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Here Are Some Excuses

You must be waiting anxiously for the Chronodex July-December version to come out, believe that I'm working on it and to be released definitely this week.  In the mean time, here's the excuses of being late.

Excuse 1: Obsession with Tri-Eye iPhonography

Can't stop, it is heavy, it is huge and it is fun.  Usually when people I met get interested in the monster, I got chances to take their "The Dog" photos.  Here's Claudia from Staedtler, whom I met in Shanghai a few days ago.  She is going to spend the next 6 weeks in China, it is a long trip.  Since I didn't go to Paperworld this year, I got good updates from her about Staedtler's new product release schedule from 2012 up to 2013.  She speaks fluent Mandarin coz she studied in Beijing some time ago.

And yes self-portraits is fun too with Tri-Eye, here's me in my own toilet.

I forgot to bring my shaver to Shanghai so I accumulated an ugly 5 days worth of beard, kids took fisheye photo of this begger just last night.

Yes kids, they are losing their teeths, in a healthy way.  Desserts are most welcome to them.

So excuse 1 the obsession continues everyhour, business or personal, it doesn't matter.  Here's Mr. Flury the inventor of Cyberclean.  Somebody said "I'm afraid of his nose poking me if it were a 3D photo".

Excuse 2: Shanghai Frequent Visits

We are going to have a new store coming up soon in Shanghai, our second store there (already 12 stores in Hong Kong and 6 in Taiwan).  Management is sending long emails coz they haven't seen my input enough, yeah yeah yeah I'm working on it, I don't want to hand in rubbish just to shut them up but seems like I have to.  Anyway, I'm confident my current composite of the Stationery section is interesting and strong, I just have to make it easier for people around me.  So, I am travelling there a week or two every month.

The last Monday I bumped into The Amazing Race season 21 first shooting.  They arrived Shanghai the same time I did, it was their first stop of the season and it was in Shanghai.  The camera men were super sensitive soon as I raised my iPhone, a few crazy fans were in Shanghai too, I saw them running around with the crew taking pictures and posting to Reality Fan Forum in real time.  Interesting encounter.

For a stay of just 5 days, the schedule was completely full, meeting after meetings.  Just so happened there was the 106th China Stationery Fair and I went there between meetings, not enough time to see but I got a sense that the show is nice despite the fact that import products are a little rare and usually arrives 6 months to 1 year later than the rest of the world.  Damn China import regulations and customs (sorry, don't ban my blog, I'm just saying it is not efficient).

Shanghai is definitely changing a lot and very quickly, IMHO it is one of the fastest changing cities in the world, after Seoul and Tokyo.  I managed to stop by some of the smaller shops and found inspirations every time.  Well, I just borrowed the toilet in this interesting wine cellar/bar, never had the luxury to enjoy a drink, must find time in June to do that.

Excuse 3: Experiencing for the Future Categories

Things won't be exciting at all if I were to order products from catalogs only.  Yesterday's merchanise makes today's sales, many lacks the vision to create a future category thus constantly being bugged by management for lack of 'concept'.  IMHO, the only way to create a future is to explore and experience as much as possible, inspirations will come.  We have so much to learn from other creative people.

Thanks to Petit Morpho, a tiny place which the owner is obsessed with organizing art/craft exhibitions, I had a chance to learn from famous Japanese rubber stamp crafting artist Ms. Tomoko Tsukui (津久井智子).  She has a pari of super steady hands and published several books (in Japanese) about rubber stamp crafting from erasers.  Ms. Tomoko works for the original rubber stamp crafting supplier Hinodewashi and came to Hong Kong for promoting the art.

2 weeks ago, I brought my kid to the event and learned some basic skills and it was great fun for both of us.

Ms. Tomoko carries a few boxes of her stamps, inkpad (she designed interesting sets of finger inkpads for accurate coloring) and signature stamps in various versions.  Why is there no man in any of these workshops and demonstrations?  They are probably playing with their cameras, iPhones or game consoles.  Oh perhaps their bikes....

