Personal blog of Leah valle
Some of the photos I took during the Winter Fashion Show in Hong Kong.
Note: All these photos were exclusively taken for and therefore are proprietary of HKTDC. These images cannot used used in any commercial publications without HKTDC’s expressed consent.
Half of the time, when brothers wrestle, it’s just an excuse to hug eachother – James Patterson
It was a gloomy day. Turbulence welcomed me while I was still in the plane. Wet pavements was the city’s red carpet and I, despite the dark and eerie weather, felt light and happy. I was wearing my new havas (thanks to Girlieanne)–white and gold, too pure to step on muddy streets. But slippers are slippers, and they are meant for the feet. And when they are for a pair owned by someone like me, the flops, cherished and loved, will be contested to endless wanderings. Continue Reading »
To sleep in my own bed.
To yawn so early and hear familiar voices.
To listen to silly stories that I will forget
but will always remember how hard my laughter was when I heard it.
To sing vernacular songs.
To hum private fantasies and get lost in dreams
without thoughts of anything.
To not rush.
To read until i fall asleep.
To wake up to the smell of breakfast.
To be with old friends.
To visit places I’ve forged kinship with over the years.
I could smell the scents of memories as it wafts at me in my every visit
as I try to imagine the city embracing me as I slowly caress it again with my eyes, with my hands, even with my laughter.
It makes me smile to know I’m safe even if it is not completely true. For nobody is safe in this world but it is of comfort to feel it anyway.
I’m home and it brings a smile to my face.
The Fringe Club in Lower Albert Street (Central) in Hong Kong is an open art platform that provide rent free services to engage the local community in cultural works.
The picture is actually the back of the building (Wyndham St). It’s a sweet building that everyone walks by but hardly notices as they stagger towards the bars in Lan Kwai Fong. The building used to be an ice and dairy plant and the Hong Kong Fringe Club, a non-profit organization, acquired it in 1984 after the building was abandoned by the business owners when their company headquarters moved to London. Continue Reading »
The people from this little village in Sheng Shui is celebrating their deity’s birthday. It is part of their cultural tradition to hold “Bamboo Operas” to honor their gods and goddesses. Cantonese Opera have two varieties. The one held in a permanent theater and another in a temporary bamboo shed made by the villagers.
Bamboo theater artists wear elaborate costumes and make-up — takes them two hours and one costume assistant to get ready for their performance.
I’ve picked up my pen and watercolors again and here is what I just finished today. I have not drawn for years and it feels liberating to be able to mix up some color again to create something nice and fun.
Photography has taken a big space in my life right now and it feels good to have a temporary break from it. To be able to create something with my hands and to be able to manually control the shades and palettes used…not that I’m great at controlling watercolor paint either *tee hee ^.^
Everything is relative. My philosophy teachers in college made sure I understood that. Like if I receive a D grade –it is not an isolated random act of hatred on their part but because I turned in a crappy paper because I was too lazy to read a two page-article that I know is hard enough that I would need three days to digest it, but dumbly skimmed it in three hours hoping for a strike of genius to hit me square in the forehead while my eyes glazed over the words used in sentences I cannot, for the life of me, figure the meaning out. Ha! I wonder what hallucinogenic drugs these people were taking that made them write such effin convoluted articles. Continue Reading »
Posting work from last quarter where I learned to shoot glass. These babies are so hard to light! I had it lit underneath which resulted to random overblowing of highlights due to it’s shape —well, random, is a word used by the inept still struggling to control the strobes (that’s me, hehe). Continue Reading »
I promised BWL not to burn my Hong Kong flat…I don’t remember promising anything else. Relax, the gaping hole was not something I did. The repairman had to change the pipes because I broke the water heater (and the space heater, and the kitchen fan).
