Hong Kong

Since I had meetings with clients before and after the weekend, I had to spent a weekend in Hong Kong. The hotel was in the Western District on Hong Kong island. It was not close to a subway station, but was far away from people trying to sell you junk items as they do in Kowloon. Kowloon is the the part of Hong Kong that is accross the harbor from Hong Kong Island. Even though I checked in very late I got a room with a nice view.


The western district is located on the slope of the Victoria peak hill and has many narrow streets. Since the available space in Hong Kong is limited, the government impose a high tax at first registration of a car. Maybe that's why goods are frequently moved around with delivery carts.


By the end of the day these carts a chained to a fence near the bus stop. One of the carts has a wheel missing.


The densely populated Western District also resulted in an interesting Civil Engineering project. I think the people living in the high rise buildings are less enthusiastic about it.


I frequently had dinner in the hotel because I was a little suspicious about the quality of the food in the area around the hotel. For example the photo below show a local butcher shop. Shortly after I took this photo the guy in the brown shirt lit a cigarette, while he was still behind his working bench. The butcher shop also had fish, but these fish were still alive when they were sold to the buyers. When I passed the butcher shop, one of the fish jumped out of the plastic bag onto the sidewalk in front of me. One of the ladies in the shop quickly 'grabbed the fish with a kind of a net and putted it back into the client's bag.


In the US and Europe only the roof drainage is on the outside of a building where all other pipes are on the inside a building. Therefore at first I was surprised to see all the drainage pipes on the outside of older high rise buildings in Hong Kong. But why not? On more recently constructed buildings, all drainage pipes are on the inside of the buildings.

To Hong Kong

The business trip to Hong Kong was rescheduled a number of times, but finally today I'm on my way to Hong Kong. It is company policy to fly business class for flights longer than 8 hours. I always thought this is for people with to much money, but now I'm there too and I've changed my mind. The surprising thing is that it is much more quiet in business class than in economy. Where the noise level in economy is comparable to a monster truck rally, in first class I already was sleeping before take off, only to wake up an hour later. I just completely missed the start.

On the Cathay Pacific flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong every passenger had his own cubicle with a comfortable seat. I actually got a lot off work done on my laptop. The seat could be turned into comfortable bed by flipping a switch so I also slept a number of hours. Over the last years flying economy I enjoyed the plastic 'silverware' and the chicken or beef dinner from an aluminum plate. Today I enjoyed a three course meal with a real plate, real silverware (not the ones that fold on the well done beef) and real glasses. I think the last one is a risk because a number of glasses fell on the floor and broke where also some people like to walk around on their socks while being on international flights.

The Hong Kong office had arranged transportation from the airport and a convenient hotel. This is a good start of the business trip.

Outdoor World

Today was a busy day. In the morning, I had a Photowalk at ‘Outdoor World’ in Pearland. This shop sells everything you need for outdoor activities like fishing and hunting. Our Photowalk group got permission to shoot pictures inside there shop.


I’ve never seen so much fishing gear in one spot.


Most of my colleges already thought I was a little nuts because I went on all these photography field trips. Therefore I hesitate to tell them about today’s assignment: ‘take a picture in the restroom’. The goal of the Meetup – Photowalk group is to step out of your comfort zone. Shooting inside a restroom is definitely something I’ve never done before.


Usually the Christmas decoration start at the day after Thanksgiving. Some shops already start a week earlier.


Most likely we return to this shop again, next year. I made a number of mistakes in shooting stuff inside the shop (which of course I don’t display on my blog). Therefore next year, I will take better pictures.

Art Deco

In the afternoon, I had scheduled to join the fieldtrip of the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance. This month’s fieldtrip went past a number of Art Deco buildings in down town Houston. Surprisingly it was almost the same route I took whit the Photowalk group on November 7th.

I decided to bring a long lens because the Art Deco style knows a lot of details. Somehow the details didn’t really work out. I think the pace of the group is a little too fast for taking pictures. Even though the tour was very interesting and the tour guide was very knowledgeable about the topic. After all the fieldtrip is not a photowalk. At the end of the tour he sold a book about Art Deco he coauthored. The tour guide informed us that Art Deco was not a architectural style, but more a way to decorate buildings from different architectural building styles.

The picture below shows a group of windows from the Wilson Building (1018 Prairie Avenue, Houston, built 1932, architect William Ward Watkin). This building points the attention to the problem of buildings from which the owner let it fall into despair. Even though there are laws (in Houston) that prohibit this neglect, they are not enforced. Eventually, the building is a risk to e.g.pedestrians and therefore the building needs to be demolished.


update May 2nd, 2011:
New owners are restoring the former Wilson Stationery & Printing Co. Building (1932) in downtown Houston. A private partnership, 500 Fannin LLC, has hired Ziegler Cooper Architects to design the renovation. (source: www.ghpa.org) It will be quite a bit of work to return this building to its old glory.

The next picture is not an Art Deco building but just a nice shot I spotted during the fieldtrip. I don’t understand why some panels in the picture show a blurred reflection where others show a sharp reflection.


Greater Houston Preservation Alliance Walking Tour Program

Photo sold

Today is a memorable day because I sold my first picture on line, which is shown below. Just in case you also want to buy this picture: Dr. G's photo portfolio


At first I doubted whether or not to upload the picture because of the weird reflection in the campaign sign for Pam Holm and the little pool of water along curb. But then I thought: “What is the worst thing that can happen?” My today's earnings is $0.35, therefore my business model is probably the worst one in the world because my expenses are about 4000 times higher. Even though the odds are against me that I will ever break even, I think of the words of Confucius: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

In the election of Houston’s mayor, none of the candidates got 50 percent of the vote. It is expected that in December there will be a runoff between number one (Annise Parker) and number two (Gene Lock). For me the biggest contrast to European mayors is that the candidates don’t show a very strong relation to a political party. In Europe, the person with the most (political) friends becomes the mayor. The three candidates that received the most votes in Houston seem to favor from their merits because they are: city controller, city attorney or city planner.

For those outside the Netherlands, a Dutch mayor is subsequently recommended by the city council, nominated by the department of internal affairs, approved by the prime minister and all secretaries, and finally appointed by the queen. To pass all these steps, you need to have a lot of friends.

Sunset Photowalk

The Photowalk organizers had scheduled a walk at the east side of downtown Houston. The area is in a redevelopment process. Therefore most of the empty buildings are torn down and turned into a parking lot. Luckily there are still plenty of objects to shoot between Main Street and Minute Maid Park. Since the Photowalk started at 4pm we had the opportunity to shoot both daytime and nighttime pictures.

Getting In on the Action

A few weeks ago I went to the Remax Ballunar Festival. I’m almost too embarrassed to tell that I only had a few keepers, at the end of the day. The lesson is that I need to improve my action shots. Coincidently this evening, the Katy Photography Meetup Group had a presentation about action photography. Sports photographer Diana Porter presented her work and how to get a little closer to that kind of photography skills. I got a lot of new ideas for future fieldtrips. Now I have to wait until the next action photography event.

You might wonder: Katy? Katy used to be a relative small village near Houston. However over the last decades Houston expended quite a bit to the West, and also more than doubled in size. So by now it is only a half hour drive from where I live to the library, where tonight’s lecture was scheduled.