One of the main things I got out of my recent trip was a reassessment of my relation to the US. Perhaps over the extended period of time I’ve spent in Taiwan,  a period that already covers most of my life up to this point, my recollections and impressions from my American childhood have assumed a greater status in my memories than they actually deserve. This is natural, I suppose, and comes to most people with the passing of the years, but on this trip I realized that who I am today is actually more the result of my experiences and choices as an adult in Taiwan than my experiences as a child in the US. I’ve never lived as an adult in the US. I’ve been out of touch with the on-the-ground culture there for almost a quarter of a century, if I ever really was in touch with it when I was growing up. We all attribute great meaning to our formative years, of course, and being away from the place where those years passed for me has accented that time and place in my memories, set them apart as something special and important. Which they are, but it was when I started to make my own choices that I began creating who I am today.

This point was particularly driven home when I was dealing with my relatives: I was the baby of the family when I was growing up; my older sister and brother seemed infinitely wiser and more in touch with the world outside than I was. Communication with my parents was difficult as I wasn’t coming from anywhere in particular. Their viewpoint was the only viewpoint, and if it didn’t make sense to me, I had nothing to fall back on. Now I see my brother and sister as equals, friends and  companions, and even difficult conversations with my parents are somewhat easier because I no longer depend on their judgement for my sense of self worth.

While I have changed significantly over the decades since I left the US, the country itself has changed as well, though it’s difficult to be objective with a moving target. Americans these days seem larger in frame, yet somehow diminished in daring.  Children don’t play, adults don’t wander. Cars, grocery stores and meals have all become huge, while people meekly submit to a general paranoia and mutual suspicion actively engendered by the government in various official acts seemingly designed to strangle open discussion. Perhaps one is a reaction to the other. Perhaps the two phenomena are symbiotic parasites.

Or perhaps I just don’t know what I’m talking about. How can I tell all of this after a couple of weeks flying and driving around the country? Obviously I can’t; it’s just my fleeting impression. Of course, Taiwan has changed as well, though this is even harder to note as it has happened day by day over a long period of time.

But when I returned to Taipei after my trip, I felt it: The familiarity, the comfort, the intimate knowledge of a place rushing back into your environment that signals the simple fact of coming home.

I woke up early this morning and proceeded to take pictures of the sunlight creeping through the house. The kids were already up and getting ready for school, and I showed Jack the Dragonball Z Son Goku T-shirt I bought in Kyoto.

Kevin drove me to the airport to see if I could rent a car with my international driver’s license. It turned out I could, so I obtained a silver Honda Civic, got instructions, and set out for Lexington, Virginia.

It was good to be out on the road again, driving long distances alone through interesting scenery. The Civic wasn’t perfect ergonomically, as the side of the dask bit into my leg a bit, but it was generally up to the job of mountain driving via frequent downshifts.

There was quite a bit of roadwork, lanes cut off, and one toll section that you have to pay not only to get into, but to leave as well, $2 each time. Fortunately I had change. I stayed just a bit over the 70mph speed limit, running with traffic, which wasn’t heavy for most of the drive. Almost every radio station was country music, sprinkled with hateful radio hosts saying things like, “These…progressives…are anti-progress. These…people…should be silenced.” At least it kept me awake.

I had lunch at a truck stop; burger and fries accompanied by an incredibly sweet drink that caused me to hack and cough and spit sweet red goo into the landscaping. Nobody seemed to mind; perhaps they’re used to it.

I got into Lexington around 3 or 4pm, amidst a brilliant afternoon, the trees just starting to turn. I parked by the post office, where I dropped in to see my old PO box, and the interior was exactly the same. The whole town seemed exactly the same, I thought as I walked down to Main Street to find a place to stay. The first hotel I came across, the MacAdams Inn, had a room for a benjamin and change, so I got the car, parked it in back, tossed my stuff inside, and walked to my old campus.

My first stop was my freshman dorm, Gilliam Hall, which hasn’t changed at all except for the addition of an ineffective lock on the front door. I went down to the “dungeon” where I failed to get along with my roomie Todd, and found the formerly green walls now ainted pink.

When I rounded the corner of Gilliam, I found the neighboring buildings had been torn down, but the old International House was still there; it is now the Hill House (named after the late Professor Hill?) and houses the Gender Studies and LGBTQ group, which I find astonishing for this community. The door was locked, though, so I proceeded past the sagging rear balcony where George Chang used to park his new Saab, and over to Gaines Hall, which was brand new when I first lived there as a sophomore. All the trees have grown huge now, but it basically looks the same now as it did then, of course with door locks. I was gazing back up at the other side of Gilliam, lost in memories of happening to see one of my particularly attractive fellow students undressing in the window at night, when an Asian student walked up to me and asked if he could help. I couldn’t help but note the resemblance, but decided to keep this creepiness to myself; I thanked him and walked up to the campus proper, the famous colonade, which seems to be under repair, and the old red house where I spent so much time studying Chinese. It is still called the East Asian Language Building, but as far as I know the only East Asian Language taught at W&L today is Japanese. I think the Chinese program died with Dr. Hill.

I then proceeded through the late afternoon light to Reid Hall, aka the Journalism School, which has been completely remodeled. I looked for my old teacher, Professor de Maria, but he’d just left. Fortunately, one of the staff found him for me through his cell phone. “Prof de Maria always gets interesting visitors,” he explained. “You’ve got that vibe about you, so I knew I had to find him for you.”

