I was reading about that new Sony a7CR, compact full frame model. It reminds me a lot of the old NEX-7. I had some awesome adventures with that, it never let me down (e.g. the image below). So I can only imagine the full frame equivalent being fantastic… maybe it’s time to step away from the standard R series… hmmm…
I love playing around with new AI stuff. Some of it is great (Midjourney/ChatGPT) some of it is terrible and sometimes it’s really hit and miss. Regardless of the result it’s always fun to experiment. Recently Google added image uploads to Bard, their AI chat, and you can have it do things like describe the contents of the image.
Now knowing Bard had a tendency, even with normal chat, to invent nonsense facts I was curious to see how it would do with some of my images. To be fair, it started off promising, but then… well… it all got a bit “imaginative”. So, here’s one example:
“The image you sent me shows an aerial view of a city with tall buildings and a yacht in the middle. The city is located on a peninsula, and the water on the left side of the image is a bay. The buildings in the city are mostly tall skyscrapers, and there are a few smaller buildings as well. The yacht in the middle of the image is white, and it has a blue stripe on the side. There are a few people on the yacht, and they are standing on the deck.
The sky in the image is blue, and there are a few clouds. The sun is shining, and the light is reflecting off of the water in the bay. The overall impression of the image is one of a modern city with a beautiful skyline.
Here are some additional details about the image:
The image was taken during the day, in the afternoon.
The weather is clear and sunny.
The water in the bay is a light blue color.
The sky is a clear blue color.
The city is surrounded by mountains.
I hope this description is helpful.”
So the question is… is Bard “imagining” what is outside the image or is it picking up this being Hong Kong and therefore it’s describing aspects of that location, even though they are not in the frame… hmm…
Some of the places I visited on this ancient, original stretch of the Great Wall were almost too covered in vegetation to navigate. Thick conifers and strange plants would block this way and that. I listened to music as I explored and that made everything even more surreal. It was fascinating to see just how different the sections were to the more pristine, touristy areas.
I was at the Summer Palace to go up on stage for an opening ceremony event, and there were a bunch of these guys on the perimeter keeping the peace. It was quite a docile crowd, really, so they weren’t really needed and that gave me the opportunity to wander round and get some portraits.
In the Guanxi province there are the same sort of rock formations as the Grand Canyon, with one exception, there is vegetation here. It holds together a lot of the rock so it is eaten away at a much slower pace, forming these amazing archipelagos in the sky.
On a previous trip to Hong Kong one of my goals was to explore as much of the government housing as possible, getting away from my usual haunts in the main city. My new friend Simon, a local Chinese guy, was the perfect person to show me around.
We started our day in the Tsing Yi district, which is home to some of the most iconic government housing estates in Hong Kong. The estates are massive, towering blocks of concrete that are home to thousands of people. They may look a bit intimidating at first, but Simon assured me that they were full of life and character. We wandered around the estates for a while, taking in the sights and sounds. We saw people of all ages, from young children to elderly grandparents, going about their daily lives. We saw people playing games, chatting with friends, and just hanging out. It was clear that these estates were more than just places to live; they were also individual communities.
After exploring the estates, we headed to the nearby Sham Shui Po district, which is known for its vibrant night market. We wandered through the market, snacking on street food and browsing the stalls. We found everything from fresh produce to electronics to souvenirs. It was a great way to experience the local culture. Here is one of the final shots of the night, as we continued to explore, just before I headed off back to the hotel with sore feet but a mind racing with memories of the day.
I got my quad up super high over this area of Hong Kong and planned on making sort of a panorama while looking straight down. It’s not an easy technique because all the buildings come off at different angles. Anyway, I tried to piece them together in Photoshop, but it kept going all funky. I decided to choose the funkiest one because I think it looks quite cool!
I was crossing a bridge in a little town not too far from Yangshuo and trying to stay out of the rain. It was coming down pretty hard, but there was a sunset happening too. So, at great risk to camera and limb, I set up to take this shot. All these little bamboo rafts that would take people to and fro were coming in to hunker down for the big storm…
I rode on one of these ships back and forth across the harbor about four times one night. On the final journey, about 1 AM, I decided to get a photo of the boat itself. Like a bunch of Chinese things, this is also kind of fake because the boat actually used a motor instead of the sails. They were just for show. I should not have told you that because it kind of ruins the photo, but, well, there ya go.
I love these old parts of China that could be from almost any period in history. The riverside part of Feng Huang is a bit like this, so it is one of my favorite areas to photograph. Back when I processed this I was looking forward to returning and re-imagining these places with new equipment but as much as I’d like to return, as of the writing of this in 2023, I have no real desire to go back to China any time soon. After going there about a dozen times, I see it becoming more and more of a draconian system. I worry about everything from political problems to getting in trouble for doing something wrong and being thrown into some bottomless gulag.
