Vivian Maier

July 21, 2017 by Ming Hung in Urban Exploration, Art

I dabble in street photography. I am a recent dabbler so I do not know very many of the masters of the genre. However, the relatively recent discovery of Chicago-area nanny Vivian Maier's work sort of opened the door to street photography for me. Maier was a prolific shooter, and often had the kids she took care of in tow. Her work is brilliant.

Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra created this beautiful, colorful tribute to Maier. Her work was mostly shot on black and white film so I also made a monochrome version.

Click images to view on black.

Alone at Work

July 12, 2017 by Ming Hung in Black and White

I have not been out shooting very much in recent weeks, as I am in the middle of a nine-week classroom and on-the-job-training regimen for a new position at work. However, during an earlier training session a few months ago I took a few shots inside the training facility. We are required to complete annual and quarterly recurrent lessons in a computer lab. I usually zip through them and am often left to my own devices afterward. When there are not classes of new hires for various departments in the building then there are not very many people in the building at all, especially during afternoon and evening shifts. I was able to wander the halls of the building alone for a while.

I really liked the light cast and shadows created on the concrete walls in the shots above and below. The building is relatively old so I wanted some shots before it gets torn down some time next year. I will have to shoot some more when I get the chance.

Click on images to view on black.

Happy Accidents

June 09, 2017 by Ming Hung in Black and White

I have been having trouble keeping this blog updated. I go shooting frequently, but I do not want to use this blog as an image dump--I also want to write more meaningfully about the photographic process. The drought temporarily ended yesterday with a happy accident. Happy accidents happen in photography just as they do in life. The backstory on this is that I have not ridden my bicycle very much at all over the last few years, including not riding it even once last year. So a few days ago a buddy reached out and asked if I wanted to go for a bike ride. I agreed, and we laid out a specific course because there was a sculpture I wanted to take some photos of.

The stainless steel piece titled Looking Up is by American artist Tom Friedman. It stands 33.3 feet tall and currently stands near 53rd Street along Chicago's lakefront. This is one of three such figures looking up to the heavens. One is a proof and another stands in New York City.

The happy accident here was the position of the sun. I did not plan to be there at that exact moment. I have driven past the sculpture on several occasions and never stopped to shoot. Several things had to happen: my friend had to reach out, I had to not come up with an excuse not to meet him, and I had to arrive at that time. My images would have been boring without an element of interest in the sky, and I would have taken fewer frames. I was delighted when I arrived and saw the sun where it was. That is not to say that I would not return when the sky above is really cloudy.

If not for the position of the sun I would not have played around with as many angles as I did. I would not have played with flaring as I did in the above image. What is a happy accident that happened to you in your photographic experiences?

Click images to view on black.