Professor de Maria was down at the new co-op, or whatever they call it, eating some fruit before his singing class at the church. He seemed happy to see me, and we talked of what we’d both been doing, plans, thoughts on recent sociopolitial trends, etc. He had a lot of interesting observations on the state of things, not all of them entirely hopeful.

After I left Professor de Maria at the church, I walked back to the very nice, expansive university shop to buy some W&L sweatshirts before they closed. I’d been unable to buy them online because the website doesn’t accept foreign orders, which I find ludicrous as many of W&L’s alumni end up overseas. The woman managing the store was very nice and informative, and she told me of a way to use email order things and have them send the stuff by post, but I felt that this information really should be on the website.

The sun had set by this point, the old Doremus Gymnasium silhouetted by its light. I walked down the mall and over to the edge of the Virginia Military Institute’s parade grounds, wondering if I should go look up my old trumpet instructor, (then-)Captain Brodie. He’s probably at least a Colonel by now, if he’s still there. The evening formation was taking place, tiny uniformed figures assembling in front of the massive castle-like barracks in the dying light. I heard the band playing and figured that if Brodie was there, he was probably too busy for visitors. The bugle played, and the cannon boomed, and I thought of my many visits to the Taiwanese cadets there, as well as music lessons and even small musical group practices. Standing on the edge of W&L and VMI always made me feel discombobulated. It still does.

I walked back to Dupont Hall, where the music program was and still is located. Nothing has changed there I climbed the stairs to the attic rehearsal room to find it unchanged. So many rehearsals there under Professor Stewart, and later under Barry Kolman. Kolman’s still around, but he never liked me much.

I walked down past the old ROTC building, now something else, to Woods Creek, where I crossed the bridge, listening to the musical water, and then up past the apartments of the same name, where older students lived and still live; it could have been 1988 again. Climbing the stairs to the athletic field, I took some photos, realizing that W&L really is not conducive to interesting photography; the buildings are pretty but dull (as are the students for the most part). Soccer teams were practicing on Wilson Field as I turned back across the bridge, the new sorority houses lined up under the sliver of new moon in the fading sky.

I saw lights on in the lnternational House, so I went and asked a student who was entering if I could have a look inside. He shook his head. “I’m not supposed to let anyone in,” he said.

“But I was president of the International Club, I actually lived here,” I said.

“Ok, I’ll ask.” He disappeared upstairs, and I could envision him explaining how some strange mean-looking guy wanted inside, but soon enough he came down with a couple of other people, for safety perhaps, and they let me inside to look around.

The place has certainly been cleaned up; nice carpet and paint, the kitchen is an office, and the old living room where we used to hang out watching MTV is a meeting room. Upstairs, Victor Cheung’s old room was hosting a student meeting. I was introduced to the dozen-odd, very earnest-looking group, and felt I should say something: “We used to play strip poker in this very room,” I said helpfully.

Back at Gaines Hall, I could see into my old suite on the first floor, where a girl was playing music that was new in 1988. The same damn music! Some boys walked by, commenting, “That suite has some nice atmosphere.” I managed to find an open door and strolled the hallways again, noting the stairwells retained their rubbery odor even after two decades.

I walked up the alley towards Chavis House, where Boogie lived back then, a walk I used to make quite often, behind the dining hall, and then I visited the dining hall itself, the site of many a donut’s demise at my hands (and mouth). I’d forgotten all the little things like the steps, the stairs, the breezeway through Baker Hall where my friend and high-schoolmate Garrick lived.

I got some dinner in the same co-op Professor de Maria ate. I had a chicken sandwich that was nearly identical to the ones I had at the old co-op, which is now a nice, elegant building. Now they have cereal-in-a-cup, which I think is utter genius.

After dinner I visited the library, which also doesn’t seem to have changed. I’m sure they are all connected, Internet-wise, but the 70′s-era color schemes as well as the actual physical book collection seems exactly the same as the day I left. I jostled noisily by the little compartment where I penned some of my disastrous thesis, thumbed through some old anthropological volumes, and lamented the fact that I hadn’t exhausted the photography section at the time. My old ex-advisor, Dr. Jeans, though retired, was supposed to have a pseudo-office in one of the carrels down there, according to Professor de Maria. But I didn’t see him, though

It was late by this point, so I walked back off campus, though the completely empty town, wondering which of the shops was the old Sandwich Shop where Boogie and I played jazz sets, and back to my hotel room, which seems to be much higher at one end than the other; the building is lop-sided, kind of like that mystery spot outside of San Francisco. But it will do. At least until the drunken fratboys downstairs wake me up. I heard that things have improved on that front, in that the fraternity/sorority membership is only 86% now, as opposed to the 95% of my time here.

It’s odd, but coming back is bringing back not only the memories I thought would return but also reminders that I wasn’t really very happy here. I never belonged here, and I never will. It was the site of a time of my life, and over the years I suppose I have made it more than that in my mind, but sometimes it takes a trip like this to see things not only for what they are, but what they have always been, whether we know it or not.

I just listened, for the first time, to “The Grid”, an online show purportedly about photography with Scott Kelby. It was Episode 18, in which the hosts, Scott and RC, discuss the various social networking sites and display some surprising ignorance of certain areas of photography. “All cameras focus…even the disposable ones from Walgreens!” (Yes, it is a fixed hyperfocal lens, aka  a fixed small aperture and shutter speed where most everything is in focus). “Contrast detect AF works on a G12, it should be the same for the X100″ (sensor size makes a huge difference). And of course that anyone who prefers the Fuji to take photos is stupid.

