At its core, photography is nothing more than the physical registration of light. In fact, there can be no photography without light and therefore it stands true that light is always at the center of a photographer’s creative process. Nevertheless, it is equally true that light is not always what makes any given photograph exceptional…

In this selection of photographs, light was very much the dominant factor that inspired me to capture the scene to begin with and later drove me to begin appreciating the photograph as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months. Here you will see a variety of different types of light; piercing directional light, soft diffused light, natural sunlight, man-made light, warm light, cool light etc.. Truth be told, the majority of the photographs I take depend heavily on the character of the light conditions during capture and I would venture to say that the same holds true for most photographers.

The key to appreciating light lies in being aware of the effects different types of light have in different physical environments. For example, under strong mid-day sunlight, a coastline with rolling sand dunes and calm ocean swell has a specific character that would be very different to say, a tall man-made structure with angular shapes and hard edges. Appreciating these differences and having these attributes become second-nature in your decision-making-process is key to consistently creating photographs that exhibit light at its very finest.

The color we see in the world around us is highly subjective, so much so that it is very likely the single most subjective element in all of photography. In fact, I would argue that color is the hardest element for a photographer to master, at least in terms of using it as a tool to convey emotion to the viewer. As for myself, I enjoy the challenge, seeing a subject and instantly getting that feeling in the back of my mind that its colors are of visual interest and should therefore be photographed.

A common misconception is that colors have to be saturated and vibrant to be of any photographic interest, that is very far from true! In fact, I actually prefer the subtle tones one finds late in the afternoon when the sun is low in the sky and the atmosphere is thick with moisture; just think of the Indian ocean with its perennial haze and the beautiful color palette that results therefrom. The tricky bit with subtle tones isn’t finding them, it’s capturing them. The subtler the tones are and the smoother the gradation between different tones is, the harder it is for photographic equipment to capture their nuances and hence convey the desired visual effect to the viewer. Our eyes and visual cortex are simply awesome biological machines, the photographic equipment we use today —despite being light-years ahead of anything previous generations used— is still vastly inferior in many regards.

Let me digress slightly and speak briefly about color film. I do shoot color film, not often but enough to know that despite its limitations, color film still holds a special place in my arsenal of photographic equipment. If I said that current digital technology lags far behind what our eyes and visual cortex are capable of, then I would have to place color film way back in another universe altogether. In fact, color film is about as far as you could get from the holy grail of perfect color reproduction. These mid-twentieth century film emulsions, the majority of which were created deep inside chemical laboratories in Tokyo (Fujifilm) and Rochester New York (Eastman Kodak), can best be described as artistic interpretations of whatever really stood in front of the camera. Therefore, I would argue that they are best used as such, artistic tools to add flair to our photographs and not as competition to our current digital medium.

Now let’s get to the crux of the matter: at the time of writing, there are no commercially available cameras capable of capturing true high-fidelity color information. Instead, we seem to be stuck with a variety of brands —each with their own algorithm to interpolate the myriad of Red Green and Blue (RGB) signals modern sensors record— desperately trying to outdo one another in a meaningless battle of approximates. There is a system (Sigma Foveon) that claims to achieve high-fidelity color and to their credit they do come close, however they invariably fall short in at least one color channel, thereby bringing us back to where we started. It has to be said though that there are multishot systems currently available that can register precise color information, the problem with these is that they are very limiting in terms of the subject matter one can shoot due to the very nature of the process involved. I know this because I have shot extensively with a variety of such systems in an attempt to find the perfect tool to overcome what I humorously call, “the color conundrum”.

These days though, I primarily shoot with flawed equipment —at least in terms of color output— and rely heavily on post processing and painstaking color editing to get a visual result that I can be satisfied with. This is very tedious work, that much I can assure you, yet the results should speak for themselves…

Form is nothing more than the physical shape certain elements of interest in a photograph might or might not possess. These shapes could remind you of other objects or they could help you make a certain logical connection to an idea or notion that has no physical properties. Hence, when I refer to “form”, I am referring to a very broad range of possible visual scenarios.

