Invitation to the London Festival of Photography

Some of my photos are going to be shown at the London Festival of Photography as part of our Burn My Eye exhibition starting on June 1. I wasn’t planning to go originally, as I just got back from Korea not long ago and have already used up most of my vacation time, funds and the goodwill of my various bosses, but then I thought, hey, I’ve never been to the UK, and this probably a much better excuse than I could ever come up with on my own, so why not take advantage of it?

So I managed to find some cheap tickets on a mainland Chinese airline that stops over in Shanghai, booked a cheap hotel in London that hopefully includes a bathroom of my own and isn’t right above a discotheque or whatever they have there for dancing purposes, and of course I’ve reserved a place on the Harry Potter tour (ooh I hope I’m in Slytherin!) for the end of May/beginning of July. The exhibit runs for the entire month of June, but I’ll be leaving London on the 2nd, so just enough time to pop in and see anyone who has wandered into the gallery by mistake and hasn’t figured out that it’s not an artsy bed & breakfast.

Just kidding. I’m honored to be part of this, as well as the BME collective, which features some very fine photographer, many of whom will be attending, and I look forward to meeting them as well as seeing a bit of the city during my time there, maybe even taking a snapshot or two if that sort of thing is still allowed there.

Since my exhibit at the Dihua gallery, I’ve been trying to be a more active participant in Taipei’s photography circles.  As most of the local contests are more or less rigged to favor various institutes’ students and/or Important People, and “photowalks”, while fun, are little more than social occasions where everyone is wearing a camera of some kind, i.e. a normal social occasion these days, I’ve been looking up other events and activities that will give me a better view of what’s really going on.

One of these was a two-part lecture series at the new Taipei Photography Center in Beitou entitled “City Life Under the Lens -A Century of Taipei”. The symposiums were held on the second floor of the space, above the high-ceilinged gallery on the first floor. It was a beautiful February day, unfortunately a work make-up day, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit ashamed at my urge to be outside exploring the light in various alleyways instead of sitting in a meeting room. But I told myself that this was a rare chance to hear individuals from the old guard, the so-called “masters of photography” from Taiwan’s “golden age” talk on the subject.

The event was MC’d by Zhuang Ling, a thin older man whom I’d met at a photo award ceremony in the Xinyi District a while ago. He told us how, back in the day, only journalists and the very rich could afford to buy a camera, which back then cost more than a house, totally unlike the cameras of today, Leica’s incredibly expensive M9 notwithstanding.

The speakers included Huang Bo-ji, Jian Yong-bin and Huang Zi-ming of the China Times. The latter was operating a notebook computer displaying slides on a projector screen to accompany the various speakers with their works.

In my limited experience, this kind of thing, if not done well, frequently turns into a “Here are my wonderful photos, and here’s when we went to Disneyland” kind of thing, and while there was a bit of that, there was some really lovely work on display. One shot in particular by Huang Bo-ji is one of my all-time favorites. I asked him how he came to take it, and he said he was crossing a bridge in Sanchong and saw the two boys playing in front of a theater, whereupon he noted the “Blind Swordsman” poster and took a shot when the boys doubled the pose on the poster. I can’t deny part of the appeal of the shot for me is the fact that I love those (Zatoichi) movies.

All of the speakers were enthusiastic and friendly, though they skirted my questions about candid photography. The action peaked during the Q&A session afterwards when a middle-aged man stood up and pointed at the row of speakers: “All you old guys have had an iron grip on photography circles in Taiwan for decades! You control the contests and who gets seen! How can anyone else get anywhere?” he charged. I had been about to bail, but I stayed to hear the answers to this.

All of the participants took the time to answer and made useful suggestions and reports on the progress they’ve made with the photography center and other spaces, while avoiding any appearance of conflict without admitting the fact that the upper echelon of the photographic circles is actually quite small and not all that productive these days. The man had I point, I felt, though he didn’t make in the most graceful fashion. I’ve often wondered why Taiwan doesn’t really have any representative photographers, and he hit on at least part of the answer.

The second part of the talks was held in early March, again on a work make-up day requiring me to take another day off work, and also featuring nice weather. The speakers were Wang Zhi-hong, Du Zhi-gang, Qi Bo-lin and Chen Bo-yi. I knew Chen Bo-yi from an exhibit at the 1839 Gallery last year, when he was featuring a student’s Trees At Night photography.  A similar discussion ensued, this time focusing a bit more on the artistic aspects of photography thanks to Chen Bo-yi, who often promotes art students whom he feels have potential. I asked Du Zhi-gang, who was in the middle of a project photographing new army recruits, if things had changed much since he himself was in the army. This prompted an inordinate amount of laughter, surprising me. Du then told me that he hadn’t actually served; apparently the others knew this, thus the laughter. A rotund older man with an original Olympus Pen hanging around his neck raised his hand, but instead of asking any questions, he began listing all the famous photographers he’d hung out with over the years, concluding with his opinion that only film cameras were any good in inclement weather, though he peered at my GF1 with great interest.