That’s their opinion, of course (the stupid part, that is), but overall it was the dismissive fratboy tone of the whole thing that made me think, well, at least they’re really kick-ass photographers, right? They’re not like Chase Jarvis, more about self promotion than actual photography, or Ken Rockwell, i.e. more about gear promotion, or “Thomas Hawk”, not just obnoxious and confrontational but mediocre photographers as well. I mean, they’re artists on the equivalent of AM talk radio, after all, and have their opinions.

This is where I should have stopped and gone on with my life, perhaps even whistling as I went. But no, I had to visit their photography sites.

Oy. As I have pretty much alienated the entire online photography expert world in a single post, I will refrain from commenting more specifically due to the fact that these guys have the power to squash their detractors like bugs, but…just oy. Ok, I’ll shut up now; No one’s forcing me to listen to the show or look at their stuff, after all, and it behooves me to be grateful for small favors.

Speaking of small favors, I recently read an interview with Joseph Koudelka by Frank Horvat in which Kouldelka gives some insight into his view of photography, how he lives his life, and how the two intertwine. Koudelka’s thought-provoking views aside, what particularly impressed me was how deftly he danced around the mundane nature of Horvat’s questions in order to strike at the heart of the issues at hand, what photography meant to him personally, how he expresses himself though the camera, what he sees, what he is saying.

To me, that is talking about photography, not lowest-common-denominator rants about how people who use a certain camera are idiots, or how to SEO-up your website for hits. The best communication possible with photography is through the photographs themselves. Barring that, any amount of geartalk or Internet popularity games is just a way of trying to fill the void left by lack of vision.

I’d thought that the Muddy Basin Ramblers were meeting up at the Red House Theater in the West Gate District at 1:30 in the afternoon before our 2:05 show at a benefit concert for Japanese tsunami orphans, and I therefore proceeded to enjoy a leisurely morning at home, slowly getting my things together, before realizing that we’d actually arranged to meet at 12:30. One mad dash and a NT$300 taxi ride later, I was behind the theater going through a quick practice with the band, minus Conor who was already on stage with another band.

The show went well, but it was over too quickly. It seemed like we’d barely started before we were playing our last song as the hosts came up on stage. I was taking apart the washtub bass when one of the hosts, a woman, grabbed the tub and held it up for the audience to see. “This is what he’s been playing, if you didn’t notice!” she said. She then asked for a quick demonstration. Now there’s a sentence to boost my search ratings.

We were going out to celebrate David’s birthday that night, so I hung around and listened to the other bands, which included a Japanese family of ukulele players who performed some hits from Miyazaki movie themes like Spirited Away and Totoro. Adorable, if somewhat out of tune. One of the younger kids lost the beat halfway through one song, and within two measures the rest of the family switched to accommodate him. We had planned to find a spot near the Chungshan Hall for a little street performance, but Sandy and Thumper bailed early. A South American group got on stage and played such wonderful mariachi-style tunes I wanted to jump on stage and play along, but I refrained.

Eventually I tired of the booming sound, however, and walked out to the square where the old roundabout and park used to be before they made a boring intersection out of it, and stood in the same spot for about half an hour, just looking at people and things. Everyone had a camera, everyone was taking photos except me. The Golden Melody Awards, which I attended with Chalaw a few years ago (we didn’t win, but he won the next year), were taking place that evening, and one of my favorite bands as well as a friend, Matzka, was up for several awards. I knew from previous experience that he and his band were probably walking down the red carpet at the venue as I stood watching people in the square. Matzka would win the best group award that night. Not bad.

Night fell over the Red House Theater as all the bars and clubs fired up and filled with bears and other demographics. We walked over to the Calcutta. Slim was sloshedly vociferous the whole way. The food wasn’t bad, better than Tandoor, I felt, though I’m not a particular connoisseur of Indian food. David and Robin told tales of their recent honeymoon in Paris, of all the wonderful sights and sounds I missed when I was there, such as Belleville and the bars where Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grapelli played. The Leica Forum is going on there at the moment, attended by many a wealthy photographer (and probably some good ones, too, he said, trying not to sound too bitter).

The others were heading to Bobwundaye after dinner for some jamming, but I had an early start coming up on Sunday, so I reluctantly declined even though I was itching to play some more.

I was awake at 7:20 a.m. the next morning, grabbing the Invincible Rabbit and heading out into the already-brilliant sunshine, across the bridge and onto the subway to Taipei Train Station, where I met up with Chenbl, Terry, Lulu, Sean, his girlfriend Lily and her cousin, who were visiting from Hong Kong. Sean just got his master’s degree from Qinghua University in Disney Studies.

We caught the train to Keelung, traveling along the various construction sites and through the industry, through the mountain range and into the port city in about 40 minutes. Chenbl just failed to catch the bus out to Peace Island, so we waited in the hot sun, shooting irritated-looking passengers. Terry had an even more formidable beast than the Rabbit, a 1Ds, while Lulu, I think, had a 50D. A new liner was docked in the harbor, the Star Aquarius, bigger and nicer than the Star Libra I took to Okinawa. I wondered where it was bound for..Singapore? Hong Kong? Across from it was the Cosco Star that we took to Xiamen a few months ago. It looked small and dirty next to the Aquarius.

