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These photographs were taken in early October 2013 while hiking around Yángmíngshān National Park (陽明山國家公園). After meeting up with a friend we took a bus from Jiantan MRT in Shilin to Lengshuikeng with the intention of checking out Milk Lake (牛奶湖). Racing up the meandering mountainside roads we soon found ourselves immersed in an interminable fog. Debarking at the bus stop, with hardly another soul around, we decided to wander around and see what we could make of our time in Yangmingshan.

Date Captured

May 1st, 2016 at 22:23 UTC

Camera

NIKON D3100

Lens

AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II

Aperture

ƒ / 3.5

Shutter Speed

1/30 sec

Focal Length

20.0 mm

ISO

400

Exposure Value

8.5 EV

Download

1200 × 800

Last year one of my photos from Nakagusuku Kogen Hotel (中城高原ホテル) was picked up by LIFE Books for the publication of The World’s Most Haunted Places. I have yet to complete my own write-up of this fantastical and awe-inspiring ruin in Okinawa but I will certainly get around to it sooner or later. Appearing in a LIFE publication of any kind is also pretty cool even if it isn’t the original magazine, which my mother used to collect and keep around the house while I was growing up. She proudly bought a couple copies when she heard the news and the special hit the supermarket stands back home in Canada.

Date Captured

April 27th, 2016 at 08:05 UTC

Camera

SM-G9208

Aperture

ƒ / 1.9

Shutter Speed

1/25 sec

Focal Length

4.3 mm

ISO

200

Exposure Value

6.5 EV

Download

1200 × 800

This striking installation is one of the more iconic and well-known works of public art in Taipei. Created by artists Hé Cǎiróu (何采柔) and Guō Wéntài (郭文泰) in 2009, it is entitled The World in Aves’ Eyes (愛維思看世界), Birdperson (鳥人), or Daydreams (夢遊) and can be found somewhere in the labyrinthine passageways beneath Taipei Railway Station (臺北火車站). Apart from the obvious, the immature, androgynous figure holds a pencil in its right hand (never to write a word), water continuously seeps from its neck, and its feet show the signs of a mild case of pigeon toe, a condition that should be familiar to anyone who has seen young Taiwanese posing for photographs.

I briefly visited Meinong in July of 2014 while cycling around southern Taiwan. I hadn’t done any planning prior to arrival and knew nothing of what I was getting myself into nor what sights I should have made an effort to see. I was navigating almost exclusively by instinct, riding in whatever direction seemed interesting, simply to see what was there. Gathered here are several of my photos from a few uninformed hours in this bucolic rural township in Kaohsiung.

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900 × 778

Photos from my exploration of the Qiaoyou Building (喬友大廈) in Changhua City were in the Taiwanese news recently. UDN published a story that sparked a fair amount of sharing and discussion on Facebook most prominently here and here.

These photos were taken two years ago after cycling through the Old Caoling Railway Tunnel (舊草嶺隧道) into Toucheng, Yilan. The first set of six photos were all shot along the rugged shoreline of the Láilái Geological Area (萊萊地質區) while the last four were captured at Mǎgǎng (馬崗), a half-abandoned fishing village on Cape San Diego (三貂角), the easternmost tip of Taiwan. All were captured in Gongliao. From here the vast Pacific Ocean stretches all the way to Baja California in Mexico.

Curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, the Taipei Biennial 2014 was held at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (臺北市立美術館) in Zhongshan from September into the early part of the new year. The theme is “art in the age of the anthropocene”, the current geophysical epoch defined by humankind’s enormous impact on the natural world. From the curator’s notes: this exhibition is organized around the cohabitation of human consciousness with swarming animals, data processing, the rapid growth of plants and the slow movements of matter. I am no serious critic but I certainly appreciate thought-provoking art when I see it. Since I haven’t any expertise in this area I’m mostly going to let the photos speak for themselves, however incomprehensible that might be. Much like the Xu Bing retrospective it was an inspiring experience so I’d like to have a record of it here on my blog.

Date Captured

May 27th, 2015 at 13:03 UTC

Camera

SGH-I717R

Aperture

ƒ / 2.7

Shutter Speed

1/15 sec

Focal Length

4.0 mm

ISO

100

Exposure Value

6.8 EV

Download

900 × 900

People often ask me what camera I use, presumably because they like my photography and figure I must have a bunch of high-end equipment. Usually I laugh, somewhat awkwardly, as my gear isn’t anything special—in fact, it’s about as shabby as can be circa 2016.

Nánfāng’ào (南方澳) is a major fishing port in Su’ao, Yilan, on the east coast of Taiwan. It is located just south of the end of the Lányáng Plain (蘭陽平原), where a rocky headland juts out into the ocean to form a natural harbour. It opened in 1923 after development by the Japanese colonial authorities and is now considered one of the top fishing ports in the nation, often ranking in third place by measures unknown to me, and is particularly known for its record-breaking mackerel catch. Part of why the port is so productive has to do with the nutrient-rich Kuroshio Current (黑潮, literally “Black Stream”), which lies just offshore.

In the summer of 2014 I was nearing the end of my first sojourn in Taiwan. By the beginning of August I would be in Canada for a wedding in the family with no idea what I’d be doing after that. Since I wasn’t sure if I would be returning to Taiwan I made vague plans to go on a road trip. With only about a week to go before my departure the weather took an ominous turn as Typhoon Matmo (麥德姆) barrelled toward the island. On July 20th, with the pressure of time bearing down on us, my girlfriend and I hopped on a 125cc scooter—the same kind of dinky, puttering scooter you see people riding around any Taiwanese town—and set out from Changhua with the goal of crossing the Central Mountain Range (中央山脈) at Wǔlíng (武陵), the highest paved (and publicly-accessible) mountain pass in Taiwan at 3,275 meters above sea level. With luck, time and weather permitting, we’d be able to visit Héhuānshān (合歡山) and maybe even drive down into the amazingly scenic Taroko Gorge (太魯閣峽谷) on the east side of the island.