Excuse 4: Ride Along

Social cause. Well, not as grand as it sounds, but I enjoyed the Ride of Silence 2012 event with a borrowed bike.  Yes that's an event with 80% male participants contrary to rubber stamp crafting's 100% female.  People close to me don't get enough of my attention and went sour sometimes, cut back or manage better I don't know.  I like the fact that we can ride together but in silence, for the same goal, well understood simple communications.  And I'm not talking about a bike ride only, figuratively rides to somewhere with companionship, just enojy the rides, explore without sourness.

Excuse 5: Researches

When a shop/place is good, you keep hearing things from people and you keep wanting to find out more about it.  What's the essense behind the apparent pleasant things you see?  People in their beta thinking mode usually cannot see deep enough, I prefer to find all angles from word of mouth, a visit and a time to sit back and think.

Fang Sou (方所) claims to be the best lifestyle store in China, many suppliers said great things about it, so I paid a visit there on a day trip to GuangZhou.  It is a bookstore with a fashion boutique, a stationery corner, a cafe, a home objects corner and an exhibition area.  Like it, although anybody with sufficient amount of money and connection can build one as easily, it is a noble attempt to composite such a mix especially in China.  It is a beautiful place to be.  I managed to stop by a few other interesting small shops in GuangZhou, all these researches help me to orient and pick the right sets of values to convey to customers when creating the next merchandise mix.

Excuse 6: Personal Projects

The best advice to a Gemini is probably "to focus", and I'm still meditating on it.  Leather projects for personal use and to gloat about are fun, creating something useful like GTD index cards and Chronodex to share with people is satisfying, blogging about products not available just yet is ..., ok some of these projects must go somewhere soon.

Excuse 7: Beautiful Hong Kong

Extremely proud of this city, such a great melting pot for many of the world-changing things to happen. Many wrote to me asking for interesting spots to visit, and I gave them a Google map if we have some common interests.  Some day our Tourism Board should have independent agents like me all over the place, equipped by the coolest map and stationery travel kit.... 

Excuse 8, 9, 10...: Skipped

Yup, I'm just giving you excuses, getting back to work now.  I hope you can have a sense of the "mess" I'm in.

TurtleJacket Tri-Eye Customization

The first time I saw Turtleback's Turtlejacket Tri-Eye I couldn't make out what it was.  It looked like a combination of multi-lens 8mm camera and old movie reel, I immediately fell in love with the look, just that it was too expensive as an iPhone case.  I kept coming back to look at it and wondered how it works, I mean I couldn't make the purchase by looking at its online shop, I had to touch and feel if it was right for me.

Smartphone photography is unstoppable, the technology convenience and convergence only means more and more people will take the advantage of improving smartphone sensors and social network connectivity, leaving behind their digital camera.  We took a lot more (crap) photos when the digital camera age came, now we take and *share* photos like crazy.  One major movement is that, with smartphone photography, we seem to take it more slowly and enjoy the process of tweaking photos with dozens of apps before posting with nice captions.

Turtleback was probably overwhelmed by orders so they were out of stock for a while, Tri-Eye is now back in stock and I'm happy to have gotten one.  You know me, I like to customize things (one reporter said 'you are the type who wouldn't carry a thing not being customized by yourself' and I agreed).  Well it was simple, I just used masking tapes from MT and Cavallini and I was happy.

(dinner with boss)

Tri-Eye has a full aluminium body, the rotating wheel allows you to carry 3 different lenses at the same time.  I found myself playing with fisheye (x0.33) mostly, because of the dramatic effect it creates.  Wide angle (x0.7) allows you to capture more in compact spaces, Tele (x1.5) I don't use much, so I plan to get a macro lens somewhere to replace it.

(Mido Cafe, Hong Kong)

Yesterday I took a Korean friend to Mido cafe in Yau Ma Tei, we had a nice sharing there after lunch hour.  A beautiful old place to visit, nice Hong Kong dishes, but don't expect smiles from the staff over there, which is one thing they need to improve a lot.

