Morning And Night In Kaohsiung

Last night on my way into Kaohsiung, I pulled over on the flyway to shoot some pictures of CPC's petrochemical plant in Nanzih and, although the light suffered from the humidity, I was at least lucky enough to catch this train...


... and the return service below. One problem I have with night photography is that my tripod simply isn't good enough to support anything other than the 18-55mm lens. I tried getting some close ups of the gas flares at this plant last week using the long lens and I ended up having to use my hands, it was ridiculous. I'm not about to blow a wad of cash on a good tripod though.



This is the "50 tower" (五十 大樓) in Kaohsiung City this morning taken at just after 5.30am. It is prefaced in the foreground by a police radio tower. Notice the mix of pink and yellow in the sky (I ought to have had filters with me), which is toward the east and contrasted enormously with the straight blues to the south west which you can see in the next shot. Last night when I arrived in Kaohsiung and drove around CC lake out at Niaosong, I stopped to set up the tripod for some shots of 50 tower with its' "Gotham City" lights on. It completely skipped my mind that those lights are set to go off at midnight - which is exactly what happened the moment I moved the tripod into position...

During my second year in Kaohsiung I used to live in the apartment complex right next to 50 tower. It was across the street from this building where I saw my first example of very strange police behaviour in Taiwan (it's a story in its own right).

And this is of course, Kaohsiung City's distinctive "85 Sky Tower" taken at about 5.40am this morning - which, since this picture was taken on the Boai-Jongshan road bridge, is about the only time anyone could realistically take a picture of it from this elevation at this angle without causing a pile up (there's no parallel public walkway - which is a shame). Notice the straight blues in the sky in contrast to the yellow-pink over the 50 tower (although I was also using different F-stops). There is also a singular, small, slightly pink cloud floating toward the camera to the top right. I've always loved this view of 85 大樓; I used to see it nearly everyday on my way to work when I lived in Kaohsiung. This section of Jongshan road is a reasonably smooth ride these days, but a few years ago, this was a hellish road with the MRT construction, the traffic, and the already extremely poor road surface. A lot of the shops on this section of Jongshan road have changed in the last three or four years, such that when I pop back down to Kaohsiung these days I'm not always certain that particular places will still exist. One thing that is still there though, is a picture of my good self at the age of 25 outside one of the buildings along that road. I took some pictures of it a few weeks ago with a friend with me standing next to it: I'm bigger, heavier and have longer hair now.