We caught the next bus out to Peace Island, which is located across a short bridge up near the mouth of the river. The area by the entrance is still under construction, as it was this time last year when I last saw it. The sun was glaring off the newly laid concrete, and a guard languished deep inside the shade of his shelter at the gate of a military base. We walked out to the rocky coast, where some messy picnickers were lighting fires and consuming bottles of tea. I climbed up on the rocks to get close to the sea, delighted to hear the wonderful sound of the water sluicing through the various crevices.

We walked up the coast and inland to a small group of houses whose occupants no doubt rely on hot, sweaty tourists for their livelihood. A group of aboriginal children surrounded us, trying and failing to guess who among us was Taiwanese and who wasn’t. “You’re the only real Taiwanese here,” I told them. The kids were apparently big fans of the hit TV show Rookie’s Diary, and weren’t entirely convinced that I knew Ye Da-tong, Lai Hu, Luo Gang, and Yang Hai-sheng, and I thought it was a shame that my friend Fu Zi-cun, who played Yang Hai-sheng and who is not a bad photographer himself, didn’t come along this time. He’s busy filming a new series down south though, and couldn’t make it.

The kids were playing around on a laundry rack comprised of a bamboo stick on two poles as we talked to them, and suddenly the bamboo stick, which was obviously quite old and moldy, broke. Almost immediately an old man in a white shirt came rushing up, yelling at this travesty, and the kids scattered. The old man took off his shoe and threw it at the kids several times, cursing them. At one point he actually got his hand on one of them and raised a heavy club to hit him with, but Terry stopped him, saying, “There’s no need for that.” I wondered if we would see that old man in the Apple Daily some day.

We walked down to the nearest bus stop and, 15 sweaty minutes later, caught a bus back to the train station, where we’d arranged to meet up with the Taiwan Photo Club, or at least part of it. Craig and Selina were there, of course, as well as Josh Ellis, Gillian Benjamin and a few others. They were waiting at the Starbucks on the harbor, and we had a quick lunch at the Burger King next door, enticed by the free ice cream sundaes, before boarding another bus out to the Fairy Cave.

I don’t think I’d ever been to the Fairy Cave before. Flocks of birds swarmed around the cliff face above the cave’s entrance, which was accompanied by ever-shy monks and a great deal of religious paraphernalia as the cave contains several temples. It was cool and misty inside, and several side caves branched out from the main one. One of the side branches became quite narrow, and some people came back claiming it was impossible to get through. I tried it, and though I had to crouch over and turn sideways, both the rabbit and I managed to get through fairly unscathed, though my shoulders were scrapped and muddy. Inside was another altar enveloped in a heavy mix of mist and incense that an ancient fan in the corner failed to alleviate.

We explored the neighborhood around the cave, waking up dogs and cats and a strange kind of wasp that attacked Josh because it really didn’t want to be on Facebook. Then Chenbl led us on a long trek across the valley and up another hill to a nice view of the sea right next to a power plant. As we recovered from the climb, which included the toxic fumes of a house painted entirely in tar the owner probably won in a game of majhong and didn’t want to waste, a lone paraglider sailed over the smokestacks of the powerplant, his shadow flitting across the field overlooking the sea.

The walk back down was much easier, and we luxuriated in the air conditioning of the rickety bus back downtown. Terry, Lulu, Sean, Lily and Lily’s cousin had to leave; the rest of us crossed the bridge over the other side of the tracks. A couple of aesthetic homeless men populated the bridge, lit by the late-afternoon sun in a way that even I couldn’t resist taking a shot, though I generally don’t like to take too many such shots. Craig was taking phone pictures the whole time, unburdened by a heavy DSLR. Probably a smart move considering the heat and all the hills we were climbing that day.

We wound our way through the steep alleys and stairs, passing and occasionally photographing the local residents. One man sitting on his scooter smoking glared at me as I took his shot. “Sorry,” he said, pointing to his cigarette. I refrained from pointing out that he would look just as thuggish without the cigarette, and walked on.

The whole of Keelung was laid out in the light of the approaching sunset as we reached the big KEELUNG sign, whereupon the mosquitoes decided that Chenbl was the only really delicious person on the site. Everyone except Craig and Selina climbed up to the top of the hill for an even better view. Josh and I stood atop the summit, on a circle of an old structure, noting the approaching clouds and thunder that meant it was surely raining in Taipei. The Aquarius had departed, off to wherever it was headed, a voyage of good food, swimming pools and gambling. The Cosco Star would be heading out later that evening.

Rain began to fall as we descended the hill, often going in circles as Chenbl tried to make the walk more interesting. We recrossed the bridge, noting that the homeless men had changed positions, and walked over to the Miaokou Night Market, which was mostly closed due to construction work. I didn’t see anything I liked. The harbor city was taking on its nocturnal form, its nights darker than those of other cities, its streets and alleys closer, wetter. I was game for more exploration, but I could feel the group’s gravitation towards the train station and our comfortable homes, so I went along, telling myself, another time: Keelung will still be there.

I realize that anyone interested in the GF1 vs. EP1 debate has long since either made up their minds or are rabidly awaiting Fuji’s X100, but as I’ve had a chance to use both cameras extensively, I thought I’d provide my thoughts on the subject.

