Little Shanghai and Little Fujian Photo

Photographer’s Note

This photo was taken in the North Point district of Hong Kong Island - from the back of a tram.

My first choice of title was,
"I live here" ... "That's your problem",
- as it appealed to my dry sense of humour - but after reading the North Point page in Wikipedia I changed my mind.

I have spent about 5 out of 11 years living in this district of HK. I moved out twice, because of the noise and pollution, but still ended up moving back. It is a very convenient place to live. Everything you need is within a 200 meter radius.

There is a very popular street market running parallel to this one - on the right. It is shown in the photo -
the rainy season hits the wet market.

The street running parallel on the left is shown in Colourful street signs.

Tech:-
Cropped 800x600 pixels from the centre of a 3072x2304 photo. With the original photo, I had been going for a long perspective shot, but when I accidently magnified the central area, I liked it more. Sharpened but no adjustment to colour.

-------- From Wikipedia ---------------------

"North Point is famous for its concentration Shanghainese and Fujianese-speaking population, and is called Little Shanghai and Little Fujian of Hong Kong. Second to Cantonese, Min Nan is the most widely spoken language here.

When the Guinness Book of Records was first published in the 1950s, North Point was listed as the most densely populated place on earth."

KevRyan, lappino, pingu23 has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

carper (64962) 2006-07-07 2:51

marvelous shot Andrew,
fantastic place for taking a shot, fantastic depth and good lines and details in this well taken composition, very nice atmosphere, well done.
gr. jaap

KevRyan (22410) 2006-07-07 2:53

I like the pastel feel to the colours and the almost sensory overload of detail - there is so much to look at - lines, shapes, activity - the busyness of it all - I haven't seen the whole but I guess your close crop brings us the best of the image - it works really well!

best wishes Kev

nihiru (24) 2006-07-07 3:15

haha - it doesn't look very small to me:))

very good photo - you menaged to put a lot of details in it without spoiling the composition.
It's for this reason I find it very difficult to shoot in the city

RGatward (19745) 2006-07-07 3:41

This had to be you from the thumb, even before reading it. The very tight crop from teh original seems to have lost some of the quality, but still a nice compo, with the typical HK buildings providing a nice backdrop. Doing something like this really makes one appreciate the PS reduction algorithm, given that you pick the same size image in the first place.

stiginthedump (1823) 2006-07-07 3:48

Yep, there's lots of detail in the shot, but the quality, in my opinion isn't very good. I think you've oversharpened it a little bit too much. I know sometimes when you downsize a photo the quality drops, but the sharpening doesn't do it justice. Also a little straightening wouldn't go amiss as well.

I've had a look at the workshop, and would like to do a workshop of my own, but the quality will be poor because of the small file size. Like i said it has lots of detail, but sometimes photos shouldn't be cropped too much.

Kenny10pin (19301) 2006-07-07 4:29

very good shot here, I use to live here every time I go to Hong Kong to stay with my relatives, it is a pleasant place, I really like the indoor market at night with the food stalls, yummy.

Yes I hate pollution too

best of luck

Dan

lappino (850) 2006-07-12 6:53

Hi Andrew,
for me, this grainy look fits here very well. This photo is also a perfect "time machine" to go back to North Point (even if I spent only two nights there...).
Thanks for sharing
Vlad