Photos from Taiwan

Posted on 03/01/2021 by Stewart Smith

A few years ago we went to Taiwan. I managed to capture some random bits of the city on film (and also some shots on my then phone, a Google Pixel). I find the different style of art on the streets around the world to be fascinating, and Taiwan had some good examples.

I’ve really enjoyed shooting Kodak E100VS film over the years, and some of my last rolls were shot in Taiwan. It’s a film that unfortunately is not made anymore, but at least we have a new Ektachrome to have fun with now.

Street Art in Taipei. Shot on Kodak E100VS 35mm film.

Painted staircase in Taipei. Shot on Kodak E100VS 35mm film

Taipei Street Art. Shot with a Google Pixel.

Words for our time: “Where there is democracy, equality and freedom can exist; without democracy, equality and freedom are merely empty words”.

This is, of course, only a small number of the total photos I took there. I’d really recommend a trip to Taiwan, and I look forward to going back there some day.

Hong Kong (OpenStack Summit)

Posted on 16/10/2013 by Stewart Smith

I’ll be in Hong Kong for the upcoming OpenStack Summit Nov 5-8. I’d be thrilled to talk database things with others present, especially around Trove DBaaS (DataBase as a Service) and high availability MySQL for OpenStack deployments.

I was last in Hong Kong in 2010 when I worked for Rackspace. The closest office to me was in Hong Kong so that’s where I did my HR onboarding training. I remember telling friends on the Sunday night before leaving for Hong Kong that I may be able to make dinner later in the week purely depending on if somebody got back to me on if I was going to Hong Kong that week. I was, and I went. I took some photos while there.

Walking from the hotel where we were staying to the Rackspace office could be done pretty much entirely through buildings without going outside. There were bits of art around too, which is just kind of awesome – I’m always in favour of random art.

The photo below was the view from my hotel room. The OpenStack summit is just by the airport rather than in the middle of town, so the views will be decidedly different to this, but still probably quite spectacular if you’re around the right place (I plan to take camera gear, so shout if you want to journey too)

There are some pretty awesome markets around Hong Kong offering just about everything you’d want, including a lot just out on the street.

Nightime was pretty awesome, having people from around the world journey out into the night was great.

I was there during the World Cup, and the streets were wonderfully decorated. I’m particularly proud of this photo as it was handheld, at night, after beer.

MySQL Community Portraits needs your $$

Posted on 19/04/2013 by Stewart Smith

There’s an Indiegogo fundraising effort for Julian Cash to come to the Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo this year to take your photo! I’ve thrown in a bunch of money to help make this happen. Why? It’s much much much cheaper than getting any professional photo shoot done, and it’s by the awesome Julian, who makes pretty awesome photos.

You’ll get full resolution images too! Basically, this is the cheapest way you’re going to get this quality of photos done of yourself outside of dating a professional portrait photographer. Since I’m not dating a professional portrait photographer, this is an excellent and affordable way to have some truly awesome and up to date photos that I can use.

I went and bought the Gold level sponsorship as I feel that $250 is a small price to pay (especially considering Julian’s previous excellent work). You can support it with more $ or less $ (even $0), I chose $250 as it meant I could claim, at least for a short time, that I’ve over half funded it :)

Photos from BarCampMel 2012

Posted on 28/07/2012 by Stewart Smith

Just thought I’d post a couple of photos I took today at BarCampMel. Actually, this is technically 4 photos as I’ve used a Fuji Instax shot in each one. The first is Ben making coffee: in the morning and the afternoon. The second shot is awesome partially automated brewing setup.

Kodak Ektar 100 – fun with colour negative film

Posted on 09/07/2010 by Stewart Smith

I’ve been writing a bit about my adventures with Black & White film and developing myself. I haven’t (yet) developed my own colour negative (C41 process) film. I do hope to do so at some point in the future – even though I can get the local lab to do it for $4 a roll, it’s nice to be able to do this yourself.

When I was young, I also took photos. I still use that camera sometimes too. Recently I’ve been scanning in the first ever slide film I shot – a roll of Kodachrome when I was 8 years old. I do like the look of Kodachrome, and am sad that it’s going away.

Last year, when I was in the US for Burning Man, I got introduced to Kodak Ektar 100. With the promise of colours that remind you of Kodachrome, I grabbed a bunch and headed to San Francisco and then Burning Man.

I liked the look of a bunch of stuff I shot. For example:

Recently, on my trip to Hong Kong, I shot some too. The above was all shot with an old Ricoh SLR, when I was in Hong Kong I used my Nikon F80 and the 50mm f1.8 lens.

One of my favourites was of this little statue:

In Hong Kong a lot of buildings are interconnected so you can walk between them without having to go outside (where it’s hot and humid). There are bits of sculpture in the buildings around the Rackspace office. This is one near the hotel I was staying with. During the morning and afternoons, these walkways are filled with people, exactly like streets…. but a floor above and indoors.

I’m adding more shots from Hong Kong to my Flickr Photstream as the days go on.

I really like this film. I even don’t mind it for people… the first was the test shot (have I loaded correctly, things winding, wonder if this shot will work) in the hotel lobby in San Francisco. Leah:

I should learn to scan better (I have since, this was probably the first image I scanned using my scanner, certainly the first Ektar frame). Another two people images I like on Ektar are:

Dare I say that I always seem to find the Ektar colours to be relaxed? I like it. The blues really shine through. Reds are also really nice (heck, I even love the yellow), and I plan to go and investigate how I can combine these colours in interesting ways on film.

More film developing

Posted on 29/06/2010 by Stewart Smith

I’ve developed some more film! Here’s some shots from last time I was in Hobart. All shot on Ilford HP5+, which I quite like. I’m still getting used to this developing thing and next time should be much better!

The HP5+ was shot at the box speed of 400 with my Nikon F80 and the wonderful 50mm f1.8 lens. I developed in R09 OneShot (Rodinal) for the standard 6 minutes that the Ilford box tells me to. I used my Epson V350 Photo scanner to scan the negatives with iscan. I am wishing for better scanning software. *seriously* wishing.

These first four are probably going to be recognisable to anybody who knows Salamanca.

For those who love the Lark Distillery or English Bitter, I snapped a shot of (one of) the pint I had:

So I’d count this as fairly successful! Of course, need some animal shots:

… and there was a stop at a Sustainability Expo that had a surprising lack of bountiful vegan food when we got there…

I have to say, pulling that film out and seeing an image is incredibly rewarding.

If you want to know more about how I do it all on Linux, come to my talk at LUV this upcoming July 6th.

Developing my own film

Posted on 17/05/2010 by Stewart Smith

dedicated bench, originally uploaded by macplusg3.

This is from the first film I’ve ever developed myself. I know a lot of people who’ve done this in school or something, but I never did.. so it’s just me, teaching myself (and playing with chemicals).

This was shot one day when I went out riding down in Black Rock (not too far from home). There’s something about benches dedicated to people that just twinges something in my brain… How do you get to the point where you think a great way to remember someone is to have a plaque on a bench? Carrying a camera while bike riding is quite useful sometimes.

Shot on Lucky B&W SHD100 film on at early 1970s Canon rangefinder.

Ramblings

Ramblings which occasionally resemble reality. This is the blog of Stewart Smith.

Tag Archives: Photos

Photos from Taiwan

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Hong Kong (OpenStack Summit)

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MySQL Community Portraits needs your $$

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Photos from BarCampMel 2012

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Kodak Ektar 100 – fun with colour negative film

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More film developing

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Developing my own film

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