns a bazillion different results. If any fine member of the internet has any idea, please feel free to leave a message. For the most part it was a house, plain and  simple. It didn't look like it had been inhabited since disco was alive though.

Seems to be an old style ice box (ie, a fridge). 

The best angle I could get, because, well; there was no floor. Also another fridge. 

Doesn't matter how far out you are, shit is still going to be vandalised :'( 

I would have liked to stay longer but my driver got spooked by another car driving around, maybe I'll come back in the near future. Sometime this week I should be receiving my first ever DSLR (I'll also find out how reliable Fed Ex is). This will mean more photography, as I want to step my skills up. Been wanting to for a long time but insufficient funds stopped me from upgrading my okayish point and shoot. Getting off my arse and actually getting a job seemed to fix this. I also need to buy a car so then I can easily seek out locations. It seems they're a lot of abandoned farm houses and what not about an hours drive from where I live, so it might be a good little niche for me.

Check out my other abandoned photos if you please. First lot is of the remains of a train station near my house, proving that local infrastructure was better 50 years ago than it is now. Second lot is of a French cottage which I totally lucked out on finding when I was on holiday there last year. Make sure you click to the full albums to a Live Journal abandoned photography group, as I have only posted samples of those albums on this blog.