I spent almost two weeks in Finland, exploring, discovering and learning. Finland has long been a dream destination for me, so when I had the chance to explore this amazing city for several days, I packed my warmest jackets, my favourite camera and away I went. Winter in Finland is famous for the amount of snow falling every year and for how long the snow season lasts.

Helsinki was colder than I anticipated but the weather didn't stop me from exploring even its most obscure corners. There were so many things to do in Helsinki. Helsinki is a quaint European city with lots to see and do. I like it how you could have almost the entire place to yourself, especially during the cold winter season. Unlike the more famed touristy cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, Helsinki is the salve for the over-travelled soul, looking to take a break from bus loads of Chinese and European tourists. It’s a lovely place for winter-lovely travellers, on a search for a place of peace and quiet, for themselves. I am so grateful for every encounter in Finland.

芬兰的冬季是个魔幻的季节，一到冬天，皑皑白雪覆盖，万籁俱寂。雪把芬兰包裹在一片静谧之中。冬季的芬兰宛如一首壮丽史诗，在短暂的白昼和漫长的夜晚交替间。然而有那么几天，芬兰的灯光在皑皑的白雪上熠熠生辉，光明战胜了黑暗。美丽神奇的景象让我眩惑不已。每当街道和建筑披上冬日的黑白色斗篷，芬兰变得沉默而低调，充满神秘感，却拥有独特的魅力。​相较于周遭的秋色，北欧，或者更准确说是芬兰的冬天感觉非常的神秘。

A very happy weekend! My short photo essay under pen name 蓝天游 on Hayao Miyazaki Clock At Nippon Television Tower In Tokyo, Japan 日本东京《钟声响起走进宫崎骏的梦幻世界》is featured today! So happy to see it being featured nationwide in print! Special thanks to Lianhe Zaobao, you have made my day! :) Thank U so much 感谢、感恩 。

I stole moments on benches during the winter in Finland. Sitting there helped me to take a real time out. A pause. It's a moment of just being me, doing what I wanted. No distraction, only nature. Sitting on a bench on a winter morning or night in December in solitude is a real treat to me. "Embrace it", I told myself. "It's good to be friends with yourself. It's a gift. Embrace it." And so I did. I sat on my bench and hang out with myself. I was having a great time. 

I believe in order for people to remain healthy, strong, viable providers for their family and to be positive forces in society, they need to take time out for themselves. The world as we know it now – a society based on antagonisms and competition – has left many people feeling like most of their lives are lived against the world but little or not time is spent living in it. The only way I have found to constructively deal with this, is by taking time out through solitude. It is one of the most practical ways to reconnect with oneself, to regain clarity and to be reminded of one’s deepest passions and purpose. Spending time alone allows us, as humans, to see clearly that which either we can’t see, or society won't let us see, because we are so busy trying to outdo everyone else.

I adore being outside and sitting on a bench and just enjoying the sounds of nature, the gust of the wind or feeling a light breeze. Another thing I adore to photograph is benches and seats found in parks or on trails and paths or other outdoor areas. I love to photo benches with or without people on them. Maybe I long to have more outside time with the nature. This is the first time in which I really enjoyed being outside, especially in winter. I can actually participate in it rather than wish I could.

The tram is part and parcel of everyday life in Finland in much the same way as gastronomy is. It is a good reason to involve the tram in Finland in every possible sense. A quintessential Helsinki tram experience takes you past the city’s palatial monuments.
 
The living pace in Singapore is fast, and we demand high speed in transportation too. The slow going tram in Finland, by comparison, is like a gentleman walking nobly on the street and living out his own unique lifestyle. The tram came into service on dating back to hundred years ago, and is one of the earliest forms of public transport in Finland. Getting around Helsinki on tram is an interesting experience as you can observe and photograph the lives of people in a relaxing way without needing to worry about the snow, sun or rain. Most tram passengers are not rushing for time. Instead they may just want to take a rest and think during the ride. 

In trams, the history is visible in the present. The tram simply looks very different from the other vehicles in the city and it is often pretty old-fashioned, even the latest versions of it. More importantly, surprisingly old models are in active use. In Helsinki, the oldest tramcars are actually older than many parts of the city. 

在20世纪初欧洲的许多城市，有轨电车曾风行一时。不同的城市，不同的有轨电车，成就了不同的城市经典。但随着其他公共交通方式的普及，旧时的有轨电车不是被陆续拆卸，就是被继续现代化。在有轨电车幸存下来的城市，“叮叮咣咣声”成为绝唱，它们晃悠悠地穿过城市的老街区，不紧不慢，被这个时代所遗忘。这些有轨电车发展到今天，也成为那个时代的靓丽风景和永恒不变的历史印记。

我对有轨电车的印象，来自于香港的老电影。无论高兴，或者悲伤，香港电影里的情绪与氛围渲染常常在电车车厢的光影里演绎出不一样的诗意。这些关于电车的镜头，记录某种怀旧情结、呈现出浓郁生活气息的画面，让我不知不觉融入某种情景之中，与电影里的人物命运相连。