(Staircase, Mido cafe, Hong Kong)

Switching to fisheye on my Turtlejacket, I was able to capture this narrow and steep staircase with details and patterns I couldn't see.

(Old cashier, Mido cafe, Hong Kong)

I guess staff over there are still not used to being photographed despite it being a popular tourist spot, whenever I pulled out my iPhone, they'd either look away or flocked.  A little more courtship may help, but I was there just for a short while, perhaps next time.

(Star Ferry, Hong Kong)

One of the reason why I love Tri-Eye is that you get to play with different lenses inexpensively and portable. Yes it is full metal and relatively heavy but it is still a great bargain for me because of all the fun it provides. Yup, fisheye photography is a thing I will explore more, my aim is not to make you bored by my twitter/Instagram fisheye images :)

(Customized on/off button, eraser, kid's complaint)

One thing I think Turtleback must improve is the accessibility of the iPhone on/off button.  The hole is so narrow and deep, you will need a flat finger tip or long nail to turn on/off the phone.  My solution is to steal my son's eraser, cut off a 10mm width x 4mm depth x 3mm height block, tape it to the iPhone on/off button before inserting it to the jacket.  It works perfectly and I can even feel the eraser's cushioning effect.  My son found out the missing corner of his eraser, I would be the only one in the house doing that, he drew a question mark on the eraser and gave me a note :)

Here's one more customization I'll do on my Tri-Eye: a two-tone leather holster with cool looking flap.  Well, you can use straps to carry Tri-Eye on your neck, but it is way too heavy for my neck.  I prefer a holster, perhaps it is a man thing I like, to pull and shoot.  A few ideas of the cutting is drawn on my notebook, just need to steal a few hours to experiment and make it happen.  I already feel happy about it, will tell you more.  In the mean time, enjoy an interview with famous Instagramer @Zirosou Mr. Sohjirou Yamagata from Hong Kong.

 

What Happened in 2 Months

Hong Kong is such an amazing place a lot can happen in just 2 months.  For those of you who don't follow my tweets or Instagram feed, I feel obligated to blast out what happened (Colin, I'm talking to you!).  Or to put it better, I want to share my colorful life with you because I know I won't have the time to go back and post tibits I wanted to describe in more details.  So here you go.

Had a privilege to be invited to speak in a conference in Basel.  Flown to Zurich on Swiss Air.

Before the conference, I had a few nice walk with conference attendees from different parts of the world, taking time to see and had coffee while journaling.  Visited stationery and lifestyle stores like Waser, Book Binders, Seven Sisters, etc.

One afternoon was particularly pleasant with nothing to do, so I cycled to all 3 countries sharing this lovely little Basel.  Between the border of France and Switzerland I had a couple of beers by the river and a nice chat with a fellow conference attendee.

After my presentation and the weather permitted, we went for the maiden flight of the newly made Cyberclean hot air balloon.  I was privileged to be on that very balloon, while the rest of the conference attendees rode on the other 9 balloons.  Champaign after that.

I stole half a day from the conference and met two persons I knew but never met before.  My blog reader Yvette who took me to Zurich to see stationery stores and bought me a nice pen, we had lunch in a famous restaurant Zeughauskeller, she showed me her lovely Traveler's Notebook and pens in brass pen case, we shared love in stationery and photography.  We talked about business and management near the end of the day as she is the head of a medium size company.  Since I'm a serious Treemap user, I arranged to meet the founder of Macrofocus Treepmap, Luc, in Babu's Bakery & Coffeehouse.  Interesting to see his other versions of Treemap and found that surprisingly the software's biggest clients are … I can't tell, but very interesting.  Thanks Yvette and Luc, I had a great afternoon with you even though it was very brief!

Visited Museum Tinguely amazed by his work, went up to 1291 meters Weissenstein mountain top to lunch afterward.

Chased by a cow there after showing her my Traveler's Notebook, literally chased by her and being laughed at by a 10 years old kid.

Before we left Weissenstein, I had 30 minutes laying on grass breathing clean air while looking over this beautiful country.