When Olympus came out with the EP1 last summer, I was intrigued and planned to get one when I could rustle up enough cash. I was attracted to the idea of a larger sensor in a small body, small enough to be my “always with me” camera that I keep in my backpack for everyday shooting. Previously, this spot had been filled by a series of Canon Powershots, Sigma’s DP1 and most recently the Panasonic LX3. I never really warmed to the LX3, however; something about the images just put me off it. The colors never seemed quite right, and with the protruding lens it wasn’t pocketable either. Granted, I was coming from the DP1, which produced excellent images when it got around to focusing on something and actually taking a shot, but I was frustrated at the slow operation and the fixed 28mm-equivalent lens. 35mm I could see as a single lens, but not 28; it’s just too wide. In any case, neither camera really hit the spot.

Panasonic’s first micro-four-thirds cameras, the G series, were almost DSLR-sized, and I simply couldn’t see the point of such devices, particularly as the DP1 was smaller and produced similar image quality with its larger foveon sensor.

Although I was interested in the EP1, the reported focusing problems made me hesitate. It just took too long, DP1-long, and it often missed. That fall, Panasonic introduced its own small m43 camera, the GF1. On paper, it addressed all the problems of the EP1, and it came with a snappy 40mm-equivalent f1.7 lens. On a trip to Tokyo last November I was able to handle both cameras in the stores, and the quick autofocus and higher-resolution LCD of the GF1 won me over. The feel of the EP1 was nicer, the brushed metal skin a joy to hold and the “clunk” of the shutter more akin to closing the door on a big Mercedes than the harsh plastic “clack” of the GF1’s shutter.

But I had to be practical. I’m pretty good at holding cameras steady in low light, so I figured I didn’t need the in-body image stabilization that the Olympus offers.

So I got the GF1, a silver version, and wrapped it in some leatherette skin I ordered from Japan. It looked great and was easy to hold. I used it every day, with the 40mm as well as the Olympus’s wide zoom. People often asked me if it was a film camera.

In daylight it was a great performer. At night, however, the ISO would jump and the shutter speeds plummeted, and I got some blurry, grainy shots. Not nearly as many as the LX3 or DP1, but enough to make me pause. This sensor is almost there, I thought. If it were just a little more sensitive, it would be useful as a night shooter.

I shoot a lot at night. Taipei comes alive at night, visually, with all the signs, stalls and activity, life spilling out the doors onto the verandas, patios, streets and alleys. Night photography is important to me, but it’s hard to have the 5DII with me all the time. The Invincible Rabbit, albeit invincible, is just too big and heavy for that.

Recently, my friend and fellow photographer Brian Q. Webb, aka Photojazz, upgraded his EP1 to an EP2, and so he let me borrow his old EP1, which he had dropped, dinged and dented up pretty good. With the most recent firmware, the focus speed has improved to within shouting distance of the GF1, though shot-to-shot time is still frustratingly slow and the low-resolution screen makes focusing something that can only be left to the camera. Also, the EP1 lacks controls on top for shooting modes like black/white or multiple exposures, requiring a trip to the back of the camera.

Still, the camera felt as nice as I recalled, and I enjoyed the shutter feel and sound more than the GF1. All in all, for daytime shooting, the two cameras were more or less the same. Both are less than instantaneous when shooting, with the shutter lag and focusing issues. The GF1 has the useful ability to sleep and wake up at a moment’s notice, something I haven’t figured out how to do with the EP1, which has to stretch and yawn before bothering to take a shot. The battery life is also less impressive than the GF1, though the batteries are smaller as well.

Shooting at night, however, brought the EP1’s true strengths into play. On the pitiful LCD I couldn’t see much, but once I zoomed in, I was astounded: The combination of the IBIS, the f1.7 aperture, and Olympus’ noise reduction algorithm let me get a surprising amount of sharp shots all the way down to a quarter of a second. The subjects’ motion is blurred, but the environment is tack-sharp. The stabilization works on all lenses, including the wide zoom as well as my Leica summicrons, and though manual focusing on the terrible LCD is a hit-and-miss affair, the EP1 produces more usable shots with the legacy lenses at night than I got using the GF1; even at f2, they just weren’t bright enough to get decent shutter speeds without IBIS.

Is it too late in the game for such contemplation? I’m not sure; as beautiful as it may be, Fuji’s upcoming X100 will not have optical image stabilization that I know of. It will also be restricted to a fixed focal length, and I like my wide-angle shots, especially in as dense and crowded city as Taipei. So far, only the m43 cameras provide a large-sensor compact with useful interchangeable lenses. Sony’s NEX series is an operational nightmare with no useful pancake lenses available yet, and Samsung’s sensor hasn’t proven to be a strong performer. Things might change as other brands move into the market, but for now, that’s the way it is.

In the end, I bought Brian’s old EP1. I couldn’t justify buying a new one or the even costlier EP2 so late in the product cycle, but the battered little camera, with its nocturnal superpowers and chunky shutter, has earned its place in my backpack.

I’m just finishing up the last edit of the English-language version of my book detailing my time in the army, so I thought it would be appropriate to go down to the place where I spent the majority of my military career, Da Ping Ding in Miaoli, to take a look around. Chenbl and I set out on a 9 a.m. train; the once-mighty Ziqiang Express seemed old-fashioned and lackadaisical in comparison with the ultra-modern bullet train system, but the bullet train does not stop in Miaoli. A typhoon was on its way, but I was banking that Saturday would be tolerable, weather-wise.

