It was great to be in Boston again.  I have always loved Boston.  A number of years ago, I sent a few days here at my best friend’s graduation from Harvard.  It is such a beautiful city.  One of the things I find most alluring about the city is the crew and sailing culture.  Out west, we like to boat, but it is a different kind of boating.  We drag skiers behind power boats.  Here it is a much more refined activity.  It’s like the difference between playing Hungry Hippos and Chess.  Both are fun, but one is just a lot more elegant.

Anyway, it was a pleasure to visit.  I am so grateful to Calumet Photographic for allowing us to hold the workshop there.  It is a fantastic store with a great sales staff.  Thanks so much Calumet.

This visit, I had a few minutes to walk along the river and found a big sailing school.  It looked like a lot of fun, but alas, I had to leave for New York City for my next PUG Lecture and Lightroom Workflow Workshop.  Someday, I think I would like to learn how to sail.

If you are a photographer, take note of the Pictage User Conference in New Orleans.  I’m going to be speaking there on Wednesday, November 4th.  This is going to be a great conference, but it is going to sell out.  If you want to come, you best get online and sign up now!

Also, I will be doing a Lightroom Workflow Workshop on Monday the 2nd of November, so come a day early and learn how to turn your workflow around!  Sign up now for both Partner Conference and for my Lightroom Workflow Workshop now.  Seats are going to sell out fast!

I can’t wait to see you all there.

Just a quick shot from last week in San Francisco. I was doing a workshop there at the liveBooks offices and was staying near by. I went out to explore the streets after dinner and found an interesting store, in front of which people were passing. I set up my G10 camera on a newspaper box and started photographing waiting for the right person to walk by. This is an example of contextual honesty. No matter who passed in front of the camera, this homeless man was the perfect representative of the people who populate the streets around my hotel. After all, I am a documentary photographer. I attempt to tell the truth.

The streets of San Francisco late at night, when I should be sleeping.

Well, I’m back on another plane and on my way to teach another Lightroom Workflow Workshop. This time, I’ll be in Seattle and Vancouver. Should be fun.

Sunset in the clouds at 30000 feet.

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.