Not long after that, I went over to the Chi-wen Gallery, formerly MOMA Taipei, off of Dunhua Road to see Chang Chien-chi’s recent work on Burma. It’s a tiny space, actually, on the second floor across a classy bridge, but still tiny, with only a handful of small prints on the walls. Chang, Magnum’s only Taiwanese member, was sitting restlessly in the corner amid trays of finger food and cheap wine.  He spends most of his time abroad, it seems, and said he feels like he lives on airplanes more often than not these days. He seemed irritated, not just at his assistant’s schedule reminders, but just at being there at all. “I don’t like this kind of thing,” he said.

“I know, I far prefer just wandering and shooting whatever I come upon, myself,” I said, and he nodded vigorously. More people showed up, and the tiny space was becoming quite crowded. Sean Scanlon and Dave Frasier arrived, both acquaintances of Chang’s, but while I got a greeting out of Sean, Dave ignored me completely, no mean feat as nobody was more than two feet apart. Then again, I’m used to being invisible, especially at parties. After talking with Shen Zhao-liang’s printer about various types of ink, binding, paper, etc., I decided not to go to the accompanying Gongguan exhibit where Chang was being reluctantly ushered, telling Dave to grab his tripod on the way out the door. I wondered if that was some kind of code.

I plan to continue to attend these kinds of events, though they have ranged from snobbishly arty parties to one “lecture” that really was just a guy with a slideshow of fairly boring landscape shots listing various vantage points. However, it seems that within all of this there is lately a genuine effort to add some direction to the photographic community here, even if most of it is either drippy HDR waterfall tutorials or such abstract, over-processed art that is only tangentially related to photography. I do hope that a way of allowing more insightful and meaningful work to float to the surface can be found and implemented, but until that time, places like flickr will remain my main window on the various worlds of photography.

I’ve started another site (“Oh no, not another one!” you’re no doubt saying. But I’m just carrraaazzy that way). It’s called From my cave and it’s just photos that I take with my phone here and there, shots I don’t really want to bother with on my computer, things that I happen to see for which my usual cameras, for whatever reason, aren’t suitable. No text or commentary, just the snaps.  Uploading phone shots to my flickr account always seemed wrong somehow, and of course Facebook is just a walled garden, so I figured there might just be a use for this tumblr thingy after all.

Anyway, enjoy (if that’s your thing).

A photographer friend of mine recently expressed his desire to borrow my Olympus m43 9-18mm lens. I knew that he was one of the first people in Taiwan to have bought Fuji’s recent compact rangfinderesque X100, so I bargained a temporary trade.

Now, I must have read more about this camera than any other; long exhaustive rants have been written from everyone and their dog, many of whom haven’t even used the thing, and, inexplicably, many of them exhibit a surprising degree of negative emotion, even personal effrontery, at this device. I’d only played with it at the store before, so I could only guess the reason for this phenomenon, but after a week of shooting and looking at the files on my computer, I think I’ve gleaned a fair understanding of it.

This is definitely a camera that requires understanding; it is not a point-and-shoot. It will give you what you want, but only on the condition that you know what you want in the first place. I started out missing exposures because I wasn’t used to the camera, but soon enough I got back into the habit of keeping the settings where they should be, back into the rhythm of adjusting the aperture and shutter speed according to whatever light I happened to encounter. The X100′s controls make this not only easy and obvious, as the physical controls are right there on the camera, no menus required, but even pleasurable, as the machinery is smooth and satisfying to the touch. The leaf shutter is so silent I had to engage the fake shutter sound at its quietest setting just to know I had taken a shot. After setting it how I wanted in the menus, however, I had no further need to delve into that system.

The optical viewfinder was a revelation. It shouldn’t have been, as the Invincible Rabbit (5D2) also has a nice optical viewfinder, but suddenly not only was I using a small camera, I was also able to see outside the framelines and read people’s expressions through the viewfinder, something I find impossible looking at the screen on the back or even using the high-resolution electronic viewfinder. The only time I used the latter was for the occasional macro shot. I had no more excuses for not seeing everything in the frame and what was going on just outside of it.

