Advertisement
After spending more time than I cared to at home in Derby salvation came in the form of an email. Ironically I had been talking to my sister only the day before saying how sometimes lives can change with one phone call or an email. The next day mine did. Temporarily. Perhaps permanently. I woke up, checked my mail as usual, then signed into Flickr and noticed I had an email.
Hi Ghostkamera,
Not sure where you are located...
We have an exhibition coming up in HK...
We are two writers and looking for pictures exactly like yours... beautiful.
This is kind of urgent. Basically, if you are interested, we will select between six and ten of your pictures for the exhibition.
We will take care of framing. All proceeds of sales (minus, of course the thirty percent gallery comission) will go to you. We are not in this for money. It is a photographic based literary project. We desperatley need pics like yours.
If you are intersted please get back to me asap. I will send you the flyer, press release... all you need to know.
We have been let down by a few photographers, thus the urgency and going further afield in our scouting. But, I must say.... your photos are exactly what we are looking for.
Hope to hear from you soon. THIS IS URGENT
Many many thanks
David
My first thought was that this was some sort of sick prank. However, I ended up replying and over the next week furious emails and phone calls were exchanged across oceans and continents until we had a plan drawn up for what would become "Fragrant Projections- Lomographic Literature". An exhibition of photos and written work to be displayed at the LEGENDARY Fringe Gallery in Lan Kwai Fong.
We spent the next couple of weeks sending photos over, negatives, discussion theme's, layout, sizes of prints, costs, etc.. and when finally everything was as organized as it could be with me absent I booked my tickets for Hong Kong. In a fantastic turn of events my sister was able to come also, so was my dearest friend Jan who happened to have a month off exactly in that slot.. and 2 of my favourite Kiwi's from London also had time off work and had never been to Asia before. It all came together perfectly.
We all booked
our tickets on the new low-cost airline OASIS HONG KONG and counted down the days.
The day of departure... always the sweetest days in my calender..... the thrill of adventure.. the taste of freedom.. the unknown.. the endless possibilities.. we all trudged down the hill with our backpacks to the train station... the weather was miserable... the train came.. Gatwick airport... check in was smooth... sat in the airport bar and had a calming pint... boarded the aircraft and to our surprise it was clean, roomy and smelled fresh (for a low-cost airline thats a bonus)... sat back... realized they even had entertainment systems in the back of the chairs... ate some food... tried to stifle the over-riding excitement enough to sleep.. managed in part... woke up in wonderful wonderful Hong Kong.. a place I left just 2 years before after 5 blissful months.
The airport at HK is a good introduction to how efficient and clean the big city actually is. Everything is modern and smooth. We were out in under half and hour and sitting on the bus to Kowloon watching the hills and oceans collide. Tired from travel but ecstatic. Since all my friends were
either abroad or living in tiny apartments we were forced to stay in Chungking Mansions (a place I hadn't lived since our Glorybox Japan tour when we passed through HK and stayed in the dirtiest apartment on earth). We ended up staying on the 14th floor in a shithole of a guest house. Paying only a pittance we had no real cause for complaints but the rooms were basically the size of the bed. And smelled of paint. And the bathrooms were tiny and disgusting. However... the nights passed in those rooms and the days were spent walking around, exploring, eating fantastic food, sitting by the harbour drinking beers, riding the escalators in Soho, riding double decker buses down Nathan Rd at night looking at all the neon overhanging, developing film in Mongkok, exploring Sham Shui Po, Shek Kip Mei, heading to WONDERFUL Shek-O for beers and Thai food on the beach, meeting up with Robin and David, preparing for the exhibition, giving interviews for South China Morning Post, photo shoots outside the Fringe Gallery, eating far too many excellent curries at Butt fast food in Chungking ith cold San Mig's on the table, riding the trams on HK Island,
watching football in Lan Kwai Fong with one eye on the screen and another on all the tossers in the street, eating at the illegal Nepalese place, riding the star ferry a million times, walking around Wan Chai at night taking photos, avoiding Causeway Bay........
Then. The day of the exhibition. Tired. Anxiety ridden. Hopeful. Excited. Nervous. Headed back to the Fringe after 2 days of setting up and eating Caesar salads for lunch, gulped a couple of glasses of wine to calm the nerves and it was all happening. Even the book that was being published had arrive so we had those to sell as well. The night ended up being magnificent. Friends, strangers, journalists, photographers, critics all came through the doors and enjoyed the exhibition... James, David and I stood there proud and glowing as the people went through reading stories and enjoying photographs. It was a proud moment for all of us, but one that James and David deserve lots of credit for, finding me, organizing the whole thing and putting so much time, money and effort into making it happen. It was a huge success and people were incredibly kind with their compliments and questions.
My head was spinning... and not only from the wine.
The next few days passed in euphoria... tiredness mixed in with relief.... walking the streets.. checking in on the Fringe every now and then to answer questions and just take it all in... eating amazing Tapas on the roof garden.... spending good quality time with Heidi, Jan, Paul and Aaron... Then as with all good things in life it was time for a departure... Aaron was heading home to London and Paul extended his ticket since Liverpool qualified for the Champions League Final and he would have been in the air over Afghanistan while it happened. We were all seated at Shek O Sailing bar enjoying an incredibly cosy evening, eating Thai food, drinking Tsingtao's when the time came for Aaron to catch the bus to the airport. I went with him to the bus station and saw him onto the bus waving furiously. Then returned to the others and sat there staring at the inky sea.
Football influences our schedules and lives to some extent and today was no different. We all headed down to a small Irish bar to enjoy the game... Paul gulping pints furiously
in the first half and pints of water in the second... Sadly for him Milan proved too powerful and got their revenge.. Apart from a few nasty words from a fat ugly ozzie twat we had a good night (except for Paul) and headed back to crash on David and Robins floor....
Paul left back to England the next day, back to work, and Jan, Heidi and I stayed 1 more day in Hong Kong before flying off to Taipei for another exhibition and another adventure.
(more in Pt. 2)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.162s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0464s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb