Abandoned places-a favourite subject of photographers.  You can find dozens of websites devoted solely to finding interesting, desolate places to explore, some in surprising locations.  Even in a large, populated city like LA, you can find plenty of structures with their days of practical use well behind them.

There’s some unease behind them though, as well, and it’s understandable.  Finding an abandoned structure, even in just a superficial sense, is the architectural equivalent of finding a dead body. 

I’d argue that it’s more than just superficial- they’re actually pretty similar in a lot of ways, the difference being scale.  A body leaves behind it a person’s life story, experiences, relationships.  An old building has this, but for potentially hundreds of people.  If it’s an abandoned house, you’re left wondering about the families that have lived in it over the years, the warm memories, the fights, whether or not someone at some point left the home and sold it to some other family.  An abandoned gas station holds memories of employees- you wonder if they’re still around, what they thought about their work, the thousands of customers who stopped there, maybe only once, where they were coming from and where they went, and where they might be now.

These abandoned places are almost like society’s gravestones, marking memories of past relationships and interconnectedness between all of us.  It’s no wonder photographers are fascinated by them.

Onto a completely practical note now- I’ve set up a flickr account, which you can view here:  http://flickr.com/photos/lexybeast

What am I going to put there?  Anything that I feel, for whatever reason, doesn’t really fit here.  Hopefully you’ll enjoy.   I set it up because I also particularly like the community that flickr not only provides but strongly pushes for, so don’t hesitate to add me on there if you’d like.

Oh, and all these shots were good old fashioned film, by the way.  Ilford SFX, to be exact.  I’ll be posting a lot more film work in the coming days.

I’m going to start out with a few photos plus a story here, and then, in a few days (promise!), a slideshow.

You may remember my experiences shooting in India, and how most people there were, in some way, very self-concious about having their photos taken, though that manifested in a variety of ways. Hong Kong was a fairly startling contrast to this.

I was wandering around the streets of Kowloon, just looking for subjects to photograph. Though I’ve heard a lot of people speak English, I found this wasn’t so much the case off the main island. It made for some challenges- I was faced with a language barrier I hadn’t really experienced alone before, so I wasn’t sure how to approach people. Travel was easy- the subway is basically like any major underground system, so I had all sorts of places to go, but was rather lost culturally. Then, it started to rain, and rain heavily.

I headed across the street to shelter, in a small park with covered areas where a bunch of older men were playing a game that looked like Chinese chess. I say a bunch of people were playing, but really, it was mostly a large group intently, and somewhat silently, watching two play. I hung out with them for a bit- quietly enquiring to a couple of them if they spoke any English, which yielded me just a confused look or a quick shaking head, eyes going immediately back to the game. I puzzled over the various approaches I could take, and more minutes passed. Finally, I decided to try a stronger message. I held my camera up, and enunciated clearly- ‘Pictures OK?’ I figured that would be universal.

I could hardly believe it was the same serene group I’d been hanging out with, avoiding the rain, for the past few minutes. This group of old, quiet and stoic guys suddenly lit up. They all looked at me, some smiling broadly, all of them loud and very clear- they were gesticulating and shouting excitedly, ‘yeah, yeah!’

Then, all of a sudden, they stopped.

It’s like they were experts at getting their photos taken. They had absolutely no self conciousness at all- they just completely ignored me. It’s a veritable photojournalist’s dream. This turned out to be more or less the case in Hong Kong- most people were very comfortable with photography, to the point of completely ignoring it. That was also the case with this butcher.

With a few exceptions, most of these vendors were more than happy to have me take photos. Interesting side note to this picture by the way- I’ve found myself surprised at the reactions it elicits, especially negative ones. It seems to have a strong gross out factor. I’m fascinated by this phenomenon. I’m vegetarian, but I really have no problem seeing this cut up meat laid out and presented like this, nor did I have a problem being around it. I’ve found the opposite is true with many of my omnivorous friends, who in some cases are actually quite disturbed by it. I’m curious- what do you think of it? Is it a bit disturbing seeing where your food comes from? (Or, in the case of fellow vegetarians, seeing an animal carved up like this for food?)

Coming up- I did a lot of still life photos in Hong Kong. That’ll be in a slideshow soon enough.