芬兰的有轨电车于如今它依然是赫尔辛基城主要的交通工具之一。每日乘坐电车的旅客超过二十万人次，它墨绿色的车厢早已与这座城市融为一体。在过去一百多年的风风雨雨里，电车上的乘客换了一批又一批，如果电车有记忆的话，也许它自己也数不清在这一百多年里见证了多少历史时刻，见证了多少人的悲欢离合。它就像一位百岁老人，带人游走在新旧之间，饱览城市的各种景象。​搭乘电车能够带着人穿越赫尔辛基 450 多年的历史，体味从现代到古老，从悠闲到繁忙，从静谧到生动的韵律。

Notes on Finland as promised…Going on holiday and taking my favourite camera along can quickly turn into a photographic journey where you’re always in the right place at the right time. As a photographer, I love looking at great imagery. We all do. It’s what inspired most of us to pick up our own cameras and it’s one of the main things that continues to inspire us as we evolve as artists and image technicians throughout our lives.
 
I’ve taken my work and style further by incorporating a very tasteful element of HDR into my imagery. I’m not talking the kind of HDR that gets a bad rap, so much of which is overdone and just looks, well, you know…kind of “off”. There is also a time and place when doing HDR photography has its benefits.  This is where ‘street’ style photography is perfect and I hope to work at it more as I found it can be liberating. ​

HDR photography can be a bit polarizing in terms of personal tastes. It's like opera and sushi – you either love it or hate it. All I can say is that personally, for me, I prefer the look HDR gives. Maybe because it’s my first experience with HDR, or maybe because I just feel comfortable with it.

When hectic times occurred, I would have to really boil down my priorities to the essentials. I succeeded in clinging to what I was really committed to, but that was because I made choices and, again, didn’t try to do so much. 
 
Making a painter’s resolution is my new creativity in life besides my passion for travel photojournalism (I still have many other photo stories on Finland to blog in due course). I want to spend more time critically assessing my compositions before picking up a brush. I want to sketch an idea, play with color options, and think it through — really enjoying (and not hurrying) through the process. ​Artists tend to be a friendly, supportive, caring group of people, generally happy for other artist's successes, and concerned about the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. There are many artists and art organizations doing great things in the world and we need to support one another. The world needs more artists.

A very happy start to a great weekend! My photo essay under pen name 蓝天游 on Hokkaido Sapporo 北海道札幌《雪白世界之旅》is published in today's special travel edition LianheZaobao 联合早报旅游版 dated 18 January 2019! 感谢、感恩! Thrilled to see it being featured nationwide in print! THANK YOU VERY MUCH !

In December, I spent almost two weeks staying in Finland in my best attempts to experience it like a local. If you travel as much as I do and you are giant homebody on the inside like me, you really value unpacking your suitcase for weeks and tossing your crap absolutely everywhere. I like to think of myself as almost a turtle traveler – I like to take it as slow and mellow as possible. What’s the rush? You’ll miss the best bits.

Winter in Finland consists mainly of silence, darkness and stillness, making it the ideal environment for inner journeys. Days are short and the sun stays low on the horizon. Shades of white, black and grey dominate the monotone landscapes, long blue moments preceding the dark.
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One of the most beautiful places I visited was the Töölönlahti Bay in Finland. Footpaths meander through trees along the waterside; within minutes you leave the city behind and nature envelops you. The bays were frozen over and snow glittered crisply in the sunshine. There is a walking path going around the Töölönlahti Bay and I love walking around to listen to pure nothing. This is what many of the locals do as well. To listen to the serene silence in Finland. Walking through parks in Finland was mesmerizing from the very first moment. No sound of cars in the distance, no birds chirping or wind whistling through the high trees near the frozen lakes. Only me, the stillness and our breaths that stopped for a while in awe. That’s the silence in Finland.

I used to blog pretty regularly and I really enjoy looking back through my old archives of posts. I felt that I did not blog a lot last year due to many other commitments. During my Finland winter trip, I’ve done quite a lot of self-reflection. I promised myself that I will blog more in 2019 and in a meaningful way. I reminded myself why I started this path years ago and I wish that I could continue pursuing this passion outside of a professional job.
 
It is wise for each of us, from time to time, to stop and evaluate our lives as we seek to make the most of them. The start of a calendar year provides an opportunity to look back at the decisions that shaped our lives during the past year and gives us an extra push to make adjustments for the next one. Every new January represents a natural opportunity to evaluate the direction of our lives, adjust course if necessary, adopt new habits, or make healthy changes.
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I can’t say that I’m perfect or that I’ve achieved my ideal self, because there’s still so much I’ve to work on. I also think that becoming a better person is an on-going goal to be worked on, and there’s never a real end point to reach. Someone once told me that this isn’t about making yourself liked by others — it’s about becoming someone you truly love and adore, which will in turn attract the right people and opportunities into my life. I’m always grateful to that person who told me that because it reasonates so much with me.