We got off at the station, which seems to be at the edge of town, far off from the little downtown area. Miaoli is comprised basically of two parallel streets. Back in the day, the Miaoli buses heading up the mountain towards Sanyi left frequently, but now only the Hsinchu buses seem to leave with any regularity. We got on one and creaked across town; it was just the two of us until we stopped at the bus station in the real downtown to pick up passengers.

Up the mountain, to Shangnanshi. The base, though long abandoned, was still standing and covered with dense foliage. The last time I was up there civilian guards had been posted at the gates, with motion sensors set up inside, so after getting off the bus we headed for the East Base’s back gate, where I knew of a few places one could sneak in. The holes in the perimeter were still there, but the areas just inside were so overgrown that we had to hack our way through some pretty thick trees and vines to get to the main base road.

Once inside, I was momentarily disoriented at the sight of the shell of a building, all the windows gone and the ceiling tiles hanging down. Then I realized that it was the old Guard Company mess hall, and that I’d even had my picture taken standing in front of it. Just behind it was the cliff from which I’d enjoyed the view over the valley below when I got a break from washing dishes after meals.

I was wary of guards and stray dogs, often stopping to shush Chenbl’s usual incessant commentary; he was convinced nobody was around, but I wasn’t so sure. We walked past familiar buildings and signs to the Guard Company barracks, the quads in between buildings covered in dense, jungle-like overgrowth, the windows gone and the rooms empty. I found the place I’d lived in so long ago and sat on the spot where my old bunk was, remembering what it was like to sleep there, with only ceiling fans to keep cool in the summer heat. We’d spent the onslaught of Typhoon Herb there, and back then I wondered what the base would look like after it had been abandoned. Now I know.

The Guard Company faced the East Base’s parade grounds, which is now waist-high in weeds. We walked over to the Division HQ building that spooked me out on several occasions when I had to stand guard there at night and listen to the ghosts. Chenbl, ever sensitive to such things, said he felt dizzy and insisted on apologizing to any spirits who might be offended at our presence.

After making a round of the entire East Base, I began to suspect that there was actually nobody around. We passed female officers’ quarters, something that I’d never encountered when I was there. Back at the Guard Company, I kept noticing places where various things had happened; I felt like I was in a time travel novel, visiting ancient ruins where I once lived.

We snuck out a hold near the side gate where I’d waited in line so many time to get in and out of the base, and then across the road to the West Base, where we fought through another mass of brambles and thorns to the main armory. Some dogs noticed us and began barking, and though nobody appeared, I walked quickly ahead to the rear part of the base where the Regiment HQ was located. A seemingly flightless white pigeon strutted up and down the leaf-covered road as black clouds began to cover the sky. The silence and emptiness were eerie. Vines and bushes had invaded some of the buildings. Even the motion sensors were gone, though the plastic shells of some could still be seen here and there.

I showed Chenbl the RHQ barracks and the base karaoke that I’d managed. The floor I’d spent so much time mopping was covered with dirt, as is the spider-infested bar where I’d picked laserdiscs of songs for various officers to sing. Rain began to pelt down, and we took refuge in the RHQ rec room while we got our umbrellas out, and then followed the base ring road to the main gate, which felt a little strange in that we usually ran around it going the other way. When I turned around, it seemed much more familiar. There used to be an old guy manning the main gate, but I figured it wouldn’t matter by that time if we got thrown out.

Nobody was there. Chenbl took my picture in front of the rapid response unit barracks as well as at the main gate guard post where I’d stood guard. The old Chiang Kai-shek statue is still there, with the old green man waving his hat and smiling at the empty, unmanned gate in front of the overgrown parade grounds. After I got my fill of pictures and just standing around lost in various reveries, we walked out the gate and down the road to catch the bus to Tongluo, where we had some unimpressive Hakka noodles for lunch. Chenbl asked an old woman if there was anything interesting around, but after I took her picture, she yelled, “I give you directions and then you take unflattering pictures of me? How dare you?” But we were already walking away, past thick green rice fields waving in the wind like a big bedspread. We stopped to walk with a woman hurriedly harvesting a small garden before the storm hit, and then visited an old hospital from the Japanese area, a two-story wooden building with blue trimming. The original doctor’s son lives there now, by himself, and he came out to tell us a bit around the place.

We took the electric train back to Miaoli Station. By that time it was around 5:30 p.m. which was normally about the time I would get there when I had leave and wanted to go up to Taipei, so I experienced a little willing cognitive dissonance, imagining that it was still 1996 and I’d just come down from the base, ready for a weekend on the town. Then I pulled out my iPhone and ruined the atmosphere.

We got back to Taipei around 8 p.m. and proceeded to the Taipei Artists Village, where Thumper was holding his 20th arriversary, i.e. 20 years since he came to Taiwan. We were the first to show up; Jason was setting up the barbeque, and I fashioned a string for the washtub bass from one of the bar decorations. Other people began showing up, and as usual, the more people inhabit a room, the less I feel like talking. I walked between people, taking pictures and munching on the excellent food (except for the undercooked potatoes), until my upstairs neighbor Brent started the evening’s musical entertainment. The bass lasted about two songs before the string broke, but I wasn’t in much of a mood for the bass anyway and declined David’s offer of fiber-optic wire as a replacement (it was too slippery and cut my hand when I tried to tie it). The pocket trumpet called to me, however, although not many of the songs really suited it, though Conor rope me into a 12-bar blues set.