It was quite late that day but we managed to stop by Solothurn, a beautiful little town having a lot to do with the number 11… (check out my flickr feed by clicking the photos).  Fountains, churches, clock tower, cafe, etc.  Too short a stay but feeling lucky.

Back to Hong Kong from Switzerland.  Mid-autumn night playing with kids and lights and camera.

A cycling day with my Strida and Olympus PEN.

Worked a lot on Inkling campaign, which has a long queue of waiting list now as production speed is still slow due to their strict quality control standard.

Went with my modified Polaroid 110A (by Patrick Putze) to Ma Wan in Hong Kong, where an Instagram event in Hong Kong took place, check out Hong Kong Instayay keyword.

The Instayay group is getting bigger and bigger, lots of new faces I couldn't find time to meet.  Great to socialize with a very diverse group of people.

Oh I did take my Voigtlander 35mm too, stunning colors to capture in Ma Wan.

And it was the first time I saw my son so seriously taking photos with his digital camera, love that he enjoys photography as much as I do.

September was Switzerland, October was Korea.  For some reasons this trip was delayed to October and I couldn't change flight schedule but to accept a midnight flight to Seoul.

Rare in Seoul but it happened to me, bed bug bite in a decent hotel, luckily they moved me to a super nice traditional Korean style room, 5 times bigger but I was not so used to sleep on the floor with thin bedding.  Managed to find a lot of great stuffs to bring to customers in our shop.

First time to try Budae Jjigae (Army hotpot).  A type of hotpot originated from Korean War when meat was scarce and people picked left over food from US army base.  Yummy.

Met dozens of suppliers over there and found new masking tapes which quality finally catching up with Japanese MT Tapes.

Stopped by 10x10 cafe again, a must visit cafe even though the decoration is changed significantly from my last visit.

Finally visited Jetoy's very own shop, met the founder once again and had a real nice meeting and planned ahead for the coming year's collaboration.

Visited dozens of stationery and lifestyle shops, as usual.  Small world, I arranged a meeting with a Korean guy I met back in Switzerland, to learn more about his business in Korea.  Chose the Toycamera shop to meet.  Found in that shop selling a book with dozens of my Polaroid photos inside.  I agreed to let them use my photos for the book, for free, in return I asked them to send me the book but they never did!  Toycamera shop owner was nice enough to ask me to sign that book and I was happy enough.  And I bought the book.

Turned out there was a firework display in one of the night I stayed in Seoul, went all the way to get close to the firework and it was awesome, so many people.

Back to Hong Kong from Seoul.  Kid is having more homework, I invented some ways to help him learn English spelling, turned out successful and each round I would make a small booklet for the bunch of words he needs to memorize.  Eventually, I made a leather cover for those booklets.  My kid supervised me to make the leather book, and he specified a pencil holder too.  I named in "Spell(ing) Book".  Fun.

Cycling in Cheung Chau with kids, what a lovely day.  Ice cream, cycling, chit chats and of course Instant photography, this time with Chocolate Polaroid film.

Middle of October, after weeks of thinking about it, I finally took 4 hours (or 6?) to make this leather pen holder with strap for myself.  I followed a design from a Japanese company called 4GATS, I admired their design a lot but I couldn't buy it anywhere in Japan in my last visit in July.  Will import their products to Hong Kong, but I just had to own one created by my hand :)

More product sourcing, repeatedly, happily.  Knew Jac Zagoory's key pen for a while but finally saw it in person first time.  Great quality, good looking, but probably cannot arrive for this Xmas.

Couldn't join Strida gatherings, but managed to visit a bike store opening.  Met a serious biker who customized his Strida with speed drive, drop bar and Megahorn.

Got my hands on the Polaroid Z340 instant digital camera!  Love the look, hate the Zink prints.  Launch event with media on 23rd Nov.

Lomokino launched.  Got a sample but haven't tried to use it, I have low motivation to do that afraid of spending all my money in seconds.

Phew, a whole lot more happened, I guess these are just tip of the iceberg.  Better follow my tweets Colin! :)  BTW, finished reading the "Steve Jobs" biography and re-read "Why We Buy".  In the process of reading "Thinking, Fast and Slow".

Shelves and Shelves of Treasured Things and Stories to Tell

If I were to have my own place (gee it is almost impossible now given the high property price here in Hong Kong and I am probably too late, too unwilling to work my butts off giving my entire salary to mortgage), I would have all walls filled with bookshelves, custom made or genuine trays of the letterpress shelves, boxes and blackboards etc to build memories, concepts and ideas.

In these shelves/trays, they hold small chunks of memories though collection of objects and visuals.  Each object tells a story of my adventures, places I've been to and concepts coming from my little brain.  A real life Akashic Record of myself open to everybody.  I don't know what it means in front of God, or if it means anything to anybody, but at least being able to see those shelves of my life in my mind already gives me the basic grasp of who I am, that's what life is about isn't it?  To discover yourself.  Now I accept donations :P

Miun's Way To Preserve Impossible Film

Designer and photography enthusiast Miun shows us how to preserve your precious Impossible Project film instead of letting them to crystalize or change colors in time.

 

 

Crazy Market Research … and more

If you are not following my tweets or Instagram feed (@patrickng for people who use Instagram app on iPhone), you are missing a lot since I can only update my blog once in a while.  So many things going on I simply do not have time to sum up as a blog entry.  So join me, I'm visiting 3 cities in July and a lot can happen ;)

 

Sardine - Best Built Plastic Camera From LOMO Ever

I didn't plan to write anything about it, lots of family stuffs going on and work has never been busier.  But I really want to tell you this in a few quick points.  I love this camera a lot because it simply is the best built plastic camera from Lomo ever!

When I first heard about it, it was just a word "Sardine".  My imagination went wild and I got all excited.  To stay calm I told myself that I didn't like my Diana and Diana mini, what features in this new "Sardine" camera would make me love it?  It could just be a fancy gimmicky plastic thing.

The funny thing is, when I got back home I couldn't help brought out a Sardine tin and put a Diana lens on it, I looked and looked and thought it was so cute.

Then I saw the real thing a week or two ago.  Not disappointed (and that's very important for Lomo right now coz many of us got bored with plastic cameras).  It feels really solid but not heavy, wish it were made in tin/metal which gives you a worn out look after using it for some time, but I'm totally happy with it.  It almost gives you the feeling that something is inside, you want to open it, not like Dianas which you are sure there is just emptiness inside :)

Here's a few more reasons why I love it:

• Attractive color printing on the camera surface, yes I think the printing is quite durable
• Thoughtful little printed text on the lens ring "only shoot if you can read me!" to remind you the importance of good lighting
• Very good looking flash unit, which has 3 strength settings to choose from.  That is if you shoot a close subject, you can choose a weaker flash setting.  Strange that it uses CR123A battery which is a bit difficult to find here
• It stands!  I don't know why, but I feel Diana and mini are very unstable persons, which make me nervous somehow.  Sardine stands firmly even with the flash attached to the left, has to do with its low center of gravity I guess
• Universal cable release socket.  Yup, I hate Diana's way of handling long exposure
• MX switch for double exposure.

One thing I don't like about Sardine: It is such a good looking camera to carry on your neck but you can't add a strap to it!  Now I don't get to enjoy the showing off part of owning a Lomo camera, damn!

For All Travelers Who Have A Free Spirit 獻給所有追隨著自心步伐的旅人

Travel Photo Cafe is a mindset and a collection of tools you may find them helpful to literally change the way you look at your next getaway travel.  Yes your gears are important, but we figured through our extensive travel that, as Henry Miller precisely puts it, "One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."  So open up to what we are proposing and make it your mission to create a new journey ahead, and when you do, we hope you will bring back your very own new attitude to everyday life.

This 5th rendition of Travel Photo Cafe also marks the 5th anniversary of Traveler’s Notebook by Midori.  On 24th and 25th of June, the Midori design team will be present at Festival Walk LOG-ON to meet you and share their customization experience.  Don’t miss the chance, come by and grab a few exclusive items made just for this event!

究竟要怎樣才能跳出一般的渡假模式？選購功能性旅行用品當然重要，但更重要的是您會選擇背上一個怎樣的心態去看世界。這個 Travel Photo Cafe 的概念不僅包含了玩味極濃的文具及攝影精品，也送給您一些小貼士，希望您能從這裏出發成為一位能追隨著自心步伐的旅人。如作家Henry Miller所說：One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.  願您能把旅途上發掘到的新思維新態度帶回來，成為您日常生活的新自我。

第五年度的Travel Photo Cafe也正好是日本Midori Taveler’s Notebook的五週年紀念。 Midori的設計團隊亦特地到訪又一城LOG-ON，於六月二十四及二十五日跟大家碰面，教授如何把這本皮革筆記簿個人化，更出售幾款別注版產品，前萬不要錯過！

Stationery, Photography and A Wedding Day

A lot is happening in our stores lately, both about photography and stationery related projects.  Here's a quick report while I'm waiting in a mahjongg room for the wedding banquet I'm attending tonight.  (BTW, congratulations again Geric and Lorraine!)

The Impossible Project corner is established with great support from Japan.  An open display in Times Square city'super store above.

The Impossible Project Black and White film release corner in our Festival Walk LOG-ON store above.  It is deep inside that store, hard to find but you'll like it if you are there.

The Fujifilm pillar we created a while ago, it is supposed to have the infamous X100 sitting right there but unfortunately due to the Japan earthquake and tsunami, 2nd batch of X100 won't be arriving any time sooner.  Some reported electronic lever problem found in the first batch of cameras, but so far we haven't received exchange information yet, perhaps customers need to wait for the production to restart in order to have that fixed.

Talking about the Japan earthquake, Lomo is donating 20 Euros to the Red Cross Relief Japan for every special edition "Fisheye No.2 Shiawase - Sparkling" you purchase.

Just started last Friday is the "Lomography Studio" event we are holding in every store.  The retro display tries to simulate how you would experience walking into a traditional photo studio taking your family pictures.

Thanks to the hard works from the Lomography Hong Kong team, we've managed to make it pleasant to see and walk around the promotion areas.  If you feel like it, you can take a picture with the statues at Karnak Temple right behind you.

For those who would like to personalize their camera equipments, we've imported quite many accessories from Japan and Korea.

Kaweco pens continues to be very popular in our stores.  With support from Germany and distributor, each store is now having a Kaweco corner decorated in various different ways.  Here's the big glass case in our Festival Walk LOG-ON store.

UNI has been quiet for a while and from what we could find out, this new StyleFit series of pen with lovely barrels is probably going to be the highlight of the year.  You can choose to put 5 refills of your choice to the barrels or just pick your favorite refill and match the color of a single refill barrel.

I love today's ceremony at the church, witnessing a dear colleague's wedding and his confessions :)  Heading towards the tables now.

Revived Ricoh Auto-Half with Close-Up Modification

A few months ago I visited famous photographer Ryu Itsuki san's home and acquired dozens of revived Ricoh Auto-Half cameras for our stores.  One batch of the cameras was reserved for our new store freshly launched just yesterday.  It is LOG-ON in Langham Place where I put them (limited number of cameras are also available in Times Square city'super and APM LOG-ON).  If you happen to be there, check out the display I made as seen below.

Thanks to Itsuki san's modification, these halves can now focus as close as 0.5m (originally fixed focus), by adjusting the lens in positions marked on the light meter panel.  It has quickly become my LCA alternative, doubling the number of frames to play with and stories to create using 2 half frames each time.  Check out my Ricoh Auto-Half flickr set here.

The price is not cheap, but you simply can't find many good quality auto-halves in the market, let alone carefully revived ones equipped with this great close-up hack.  You will have to come to Hong Kong to get these modified Auto-Half, but if you would rather get from Itsuki san himself, do check out his online shop and you will find a lot more camera choices or make special request to him.  Be surprised to find some digtial Auto-Half cameras too!