Wondering to have an authentic Hong Kong pictures during your traveling? if you want to do that than let me share for you about what I’m doing here in Hong Kong. Hi everyone my name is Bima and thank you for visiting my photography blog. First of all I could telling you that I’m falling in love with Bruce Lee’s home town since at the first time I visit during summer in 2011. Day by day I always find something cool while exploring this amazing city, people are so amazing, food are extremely delicious and when you walk to the downtown area than you still can see directly how this city got million of history that will priceless for the next decades.
When I got a deal notification for portrait shooting for group of socialite ladies during winter season than I’m so excited because I will fly back to Hong Kong and definitely want to explore more and capturing the most authentic Hong Kong pictures that I could share in this blog to you. In fact I love for being here in again in a better weather which is in winter now so I can see another perspective of this city comparing few years ago when I’ve been during summer.
I want to see more…!
If I used to stay in Fortress Hill during summer than I told to my wife that now I want to see more in this town than we choose to stay around Tsim Sha Tsui. Just like old time, I will choose to live in an cheap hotel called Marrigold Hostel where I can buy some food easily and walk into the East Tsim Sha Tsui MTR train station just within 2 minutes. If you see my photo above than right behind me is the entrance of the MTR station and just next to my hostel building is 7 eleven and surely various local food that will make you feels hungry for all time. As I said before that I want to see more so it could be people, culture, food, and transportation so let see for what I can do during this journey.
How to Prepare My Hong Kong Photoshoot Properly?
Generally I focusing my services to shoot destination wedding and portrait, so I work together with my wife and running our studio as simple as we can and serve only highly specific clients who able to appreciate on our works and follow my photography style. In case you want to learn more about how I did it back in the past 10 years so please keep in touch with because on photographer information page I will share everything about photography, business, and how I live in so much through this passion. If you never been to this city before so let me share to you about some useful information that could help you to arrange your journey to Hong Kong.
How to Arrange International Flight Ticket and Accommodation
All travel expenses that I need such as visa, hotel, international flight ticket, meals, local transportation even insurance are covered by my clients. To make this happen is ain’t easy because you definitely need a trust and years of bloody-hell hard work so your client will think that paying you for the services and providing the travel expenses at the same time are worth it to do. By the way I using this blog to promote my photography services since at the beginning of 2009 so I always encourage, greeting, and educate my potential client through it. If you also run any kind business that needs travel expenses than generally you can do these 2 things:
- Charge your client with travel expenses cost separately from your collection – I did it several years ago
- Calculate all your travel expenses and bundle it with your collection, so all your client know is, they pay your services and expenses in a one simple payment – This is how I did right now
Which one is better?
In fact, there is no parameter to show you which’s one is gonna be better because personally “I don’t care about it”, all I do is just trial and error cause my main goals is promoting and dealing with my clients. So my best friend to friend suggestion for you is try those two things above and let you know which is suit on your business. Generally there are 3 biggest budget to be consider while preparing your overseas photoshoot and once you got it than others will fine. Here you must be concern about:
- International flight ticket
- Accommodation, and
- Local transportation
1 – International Flight Ticket
Since I work with my wife than she will check the most reliable ticket that we can afford, it can be full services airlines or budget airlines but my. highest priority is choosing direct flight because it will comfort and faster. My next thing that to be concern is I need couple of meals on board to give me enough energy after landing in location. You may use any flight ticket agent nearby your home or you may try this online platform called jetradar where you may compare your flight ticket rates with other platform and airlines and at the end they will provide you with the final price that belongs to the reliable.
2 – Accommodation
Generally I’m a person that will feels happy for any accommodation standard as long as it’s clean, in other words I will happy to stay for couple days in an apartment, hotels, resorts, or any 5 star luxury hotel and in fact I’m happy to by lay down at the airport with my wife just for waiting my flight during the whole nights. I will suggest you to use Agoda to browse a full service hotel like what I had in Four Seasons Hong Kong but sometimes I feel stuck to stay in 5 star hotel and the next option that I recommend you to use is Airbnb like what I had in Singapore.
