Category Archives: photoshoot

Last November I was asked to cover a story for this January’s issue of Silkroad, Dragonair’s inflight magazine. Check it out if you are flying KA in the region this month.

The story looked at organic farming in Hong Kong, requiring shots of a local farm and an organic farm market in Tai Po. I don’t regularly shoot a lot of editorial assignments, so I was a little bit anxious. Sure, storytelling or shooting something like a wedding in a “photojournalistic style” were some of the first things about photography that I fell in love with, but this would be a different challenge. I wasn’t able to scout ahead of time to plan lighting. I had no idea what time I’d be given to get through my shot list. The New Territories address I was given had google maps completely fooled.

Fortunately, I was picked up from the mini bus stop by Jeannie, the owner of The Green Patch organic farm. She was the type of sweet, hospitable woman that you could sit with and listen to stories for hours. During my tour of the farm she told me about her travels, her prior businesses, and her rather strong opinions about organic farming and Hong Kong as a whole. By sunset, I finished getting my shots and Jeannie gave me some takeaway fresh salad before I left.

That weekend I went back to Tai Po with my girlfriend to shoot at the Farmers Market (definitely worth checking out, every Sunday except the first of every month). We bought some veggies and homemade pasta from Jeannie’s booth. I also gave her a set of prints from the farm shoot. It was the least I could do for the salad and intruding on her work schedule. She also kindly invited me and my girlfriend to return in the Spring to work on the farm for a day.

In the end I was pretty happy with the shots I came away with from the two days. But sure enough, only about 4 or 5 of what I thought were only decent images ran in the actual article (I’m not sure who photographed the other 3 or so shots in the story). Nevertheless, it was very gratifying to see the work get published. Perhaps there will be some point in the future when its no big deal and I won’t even care to see what photos of mine get selected for print. But hopefully it isn’t too soon =)

OK, one more scan from the issue…

…some other shots I liked that didn’t run (is this why photographers typically hate art directors?)