My favorite examples of form in photography are those where a physical element within the photograph either has a very intriguing shape or distinctly reminds me of something else which itself has very identifiable physical characteristics.

Finding scenes with physical elements that could be used —through carefully considered framing— to create “form” in photographs is a very interesting process. Don’t get me wrong, this is no easy task, to pull it off a photographer must be able to a) identify this/these elements to begin with and b) properly execute the photographic capture so as to adequately convey what he/she saw in the scene to the viewer.

The key part of this process is the framing of the photograph, since it can make or break even the best scene. Here, again, experience goes a long way; when you have been in similar scenarios many times before, you develop a sixth-sense for where you should place yourself to maximize the potential of the subject you have chosen to photograph. I often tell fellow photographers that the key to consistently creating exceptional photographs isn’t in the quality of the equipment they use, instead it is the time they spend behind the camera learning to see the world anew.

Lastly, I will share with you one of my favorite photography quotes. It is attributed to the renowned documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, unfortunately I am not certain if it was a phrase that she coined herself or simply helped spread due to her celebrity.

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera”.

The use of space in photography is probably as old as photography itself. After all, most landscape images or portraits rely heavily on the abundance of open space, or lack thereof, to maximize the desired effect the subject has on the viewer.

I will use a simple cognitive tool to explain this; reductio ad impossibile otherwise known as proof by contradiction. Let’s assume I want to take a photograph of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour and display all the various elements to emphasize its grandness. If I stood right along the waterfront and attempted to capture the scene with a wide angle lens, I would get a photograph of a giant expanse of water followed by small buildings and hills in the far distance, furthermore I would be completely neglecting the skyline directly behind me. All this because I didn’t use space to my advantage. If I climbed up to the Old Peak Road and walked around to find the ideal spot, I could use a short telephoto and capture the harbor in its entirety without the detrimental near/far effect associated with wide angle lenses.

This illustrates the point I want to make; photographers need to be very careful with how they use space and this includes negative space. If used properly, space can enhance a subject and portray it in the desired way, if not it can ruin the photograph entirely.

In this selection of photographs, I used space to emphasize certain characteristics of the subjects that I photographed. Whether that was the vast scale of a landscape, an architectural space that engulfs the viewer or a straight drop into a dark abyss. In these photographs, I feel that I managed to use space to my advantage, thereby eliciting the desired emotions among viewers.

My interpretation of the word "gesture” differs somewhat from the accepted definition of the word, such as the Oxford dictionary: “A movement of part of the body, especially a hand or the head, to express an idea or meaning.”

As you will see in this selection of photographs, most do not actually contain people, much less people moving their head or hands. Instead, my understanding of gesture is centered more around the key word "movement” and less on what actually performs the movement. Hence, in this series of images, you will see people just as you will see animals and ocean waves. All these subjects, in their natural state, perform a movement which I take the liberty to interpret; much like I would interpret a hand signal or facial expression.

I realize that my visual interpretation of this movement might differ from that of the viewer. However, I see this as a point of interest since the dialogue that could potentially ensue would only draw viewers even deeper into their interpretation of my work.

I trust anyone can understand why time is an inexorable part of photography. Without it, even an infinitesimally small amount —1/8000th of a second perhaps— there would be nothing to register, there would be no history to know, no moment to record, no story to tell.

Therein lies the true beauty of photography. Despite thousands of years of civilization and massive technical development, photography remains the only way human beings have of accumulating a piece of our ever-changing world and permanently registering it without the person executing the registration having to necessarily partake in the process. This means that, unlike the written word or the registered voice, all sub-conscience biases the individual executing the registration might have, he or she could potentially remain a neutral bystander as opposed to having to actively interpret the world around them for the registration to take place (literature etc.).

Now with the advent of digital photography, we can even say —with some degree of confidence— that these registrations of time will last forever, due simply to the non-physical nature of digital information.

I deem myself fortunate to have taken on the important task of “saving” pieces of time for posterity. We photographers are, after all, those who decide what does and what doesn’t get saved. A great honor it might be but an even more somber task it is. Knowing all along, that despite my best efforts, the very best moments will almost surely be lost to time…

As Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote famously said: “One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.”