My good friend, Kevin Burdick, lives in Los Angeles.  I was out in LA to shoot a baby portrait and stopped in to see him.  Kevin is a musician and lives with a bunch of talented people.  Tim Nichols (another friend from my college days) is a screen writer and Dale Spollett (who I met that day) is a comedian.  So, you can imagine that this group of guys will do anything to ham it up in front of a camera.  I had my camera, so what else would a photographer and three attention grabbing performers do…

Writer - Tim Nichols, Comedian - Dale Spollett and Musician - Kevin Burdick pose for a photo outside the workshop at their Los Angeles estate.

Always looking for textures, lines, frames and interesting settings, this workshop in the Tim’s back yard caught my eye.  Everywhere you look there is something interesting.  Tim is framed nicely in the door, notice a saw blade hanging above his head, just for a little added interest.  I love the white paint that has been tested on the left, but never finished.  And the rakes, ladders and barrels leaning against the wall are very useful in adding angles, leading lines and additional frame edges.  It is also worth noting the way the frame interacts closely, but not too closely to all of these objects in the photograph.  You can make this set up!  Truth is better than fiction…

Kevin Burdick and Dale Spollett in a loose tribute to American Gothic...

Dale Spollett in the moment. Dale is, himself, and interesting set of textures.

I love the way the barn fades as it recesses into the background. Who would think we are in LA?

Photographing a group of creative performers is an a completely different animal all together.  No longer, are you attempting to pull expressions out of your subject, but rather you gear up and hang on for the ride.  They move through ideas, expressions and moments pretty fast.  Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, but you just have to be ready to capture it all.

Dave Spollett waits for his food at the California Chicken Company. It was a crowded place. "They'll find us," he says.

The streets in Hong Kong are littered with signs and crowded with people. It was like nothing I have ever seen.

This is my first Blog on the new and improved Jared Platt Photo Blog.  I am thrilled to have it launched and will be adding to it regularly, so put it in your reader because I am going to be adding some great stuff here.

The city of Hong Kong at Night from Victoria Peek is breath taking. Especially if you try to hike there.

I just got back from China where we shot a wedding, from which I will post some images soon.  The wedding was in Hong Kong, which is a very interesting city.  I have never seen anything like it in my life.  It is very tall and very big.  The city is built on a series of islands which are full of hills and mountains, so the city feels a bit like a mix of New York in San Francisco.  It is full of very tall buildings that spill down the hills and to the edge of the water and in many cases, they have reclaimed land from the ocean to expand the city.  The entire airport is a man-made island.

The entire city is marked in Chinese and English, including the traffic directions. This was fortunate, since neither of us can read any thing Chinese. Although I was taught the symbol for the numbers 1, 2 and 3. That's it. That is the extent of my knowledge of Chinese characters.

The subway system in Hong Kong is the cleanest I have ever seen.

An open air market butcher in Hong Kong prepares his meat.

An old man walks his bicycle through the streets of Hong Kong.

The city is very safe and very clean. It has the cleanest subway system I have ever seen and everything is high tech.  And yet, as you walk through the packed streets of the city, there is a distinct look and feel that is unquestionably China.  Chinese characters adorn the hanging signs that litter the sky between the buildings and the city markets are full of open air stalls with raw fish and beef and smells that can only be Asian foods and spices.

A fisherman returns home to the small fishing village of Tung Chung with his catch. When he tied off at the dock, I saw that he was very old, most likely older than my grandfather was before he died. As I helped him pull in to the shore and onto the dock, I realized he had caught only four fish. Perhaps it was simply dinner for the family. But I spoke no Chinese and he spoke no English, so I am left to speculation as to his story.

The small fishing village in Tung Chung sleeps in the shadow of over 20 sky-rise apartments buildings. The clash between the two is quite an extreme.

Because real estate is so expensive, clusters of sky-rise apartment buildings are placed wherever there is space. Here the fishing village of Tung Chung in the bottom left of the photograph is overshadowed by this set of newer apartment buildings.

A boat docked at someone's home in Tung Chung village.

I was fascinated by the textures throughout the fishing village. Even a simple canvas draped over the rails of a fishing boat were worth a photograph.

As I walked through Hong Kong, I could not help but enjoy the disparity between the buildings and the streets, the distinctly Eastern and Western influences and cultures, and between the two classes of people (the business class and the worker class).  Everything I saw was a contradiction and yet, as I talked to the bride and her family, I was struck that this clash of culture, to a native of the city (reading and speaking Chinese and English simultaneously, eating with chop sticks at McDonald’s), was simply a unique culture called Hong Kong.  I still can not get over the extreme visual contrasts I saw there, it was fascinating to say the least.

The view from The L'Hotel was a beautiful scene of ships moving in and our of the harbor.

The colors on the buildings were rich and what photographer doesn't love textures like these.

I'm not sure what I would have done without our native Hong Kong bride who ordered on our behalf. Eve (our bride) did a fantastic job of introducing us to a wide variety of food while we were in Hong Kong. Thanks Eve!

I enjoyed our time there.  I expected something very different.  I suppose I expected a bit more China and was surprised at the size and scope of the modern city.  It was a great experience.

Check back again to see photos from the wedding we shot there in Hong Kong.

You can also see more photos at www.plattphotography.com.