You know that when you stay in 5 star luxury resort after 3 days sometimes you gonna feel like “not at home” so you need more homy accommodation too and that is what Airbnb could provide. But if I may to suggest you than for the rest of 7 years I feel safe and satisfy with only two platform that I still regularly use till now:
3 – Local Transportation
When I travel for business especially during the photo shoot than I will feels better if my client can provide us with a rent car services, the point is to be as efficient as we can during the photo session just like what we had in this Hong Kong journey during 10 hours. When my work is done and I got free time to explore and sightseeing around than I’m a person who love to use public transportation such as bus, train, or simply walking down the city. By loving to ride with public transportation, it brings me to find accommodation that close to bus stop or train station because I believe that by staying in this kind of place than I can catch the transportation faster and surely typical place like this will come with various local food.
How to be Light Traveler Even While Doing Business
Become a photographer and traveler for over than 10 years I get used to walking in and out to airport terminal building so often so taking all my photography and travel gears since I walk out from the plane directly to some food court or train to city will be my highest priority. For me, waiting for luggage on a belt conveyor and stick around hundred of passengers is not my style and yes I still doing this habit since I just in two person with Nina till now we got 4 kids in our family.
We love washing our clothes and drying up in our rooms so when I travel both for business and holiday I will encourage my kids to be light traveler too so If you agree with my type than I will give you some recommendation of photography and travel gears that will help you to be a light traveler and trust me, by doing this than your life will feels so simple.
My basic travel gears are:
Travel Bag
I’m concern with any kind of travel bag that allow me to bring all the photography and travel gears in one bag. My concern is about some bag that I can set as a backpack and in the same time it can be set as a rolling bag.
Water Bottle
I love to drink a lot of water and fill my bottle with any tap water can or asking my friend to fulfil it at their house is belong to my habit. Sometimes I ask my kids too during photo shoot so here bring a mineral water bottle in my bag is truly important.
Bath Kit
This bath kit bag will always in my bag and I can put any thing in it too
My light photography gears are:
Canon EOS M50 with 15-45mm – BEST for traveling
Having a nice mirrorless camera with all round lens like 15-45mm is cool so you can travel in light
Other cheap recommendation will be…
Sony a6400 with 16-50mm – for SHARP image lover
Sony alpha is one cool camera that can shoot properly both outdoor and indoor than one of the most important thing is they provide fast focus!
Fujifilm XT100 with 15-45mm – Cool Camera at this Century
I tried Fujifilm camera for cityscape landscape and truly satisfy with the feature, fast focus, and best final result even you don’t put any post production works
How to Shoot Hong Kong Pictures Beautifully with Cheap Mirrorless Camera
No matter what camera that you use, it could be smartphone, DSLR, or mirrorless camera but the first thing that you should concern is know your devices better. First you must to do trial it in a day light and shoot any kind of objects surrounding like human, street food, pets or anything and see the result, once you get it done than try it a low light like indoor or when the night is coming. Even I use my smartphone too for having a stock photography and sell it on Shutterstock but today I’m focusing my tips to shoot Hong Kong pictures with my tiny EOS M. Love this tiny mirror less camera for sure even Nina able to use it too for taking travel photos no matter where we go. This is an old EOS M which you can buy for less than $200 but trust me, it’s awesome!
When you want to use it properly than you may consider to buy some gorillas tripod so you can hold your camera in any city part like fence, bin, or any iron pole around the city.
1 – Know ‘Ur Camera
I told you to have a good trial and error with your camera both in a day light and in low light, it helps you to know your camera’s capabilities and features. If you using any other mirrorless camera like Sony A6000 they might have a stabilizer on its body, it will automatically on or you can set it on your camera setting. There will be some ridiculous setting like manual, automatic, white balance, ISO, or any others but if you don’t want to get stuck with it than set your camera on auto and start capturing something. No matter where you are but in case you have a good lighting surrounding (even it’s cloudy) than your Hong Kong pictures will come so great.
