pete in nyc through film

i've been experimenting with film this summer/fall, mostly through my mamiya 645AFD that i scored off ebay.  i love it to no end and so much so that i bought a hasselblad 500cm to add to my repertoire.

as a side note, i have a lot of pictures of pete.  and while i love him dearly, he happens to be around when the light is right.

crane's beach

we visit crane's beach in ipswich at least once a summer.  it's not a far drive from my parents' home and we generally make a day of beach combing and feasting on lobster and lobster rolls at nearby woodman's.  last year i did my sea and sand photo shoot on the beach and would love nothing more than to get a gig photographing or making flowers for a wedding at castle hill.  until then, here are some images from our day.  i shot both film and digital but only the digital images are posted (i sent my film out today).  

castle hill on crane's estate in the background; had my high school prom there

hong kong

loved this place -- great people and food (oh my god, din tai fung!).  i can't say we did much of anything cultural during our 7 day stay.  we hung out, ate food, hunted for used camera parts, downed lots of coffee, (then) drank lots of carlsberg beer, took photos, watched music videos on the hotel TV before bed and pete jumped off a junk boat.  yup, except for the junk boat part, our days were on-repeat up until our very "last" day.

some pictures of the markets on and around graham street:

some more street shots:

i love shooting alleyways and thought this picture (above left) showed some of the small-time infrastructure that help keep people cool in the heat -- old buildings, new AC units.  also, the alleyway is remarkably clean.  the green structure the picture in above right is the longest escalator in the world (don't know whether that's true).  the escalator does run up a steep hill for a good distance.  the escalator runs downhill during the morning rush hour (before 10am) and then switches uphill for the commute home.

jamia mosque:

tea shopping:

views from victoria peak:

 taken with the mamiya using portra 400 film:

macau

you may have noticed that we've been away a bit, about 2.5 weeks.  i feel kind of guilty that i haven't posted enthusiastically about my trips since japan.  it's actually a lot of work behind each blog post and i'm trying to pull myself from behind the lens to enjoy some of our time abroad.  but i think we're done traveling this year and i'll start to become very much more productive with the camera and flowers.

during our 7 day trip to hong kong, we went for a day trip to macau.  i can't say we're gamblers (at all), not even shoppers.  and macau isn't vegas so there were no shows to pass the time.  but macau is mostly about gambling and we jumped the free shuttle bus to the venetian (snore) and i'm now proud to say that i've been to the venetian in vegas and macau.  after grabbing lunch, we grabbed a cab to senado square, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.  it's pretty cool and novel.

northfield farms

i feel as though we've gone dark without a post for many weeks now.  pete and i are in southeast asia at the moment and i've found some quiet time and caffeine to finish up a post that i meant to do pre-trip.  (our daily southeast asia instagrams can be found at @flowersbybusyb and @digitalpetey.)

it's no surprise to some that i spend many weekends in western ma.  our summer weekends are filled with gardening, ice cream and barbecues, but this time we took a drive down to the farms to watch the sunset.   the "farms" is the collective name for the area of town by the connecticut river.  the area is acres upon acres of beautiful flat river valley where farmers grow their wheat, sod and hops.  it's quite something and i wish i had some of that land to grow my flowers.

amsterdam canals

what a beautiful city!  we spent a good deal of time walking around amsterdam since it served as home base during our week there.  it took us about three-four hours on foot to explore -- small but very lovely, particularly when we got away from the red light district.

dream man and dream car!

update:  forgot to add this picture.  what better way to finish a day of sightseeing than a cold beer at a nice cafe?