By around 2 or 3 a.m. many people had already gone; only a few of us were left. I shuffled around the edges of the room, playing freestyle licks here and there. Rodney was doing something on the drums, and Lany was playing around with some guitar stuff. Somehow, we all just synced up and Lo! a pretty cool jam ensued. But I was tired, and when Brent said he was leaving, I took him up on his offer of a ride back through the growing storm. It would save me a trip across the galloping Bitan bridge, anyway.

About a week ago, I was invited to give a talk at a symposium on the theme of “Future Classics” by an local arts group. I thought about the subject a bit and came up with a Powerpoint presentation, which I presented at the symposium this morning at the Huashan Arts Village, along with three other participants. The seats were full and I was a little nervous, a situation that wasn’t helped by the fact that I had to keep turning back and forth between the audience and the big projected screen to try and stay on track. I’m afraid I repeated myself a bit too often as I stuttered and mumbled my way through the thing, but hopefully I got at least some of my observations across. After the presentations audience members asked some questions. Someone asked me what subjects are best in black and white and which are suitable for color. I answered that it’s not the subjects that are black and white or color, it’s your mood and thoughts that dictate such things.There were some people from Treasure Hill there, and it was interesting to hear their views on the whole thing, especially as it’s going to open once again to the public on October 2. After the event was over, some of us, including Andrew, with whom I played on stage at Hohaiyan a few years ago, and the organizers and other artists in several field went to Alleycats for pizza and caprese. It was good to meet so many people involved in the arts scene here; it feels more vibrant than before, more inclusive, but that could just be the pizza talking. After lunch I walked around the various design showcases, some of which were quite ingenious, and noted all of the vintage camera/character hat combos that my friend Persimmonous likes to point out. Micro 4/3 and NEX cameras were out in force as well.

What Taipei do you see? What city will we remember? What will we regret losing? What is worth preserving, and how should this be done? We cannot dictate such things; we can only do what we think is worth preserving; the actual preservation will be up to subsequent generations. People have to want it; the government lacks the capacity to decide, it only has the authority to enforce the people’s decisions.

The city is huge and dense in scale and the number of connections flashing through the infinite mix of ingredients. The subtleties were hard to capture with the big, expensive, slow cameras of the past, but today there is no such excuse. Why is it that people who live here are so blind to the world around them that, even though they have a marvelous camera with them 24 hours a day, they cannot find a single interesting thing to photograph? I can’t speak for them, only myself; I preserve small things that are large in my thoughts. Small, solid things that have large abstract significance. Taipei is a dense, complicated maze where personal lives spill out from private spaces through the “veranda culture” and onto the streets for all to ignore. But it’s still there for those who choose to look. Photography isn’t just what you see, it’s how you see. In a way, it’s you.

So why are cameras so popular these days? Not just because they allow the sharing of visions, the creation of multiple, exponential versions of our world to explore; they also allow us to see the world through the eyes of others. You can’t see everything, but you can see a lot of things, more than you ever would have before, no matter how encompassing your vision may be. No matter how empathic you may be, you cannot see everything the way someone else does.

Do you only notice buildings when they are being torn down, or only after they’re gone? We have evolved to notice new things, different things, to give them a level of appreciation we do not give things with which we are familiar. The familiar is the safe, things that have proven themselves not dangerous through the fact of not having been dangerous in the past. The new and the shiny get the attention of our animal brains in order to assess whether they are a threat and what changes their appearance may have in store for us and our lives. Even the old, when resurfacing from forgetfulness, becomes new and interesting again.

And yet some old things persist in grabbing our attention each time we see them, often more and more as the years go by. Perhaps we see them with the same comfortable feeling the familiar caves of our ancestors imparted. But it is also possible that these things, these “classics” arouse inside of us some feeling of a higher purpose, reflecting the way we see ourselves. They flatter us into thinking we are more than we seem, in the way that they resist time and forgetfulness, as we ourselves aspire to do.

So what about a particular photograph calls to us through the years? It may just be a simple vanished scene, or it may also be the capture of a vanished moment or emotion from another world, something small and meaningful then, but exponentially more so now. How it will fare the test of time is difficult to judge. But one thing photography tells is how others see the world. People see different things. Some people see the future, some the past. Some see emotions, some see patterns. Only through photography can we obtain a view deeper than our own, perhaps realizing not only what we are missing, but what we have missed in the past, and what we will miss in the future. Photography encompasses all of these, and lets us see beyond the superficial, to see what we truly value, to see ourselves not only as we are, but as we aspire to be.

These things aren’t created by photography; it does show us, however, that they exist. Much of photography is about drawing attention to things that are ordinarily invisible, moments that go unnoticed, details that escape us. Photography, one of the few time machines available to us, is also a useful tool in allowing us to gauge the changing context of such things, fixing moments in time that call attention to massive changes, be they in architecture or social trends or just the way people deal with each other, that escaped our notice because they happened too gradually. Larger trends, the big picture, so to speak, appears through the details. The city itself becomes knowable, even familiar, in the space of a moment in a small corner.

All of this requires a lens through which to see. And in seeing this, you not only see the city, you see its value, or at least the photographer’s evaluation of its value, in the context he or she provides. In that way, you also see the photographer.