There are actually things — besides Christmas — that I look forward to about winter each and every year. There’s something about winter holidays that I can’t seem to get enough of. Snow, of course, is magical, but there’s a slower pace in the cold and it’s completely acceptable to spend cosy hours sipping mulled wine or indulgent hot chocolate.
 
And I always love waking up to my street blanketed in a beautiful white layer of pristine snow. One of the things I truly love about snow is how silent it is. Unlike rain, you never really know it’s snowing until you look outside. Huge blizzards can happen in complete SILENCE. It’s eerie in a really magical way.
 
With this coming trip to Finland in two days’ time, I think winter is absolutely ON THE WAY! I foresee that i will return with lots of amazing photos and stories for publication next year and i can't wait to blog them in due course.  

In the meantime, I’m wishing you all the blessings of a wonderful Christmastime and I hope Santa is good to you this year because you only deserve the best. 

The gift of love. The gift of peace. The gift of happiness. May all these be yours at Christmas.

A very weekend! My photo essay under pen name 蓝天游 on Osaka 大阪《漫步大阪富田林市寺内町 回到江户时代》is published in today's LianheZaobao 联合早报缤纷版 dated 17 November 2018! 感谢、感恩! Thrilled to see it being featured nationwide in print! Special thanks to Lianhe Zaobao, you have made my day! :) 

This is my last series of street photography in Hong Kong using a Fisheye lens. Fisheye lenses are often considered a ‘no-no’ among professional landscape and cityscape photographers. People see them as not much more than a gimmick. I often hear complaints about fisheye lenses because of ‘that ugly distortion’. I am a one camera one lens person and have strongly benefited from this approach, as it makes me pay more attention to what's happening on the street rather than worrying about which camera or lens combination would work best for a particular type of scene.  

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about fisheye lenses myself. However, after using the fisheye for a while I slowly began to love it. There are just so much possibilities with fisheye lenses. And most important of all, they are super fun to use. Just think of crazy vertigos from rooftops or images in which distorted lines actually give meaning to an image. My fisheye lens has  become a tool for so many interesting shots, and it’s now one of my favourite lenses.

鱼眼镜头通常被认为是一种 “非专业” 的镜头，无论是专业风景摄影师或者城市摄影师用得都不多，因为鱼眼镜头具有非常夸张的透视畸变效果，所以在很多人眼里鱼眼镜头也就是个噱头罢了，出不了专业的作品。但是凡事从无到有总有个过程。我一开始也不太喜欢鱼眼镜头，总觉得像一个玩具， 但喝了鱼眼这口毒奶之后发现真是欲罢不能。简单来说鱼眼照片之所以让我感到有趣，是因为拍摄出来的画面跟我肉眼所见差别很大：直线可以变弯曲，透视畸变在这里可以夸张无比。如果拍摄的照片是以线条为主，那么甚至可以实现各种平时非肉眼常见的景色。

鱼眼镜头，我说这镜头魅力无穷，关键是很适合香港紧凑到逼戾的街道。香港一直是我心目中魔幻城市第一名​。典型的香港街头场景，信息爆炸，寸土寸金，鱼眼的夸张视角，对这种感受无疑有很大的强化作用。我这次就利用鱼眼相机拍摄香港多个地方的照片，用另一角度欣赏城市之美。

If you ever happen to be in the distinctly working class area of Ma Tau Kok deep in the entrails of eastern Kowloon Hong Kong, you might come across a set of western-style red brick buildings that contrast neatly with the surrounding residential apartments. This is the Cattle Depot Artist Village, a former government slaughterhouse now converted to artist studios and exhibition spaces.

​​For nearly a century the Depot was used as an animal quarantine area and abattoir centre. It was finally closed down in 1999 after concerns from neighbouring residents regarding the hygiene of a slaughterhouse in a densely populated urban area. Today the cattle quarantine has been moved north to Sheung Shui, near the Mainland border, while the old Cattle Depot renovated and designated a historical monument. The complex now houses the studios and offices of about 15 independent artists and artist groups. Creativity flows freely within the spacious structures of the village, a rarity in land-scarce Hong Kong.

当这座城市的高大、繁华、忙碌垄断了我的印象，我也许该去街头巷尾寻访另一个香港，在那里触摸消费主义笼罩下这座城市跳动的脉搏。打开二十世纪初的香港地图，我发现坐落在九龙土瓜湾马头角道63号的是一座牲畜检疫站。一个世纪后，棚屋下不再是牛羊，而是一群土瓜湾的本土艺术工作者。而这个曾经的牲畜检疫站有了新名字: 牛棚艺术村。

红砖矮墙、砖砌高烟囱、宽阔悬挑的屋檐、拱形门窗，处处流露出维多利亚时期农场建筑物的风格。自1999年屠宰场迁往上水后，旧址就分拆出租给艺术工作者使用。曾经一段时间，文化名人在这里开设 “牛棚书院”，定期邀请知名文化人办讲座开课，获邀的人士团体方可入内。