During the daytime in good light I would often use zone focusing, which worked fine, though sometimes there seemed to be a hint of shutter lag. Autofocus worked well enough, about as well as the GF1, or the Rabbit at night. If I had the shutter half pressed beforehand, the shot would be instantaneous, but if I didn’t, there would be a bit of lag. It wasn’t worse than my other cameras (except for my M6, obviously, which is actually instantaneous). I relied on AF at night, and it went ok, as well or even better than the other cameras. Manual focusing was possible via the slider at the bottom of the screen, but what was in focus wasn’t immediately apparent on the EVF. I was surprised at how fast the ring moved the focus, however. If I moved it quickly, it went from one end to the other quite quickly as well. I wasn’t expecting that after all the negative reports I’d read. Granted, it’s no M9, but that camera is by virtue of its price effectively unavailable to most people, so a comparison is pointless in more ways than one.

All in all, shooting with the X100 is a pleasure. It’s light and sits well on a strap or in the hand. The feel of the settings, of the shutter, the quiet operation, all make the experience quite enjoyable once you get into the old pre-digital mindset before P mode became available. P mode is there if you need it, of course; all you have to do is set both shutter speed and aperture dials to A and you’re good. But that is not what this camera is about. This camera is about giving you exactly what you want, no more and no less.

This is evident when looking at the files. Some shots are not exposed correctly or out of focus, for the most part reflecting errors in judgment on my part. These became scarcer as I got used to the camera. Though I was shooting in RAW format, there is not a terribly large margin for error, though more shadow recovery was available than highlight recovery. I shot on auto ISO set to 200-3200, and properly exposed shots were mostly smooth and clean. Try “rescuing” poorly exposed shots in Lightroom, however, and you’re out of luck.

When you get it right, though, the results are lovely, often bordering on the low-ISO shots I revered from the DP1. The lens draws nicely at all apertures, rendering tack-sharp images with pleasant bokeh. There’s no hit-or-miss here, though; the camera does what you tell it to, no less and no more.

And this, I think, is one of the main sources of the vitriol I’ve seen being spewed by many on the Internet, including the subject of one of my recent posts, Scott Kelby, who derided the camera for not doing what he felt it should do. As more of a photoshopper than a photographer, it makes perfect sense that Kelby would have such an opinion, though the immature spectacle of his presentation isn’t really necessary.

Perhaps because of appearances, cameras like this seem to appeal most to the would-be creative photographer; people have visions of it somehow improving their photography with its simplicity, but in reality it is more like a mirror (despite it lacking one), and mirrors can be devastating if you’ve spent a great deal of time and effort convincing yourself that you look differently than you actually do, and it seems that the Internet has enabled us more and more in recent years to do just that, not just photographically but in many other ways.

I should point out that most people who have usability issues with the X100 are reasonable and logical about this camera’s shortcomings with regard to other cameras; it’s just not what they want, or it doesn’t suit their style of shooting. Fair enough, and more power to them, I say. The people who seem to have to most vitriolic reactions to this camera, however, seem to be the ones who imagine themselves as the type of photographer who should enjoy using it, but in reality aren’t. They have an image of themselves as knowing exactly what they want, right down to the f-stop and shutter speed of each shot, of looking out of the frame lines and anticipating wonderful street photography, effortlessly showcasing their genius…and all in such an attractive package!

But then the images are crap. How can this be? The reality is that they’re just not that type of photographer, but rather than admitting this and attempting to learn more, or simply using a camera more suited to their needs, they accuse the camera of some kind of horribly personal betrayal, which is kind of strange as it’s just a hunk of machinery. The problem, of course, isn’t with the camera, but that they simply aren’t that kind of photographer, no matter how much they wish to be so regarded.

This seems to be a difficult mirror to behold. And no wonder: The electronics industry as well as the entirety of massive websites such as DPreview.com are dedicated to the idea that “it’s the camera, not you”. The amount of verbiage that goes into these things could, and no doubt has to some degree, spawned a psychiatrist’s dream of photographic insecurities, all of which, they promise, can be solved with the newest, the latest and greatest camera. But ironically, the more the camera “helps” us in that goal, it’s the camera that is approaching this ideal; we ourselves are even further from it.

But this is all getting a bit abstract, so I’ll just say this: The X100 may not have a mirror, but it does its job well enough.

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.

TOKYO-GA Charity Photo Book by Tokyo-ga

After the horrific earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March, a bunch of photographers, including myself, got together and made a photography book to help out. There is some stunningly good work in here, so it would be a good value even without all the charity stuff.

website: www.tokyogaga.com/
book page: www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2243940
book preview: www.blurb.com/books/2243940

My photo exhibit at 127 Dihua Street wrapped up yesterday. Chenbl and I met some friends of ours there around noon and took them to Bolero, the original Western restaurant in Taipei, where we had some delicious steak in the place’s 60’s-era atmosphere. Seriously, if Xiao Guo hadn’t been playing with his iPhone, the illusion that it was still 1965 would have been complete.