It’s time to simplify things around here. During the Great Blogging Trend of the last few years, I allowed things to get out of hand, planting separate blogs for all sorts of things. Well. I hardly write in any of them any more. The tuishou blog quickly became repetitive, and the film blog stopped when the film did. Now it’s been completely hacked and isn’t even approachable without a hazmat suit.

I haven’t written in the Chinese blog in a while, and this account has dwindled appreciably in recent months (years) as well. Why? I can’t tell you, for the same reasons I haven’t been writing much lately. In a nutshell, I’m stuck. Lord, I’m stuck in so many ways, it’s not even funny. This and that and the other…all stuck. And before you reach for the email button to fire off a missive to me reading something like: “It’s not MY fault you’re stuck on this/that/other thing!”…relax. I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about someone else and something else. And if you’re thinking of writing something like “It’s because you’re in Taiwan that all of these problems exist!”…yes, mother, I’ll move elsewhere and everything will be magically right, even though I will lose my jobs, steady income, health insurance, house and any friends I’ve made here. Right.

What was I talking about? Oh, yes: Simplification. I don’t need all of these blogs and other things. Just one, or maybe two in case I want to separate the languages, but really just one thing. A simple, clean, elegant template will suffice. Possibly black text on a neutral background. I should probably update my ancient version of WordPress as well, if I could just figure out how to do that without erasing everything in the process (my version of WordPress is so old that it precedes the auto-update function…joy).

I also really need a vacation. Our little musical jaunts around the island have been fine, but I require something with a little more oomph, involving a new place to explore on my own, just walking around and seeing what’s what, and contemplating various things at my leisure. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be likely to happen under my presently overly adhesive circumstances, barring some kind of beer-stealing, jetslide-activating outburst, to coin a meme.

People can be very possessive of their right and ability to define themselves, to be the sole arbiter of the world’s official view of them as a person, a view more desperately clung to the more insecure that person is and one more in danger of violation since the advent of ubiquitous social networking on the Internet.

Many people are confident enough in their appearance and the contexts of their lives to withstand such a challenge, but many more may not be so willing to see their image. We go through our lives not seeing ourselves as we are. Aside from the occasional mirror, we don’t even feature in our own world view; out of sight is out of mind, and our own appearance, once set in the morning before we leave the house, is simply not on the radar for many people. This isn’t a concern for some, but others may be, consciously or subconsciously, aware that they aren’t quite the person they want to be seen as, even perhaps obsessing over this gap in reality. The self they see in their minds is different from the self that others see, and since they don’t see themselves, the mind-self, the “residual self image” that Morpheus mentions in The Matrix where everyone looks cooler in their minds than in reality, takes precedence. For some people, this is the only way they get through the day, through their lives.

Even the most insecure of people cannot present the perfect outward appearance they seek to project all the time, however, so when you or I come by with a camera and just, without any warning, redefine them by our own criteria, seemingly merely by their happenstance appearance at the time, setting it in stone with concrete photographic evidence, it could seem like we did infringe upon something deeply held and personal. Suddenly, their real appearance bursts into reality in a way no accidentally caught glimpse in a reflective surface could, for this is a mirror that everyone is looking at. A video image may not show the sordid details, lost in a blur of movement, but an image won’t fail in this respect. And unlike a video, an image won’t end, letting us go back to our carefully modeled perceptions.

I don’t write here very often these days, obviously. Most of my scattered thoughts can be communicated through Twitter and Facebook, and though I don’t keep up with the site’s statistics, I suspect that viewership has largely disappeared as anything over 140 characters is now officially “long-winded.” But I still like to write, so although I feel that the whole blogging thing has run its course, those of us who began before everyone had a blog will most likely continue after it has become obsolete. Hard to believe I’ve been doing it for almost a decade.

It is another brilliant Monday following a rainy weekend. I’ve been trying to get a photobook project together recently, just a quick and dirty trial run for something more serious later on. I’ve also been getting feedback from some friends on my army book, which, after a bit more revision based on their feedback, should be ready to shop around. I rehearsed with Noname Yu and his band the other night, as he wanted some brass backing for some of his songs. I’m not sure how that’s working. I also watched the movie again for the first time since I finished editing it in 2008. I’d meant to just take a quick look and ended up watching the whole thing.

Today during my lunch break I was wandering around the site of the old Beef Noodle Street near Xining Road. As I ruminated on the sad state of affairs there, with only a couple of tarpon-festooned stalls hidden in the deep shadows under the thick banyan trees, I came across a team of workers emptying an old Japanese-era house of the several tons of detritus that had filled it over the decades. Old dishes, clothing, pillows, furniture, all being carted out into the street. I looked down at a book on history with a cover that might once have been blue, and wondered who had owned it, who’d read it, who’d bought it at a bookstore and carried it home to put on their bookshelf. I thought of the books in my apartment; perhaps someday the book of Magnum photos I got the other day at Eslite will end up in a trashheap somewhere as well.

Yes, I’ve been a bit depressed lately. No doubt the weather, the changing of the seasons, has something to do with it. Relationship troubles as well, on which I won’t go into further detail here. I feel like I need a break, to go somewhere to recover, perhaps another sea voyage. I read recently of a ship, the Cosco Star, that plies the route from Keelung to Xiamen. It’s been a while since I explored a new place on my own.

But it will have to wait a bit longer; I’ve got too much going on at the moment.