Taiwan

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Going through some more images of my trip to Taiwan at the end of last year, I loved looking back on images I created from this corner of the city. It just reminded me of how colorful Taipei really is. I love all the pink in the image and it was just a coincidence that it says “PINK” on the billboard. I don’t think I even noticed that when I was creating this image.

And if you turned left into that street, it was blocked off to cars but lined with tents selling fresh fruits and other produce. Often times my mom and I would walk there, grab some kind of fruit as a snack and continue on our day. My favorites were the ones you can’t get back in the United States or hard to find like Dragon fruit or another one known as Sugar Apple. OMG so good!

My camera settings for this image are F5 at 1/2000th sec and ISO has 800 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime lens.

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Break over. LOL. 

Since I was uncertain of my schedule in Taiwan, I left for the trip knowing I was going to spend most of my photo-taking time working on my street photography. In the past year or so, I’ve really fallen in love with street photography, especially while traveling. It so exciting trying to capture the shot. It’s hard to plan for since you don’t know what is going to be going on and when you get something cool, it makes it so much more thrilling.

So far, the biggest tip I can offer for street photography is always being prepared and don’t put your camera away. You don’t know where the shot is going to be and you want to be ready when it happens. I’ve noticed that I’ve also gotten into the habit of always turning off my camera after I take a shot. I really made an effort to leave my camera on because even in a second, the image you see on the street can be gone.

One thing you gotta know about Taiwan is that the cars rule the streets. Pedestrians need to look out for cars as opposed to the other way around in the States. So you always cross at crosswalks when it’s your turn. The cars get a pretty long time to drive along the road, in turn, pedestrians get a while to cross the street too. AND you get a countdown. The longest countdown I saw started at 90 seconds. So it gives you plenty of time to cross the street or take pictures of people crossing the street. LOL.

This image was taken while I was wandering the streets of Taipei. It was one of those 90-second countdowns but as you can see, I captured it at 20 seconds left for the cars to drive before the pedestrians can cross. What I love about this image is all the information you see. You see the people lined up, with the store signs in the background and on the very top you can see the count down to begin to cross. So much going on can be a little chaotic, but everytime I look at this image I see something different.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/800th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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I’ve been to the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall many times on my visits to Taipei. Each time I go creates a special memory but I wasn’t really planning on going on this trip. For one, I didn’t know what my schedule would be and how much time I would have. But one day when I figured out I had a free afternoon, I started googling things to do in Taipei on rainy days. Yes, I’ve mentioned rain almost every single one of these Taiwan blog posts, but it was a threat every day we were there.

So I found this blog post that had some very good suggestions. I even considered going to the Hello Kitty cafe but that was pretty far out of the way. So I figured I’d just spend the evening at the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. As soon as I got there, I was so glad I made the decision. There were puddles EVERYWHERE and made for some amazing reflections. To be honest, I had never seen so many people line up to take puddle images before and I felt like I was right at home. LOL.

This is one of the images I captured of Liberty Square. I haven’t had the chance to look at the other images yet, but I’m so excited to share more images I captured from this evening.

My camera settings for this image is F2.2. at 1/200th sec and ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime lens.

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I guess you would call this a day market? I’m not sure, but every morning there are always these street vendors selling produce, cooked food and meats. It’s not an everyday scene that we see in America so I tried to capture it as much as I could. But to be honest, I wasn’t sure about posting it. I didn’t know if everyone would want to see meat hanging from hooks. This is outdoors with no refrigeration or with any kind of packaging but this is how they do it in Taiwan.

I showed this image to Andrew and he really liked it. He said he likes the framing but also how the vendor looks so sharp. I like it because he has such a big smile on his face and it really shows a sense of community. Its everyday scenes like this that I wanted to capture on this trip, so I’m glad this one turned out as well as it did.

What do you think?

My camera settings for this image are F5.0 at 1/160th sec and ISO 80 with my 35 mm prime lens.

All photos available for print and licensing >

While fighting the jetlag in Taiwan, I loved being able to walk around the Tamsui district. There’s something about waking up early and then watching the rest of the city waking up. It’s so relaxing but then you can feel the energy getting higher and higher as the morning goes on. I love it.

This image was taken on one of those early morning walks when not a lot of people were awake except for a few who were fishing. What I think is most interesting about this image is that every single of these people is actually fishing. They just have their own style of it. I especially like the one who has taken a seat on his pink scooter as he waits for the fish to bite.

My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/800th sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 35mm.