After lunch we walked back to the gallery, where the other members of the Muddy Basin Ramblers were assembling for some practice before our 4pm show. We had an audience out back in the courtyard, so it was kind of a show in itself, though we kept stopping and correcting things, and played some songs for the first time ever. It was good to be playing again with the old crowd, though Conor’s back in Blighty at the mo. In his absence, we had a couple of musicians filling in; I taught one of them how to play the washtub bass for the horn songs.

I’d been wondering what to do with the photos after the exhibition ended, and the owner of the café behind the gallery provided me with an answer; he said he wanted to display them on the walls there. Neat.

A lot of people came for the last day. I have to say that the whole experience has been extremely gratifying, especially being able to observe people’s reactions to and discussion of the photos, rather than just reading the occasional “Nice capture!” on Flickr. The large prints really let the details of the photos come across, and the combination of being able to see such details at the same time as the entire composition impressed me with its impact relative to viewing on a computer monitor. A professor from the Arts University in Guandu even asked me last night if I would like to give a photography lecture for the students there, and some publishers have talked to me about books.

But even when nobody was there, say on cold, rainy weekdays, I found it immensely comforting to just sit in the gallery on my lunch break and listen to the music and sounds of the surroundings. It’s just a great space in a fascinating old area, and we also hope to practice and play there more in the future.

We decided to move out to the street front for our 4pm show, and the response was tremendous. We attracted a large crowd immediately, and there were literally people dancing in the street. We invited the dancers to dance in front of us to avoid an accident. Our CDs sold out halfway through the show. It was truly a rip-roaring good time, something I really needed to help knock me out of the cold rift in which I was stuck.

We ended up at Yipin on Minsheng West Road for a dinner of beef rolls and yummy fried rice, and then it was back to 127 for a party in the upstairs gallery to celebrate the success of the exhibit. All of the artists involved were there, and we gave each other gifts and talked about the experiences. David, Slim and some of the other musicians started playing some tunes, and I joined in on bass while the other listened and talked.

I was loath to leave as things wound down that evening. I waved goodbye to David, Slim and the others as they hauled their instruments up Dihua Street towards the subway, and the others were busy pulling things down. I took a last stroll around the downstairs galleries, sitting in the giant onion for a spell. I was exhausted but happy. It’s been a great experience with a great group of people, and I hope we can do more together in the future.

Yesterday was the grand opening of my first formal photography exhibition at an art gallery on Dihua Street, a traditional area of old Taipei lined with fascinating restored buildings from back in the days when goods came down the river to unload there. The gallery is next door to some of the only original three-story buildings on the street, so my guess is that was the center of things during the area’s heydays almost a hundred years ago.

Chenbl and I had spent hours hanging the photos and putting up lights, etc. the night before, so I was fairly exhausted by the time I hauled all my instruments onto the MRT and off again at the new Daqiaotou Station, which is nearest to Dihua Street. Lots of people were already there, including several artists hastily working on last-minute adjustments to their exhibits downstairs. My show is on the second floor, and I found Chenbl sitting on one of the stools, traditional Taiwanese music playing on a small MP3 player. The effect was very nice.

I’d forgotten that the stick I used to play washtub bass was still at Bobwundaye’s, so David Chen and I walked over to a shop on the next street over, and found a shovel handle that the owner was happy to drill a hole in. NT$80. Behold, the wonderfully cheap accessibility to washtub bass materials. Make your own! Back at the gallery, we set up in the courtyard out back. Several of my friends from Taipei’s bear community showed up in support, which was nice to see, and some folks from Forumosa, flickr and Facebook came as well. It was all very gratifying.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers were in our element playing unplugged in the courtyard, free to move around and interact with the crowd. It was a lot of fun, though I’m a bit rusty after not playing for so long (I missed the Blues Bash due to a scheduling mixup that was entirely my fault…I was in Hong Kong at the time).

People seemed to enjoy the photos; more importantly, I was pleased to see people, strangers I didn’t know, pointing and discussing various elements of the photos. It will be up for a month, so if you have time, go take a look. The gallery closes at 5 p.m. however.

There was a meeting of the gallery folk, who were discussing a project for Treasure Hill, some kind of lighting thing, so I missed dinner with the rest of the band, unfortunately. I tried to hang around and talk to people. Many were surprised that so many of the shots were taken with compact cameras; the GF1 is well-represented, and some were even taken with the tiny LX3.

I shared a cab with David and Robyn. Back in Bitan again. What a day. Thanks to everyone who came.

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.