Long time no post! I’ve actually been on holiday in Hong Kong for the past few weeks, taking a break from everything including computers (well almost, but more on that later). Fortunately, whilst I was away all of the automated stuff did what it was supposed to so sales of products continued and consumers continued to click through my affiliate links. It’s always nice to know that the whole passive income thing works.
Hong Kong was fantastic. I’ve got some family and friends out there and I’ve been before so it wasn’t the usual sunbathing by the pool type of holiday. Quite a large group of us went including my wife’s parents (for the first time) so we visited many of the tourist hot spots as well as heading off the beaten track.
It was with this holiday that I decided it was time to reignite my interest in photography and purchased a Canon EOS 40D along with a trio of lenses (Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM, and Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L IS USM lenses for the buffs reading). I’ll test out the new WordPress 2.5 gallery feature and post a few pics.
As well as being a great place to visit, HK is also a great place to be a photographer as there are photo opportunities everywhere and you don’t necessarily have to stop once the sun goes down especially when you’ve got something as amazing as the Symphony of Lights – a daily light and music performance by some of the some of the buildings on the Hong Kong island (and Kowloon to some degree) waterfront.
I actually shot over 2,000 photos during our time in HK! Fortunately, I had a laptop computer with me and a portable external hard drive so a single storage card was sufficient. It also meant that I could look over my shots and keep an eye on things relating to my online businesses, but I promise I didn’t do any real work although I was inspired to contemplate starting a photography website.
Whilst HK was great, landing back at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was nothing short of a farce. As well as our Heathrow to Manchester connecting flight being cancelled, our limited options for getting home resulted in us catching a coach to Birmingham and then getting picked up from there all the way back to Liverpool. It’s difficult to understand how such a massive project was so poorly planned and tested with little in the way of real contingency. Very unimpressed.
Now, back home, it’s time to get on with some work, start planning some photography trips and fleshing out my new photography website.
P.S. I tried to upload some photos into a WordPress gallery, but kept getting an error during ‘crunching’ so I’ll post them once it’s sorted.
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- Cable car ride to see the Big Buddha statue on Lantau Island
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- Spectators waiting for the Symphony of Lights
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- Symphony of Lights viewed from Kowloon
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- A boat in Sai Kung
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- Fisher people selling their catches in Sai Kung
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- Bamboo scaffolding
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- Incense cone spirals at a temple in Macau
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- One of the Lippo buildings and the Bank of China building
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- On the artificial lake in Hong Kong Park
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- On the artificial lake in Hong Kong Park
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- Hong Kong Park
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- Night time on Victoria Peak
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- Bird taking a bath in the Hong Kong Park aviary
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- The Star Ferry viewed from Kowloon
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- Symphony of Lights viewed from a Hong Kong ferry pier
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- A terrapin at the artificial lake in Hong Kong Park
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- A bird in the aviary in Hong Kong Park
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- A misty scene at the Po Lin monastery on Lantau Island
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- Rusty boat
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- Statue outside a temple
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- Nathan Road, Jordan
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- At the steps of the Big Buddha
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- Feeding time at the Hong Kong Park aviary made for some great subjects.
Sounds like you had a great time away. I went to Hong Kong when I was 15, visiting a friend whose Dad was stationed out there in the Army. Had a fantastic time but couldn’t buy half of what I wanted! The camera and gear sounds great, am so jealous! You’ll have to get on to Flickr next
Glad to hear your AIS continued to tick over. It’s great when everything run smoothly and you still earn money when you’re taking a break. As for the WP gallery, I’ve had an error crop up when trying to upload an image, right when it’s almost finished ‘crunching’. However on my WP sites on IIS at work I had no problem at all, but I’ve tried all sorts of chmodding and nothing works for me. Still gotta upgrade a few more sites so will see if it works in those.
Looking forward to seeing some pics
Well, I tried various things with directories and permissions in order to resolve the image crunching error without any joy. After trying to find a PHP error causing the error, I decided to try disabling Bad Behaviour. Once I did, the error disappeared and I was able to upload my images.
I’ve added a very small selection of pics to the post. There were just so many possible photo opportunities, a real photographer’s paradise!
With regards to the camera gear, I spent weeks trying to decide which camera body to get. I knew that I wanted a Canon as I’d been very happy with their equipment previously, but couldn’t decide between the 40D or 450D. A friend of mine let me try out his 40D so I already knew what to expect with it. In the end, the fact that I couldn’t source any 450D’s made the decision easier as I knew I had to get a body and lens before the trip.
The body and standard zoom I got locally (with a £140 Canon cash back offer) and the other two zooms from Hong Kong as they were on offer for much cheaper than in the UK. I was sorely tempted to buy even more kit whilst I was out there, but decided that my credit card had taken enough of a battering already. I’m glad I did because lugging everything back in my hand luggage was hard work!
Looks like you had a great time in Hong Kong. The photos posted in this article are very beautiful. I would also like to visit that city sometime. I am happy to hear that your automated stuff is working and “producing†money for you.
Thanks, we all had a great time over there and I hope to spend some time on post-processing the images.
I started reading about HDR whilst I was over in Hong Kong and now regret not having taken any shots specifically with HDR processing in mind.
Oh well, at least I shot in RAW so there’s the possibility of producing the different exposures required to some degree.
Well, my photography website is live and I’m gearing up to get my photos onto Flickr. If only I could decide on a Flickr Screen Name…