When I shoot for Nina’s portrait under the building, I shoot in a low exposure around 1/40 to 1/60 without tripod. If you see the photo above than you could also see some tungsten downlight lighting from the building. So how about the lens aperture? if you set your camera on automatic than everything will automatically set by the system so all you need to do is just shoot and shoot.
2 – Don’t be too Rush
Stay relax and enjoy your time cause having a great photos will definitely need a time to be consume. When I shoot for a human activities in Chun Yeung St. Wet Market around North Point, I leave my hotels around 8 and arrive in that area within 30 minutes, what I do next is finding a bench and cup of tea than sit for a while and enjoying the surrounding. It’s a winter season by the way so drink a hot tea and see how the people passing by or buying some groceries while wearing their cold jacket is amazing morning scene.
Take a look for this beautiful Hong Kong pictures that I got in local market,
This scene inspire me so great for having a portrait shots tomorrow, so many people walking on the street even they got an old classic Hong Kong tram behind them. I shoot this image so fast while enjoying my hot tea and when I got my portrait session than I got this,
See that! it seems to be same because we got the models, we got the Hong Kong tram and daily activities that usually shown in every morning, overall I just need less people passing by in front of my clients so I can capture them properly. So stay relax and enjoying your time cause the one thing that also might important is knowing your location potentials so you will know what to do in the real projects.
3 – Always Stick With Your Camera
If you shooting with journalism style like me than having a camera next to me is way important, when I get some meals with Nina I surely will put my camera down or inside my camera but when I walk and sightseeing around than my camera is always hanged on my neck or hold by my hands. I captures this old Hong Kong tram by accident cause passing by in front of me, if you gonna visiting Hong Kong than I suggest you to ride with those tram cause it’s a flat rate and only need HKD2,60 to sightseeing around. I ride with that tram and enjoying the downtown from North Point to Causeway Bay, so slow but when you heard the horn Ding…Ding, Ding…Ding it’s like it bring you the Hong Kong past time when the Bruce Less and Ip Man are still alive.
As I told you before, you may consider for these several awesome and cheap mirrorless camera below:
- Canon EOS M50 with 15-45mm – BEST for traveling
- Sony a6400 with 16-50mm – for SHARP image lover
- Fujifilm XT100 with 15-45mm – Cool Camera at this Century
Conclusions
I serve exclusive portrait like this since 2012 and promoting my portrait services simply by using blog, the same blog that you read now and boost it with a Google Adwords. I remember during that time I spend like $25/week for adwords and got my first portrait session projects for $200 for shooting in 3 hours in Bali. I talked to Irina, beautiful girl that sit on the pool edge – 1st person from the right and directly meet her and her other friends in magnificent cliff-front villa called Suluban Cliff, you must stay here someday!
So if you run a photography services just like me and want to promote your services directly to your client than you can make your own photography blog. Using a blog could be your cheapest investment but high return cause rather than opening your studio in a great office right in the city centre than you can spend your rest of money for online advertising like Google adwords, Facebook and Instagram Ads.
When you expecting to serve specific market like this than cooperate with Google is one great choice because here I’m gonna tell you that I live in Yogyakarta, my clients are living in Bandung than we meet in Bali so it such cross city photo shoot or known as destination photography. In fact Irina’s friend continuously invite me to shoot them for special photo shoot in Bali or Hong Kong and that was awesome. After shooting for group of socialite in Bali for three times than my first portrait enquiry is just coming and there is Hong Kong for my next destinations.
In a simple ways I will telling you 2 (two) steps to promote your photography services:
I hope you enjoy for what I share today and this is your turn to make your greatest Hong Kong pictures by your own, you can use any camera brand and simply set it on automatic if you don’t get stuck with any ridiculous setting and start capturing. Lets keep in touch and enjoy Hong Kong through your lens!