Sitting at the counter of Genki tonight I kept comparing my regular night of running sushi to the more irregular kind of deliveries that occur this time of year.  Like Christmas gifts or unwanted emails, each little colorful plate was there, spinning…waiting to be grabbed, devoured and digested.  The Genki roll of salmon skin, avocado and cucumber representing the present one is happy to unwrap while the gnarley sea urchin would be filed with those last minute emails you get that can derail you right before your holiday.

Sitting alone at the counter with my green tea and hope for a Tamago to come around the bend, I felt totally at peace.  There’s something meditative about the stream of those colorful, plastic plates and something equally satisfying about a meal made of impulse and bite-sized satisfaction.  If the Arc Shell proves too adventurous, it’s no biggie.  You only committed to one piece.  If the Shrimp Tempura is particularly delicious, nobody’s gonna stop you from grabbing another.  It’s the most perfect format imaginable for solo dining and could be one reason why I gravitate to sushi before all other genres of food when eating alone.

The static of my 14 hour work day seemed to dissipate amongst the rice and hand rolls and I arrived home feeling like I’m on vacation.

Oh wait…

In only a few short hours I WILL be on vacation!  Hot damn!  This is really, really good news.  Gisela Williams of the New York Times must have been told that I needed some good food recommendations and, voila! an overview of Bali street food appears in Choice Tables.  Now I just need my travel buddy to make it eastward and we’re on!

I’m gonna take my zen-sushi’d self to the couch for some more decompressing so that tomorrow I am a rocket ship, orbiting twice successfully, before splash landing in some warm tropical water.  I’ll save the Merry Merry wishing for when it’s time

I am all about accentuating the positive today.  I’m gonna let the shit roll off me like waiter off a duck’s ass…

Click here to hear it.

I’m a bit disappointed that the last week hasn’t stirred up the kind of inspiration that has me excited to sit down and spill my guts but it hasn’t.  Business travel is a far cry from my other whirlwind adventures and seems to take more from me, personally, than it gives.  It’s possible that it’s just the specific ‘brand’ of travel that i’ve been doing and that this has potential to improve in the weeks and months that come.

I was in Qing Dao, China during the end of last week and I got my first taste of winter this season.  Qingdao – home of the place that makes Tsingtao beer – is right across the Yellow Sea from South Korea and the air was below freezing.  Seeing customers and factories is always interesting.  The difference between the North and South, the nuance between each Province I go to reveals new insights as well as shocking new delicacies.  Our first night was the most radical.  The live scorpions struck me as the most hard core but, if I’m honest, there were another 20-30 savory (or not) articles to munch on.

Scorpions for Dinner - QingDao

There is a large population of Korean’s in Qing Dao and I can say without hesitation that the non-scorpion meals of Korean food were awesome.  The work bordered on awesome as well with some moments of less-than-awesome-awesomeness.  This is to be expected.  Like I said, this trip took more from me than it gave so don’t be shocked by the lackluster snapshots.

The countdown to holiday is officially on with less than 3 days to go before a friend is in my midst and then one more day before we head South to Singapore and leave the quasi-winter of Hong Kong behind us.  A couple days in Singapore and then a few more in Bali is just what the Dr. ordered and to say I’m excited would be a stupid understatement.  I’m totally psyched.

I kept my mind off of mock-packing and couch-sitting by doing a little exploration yesterday to Ap Lei Chau, a small island on the South side of Hong Kong island.  I read that it’s the most populated island in the world though it felt pretty mellow as I wandered around looking for Horizon Plaza.  Sadly, I found what I was looking for…a 27 story converted warehouse now selling outlet offerings from biggie designers for wicked cheap.  I dropped more cash than I anticipated on some new duds for roaming the beaches of Bali.

This morning I headed to the first showing of Avatar and lost my afternoon in the 3D jungle of Pandora.  I’m out of the loop over here so I hadn’t heard the hype which I’m sure exists by the metric ton in the USA so the film was a surprise to me.  After 2 1/2 hours I was sad that it was over…what a film!  I don’t usually love sci-fi but I thought it was brilliant and recommend that you find some 3D glasses and a few hours to get lost in another world.

My way home was ripe with detours…some cheap, some notso…and now I’m just getting my house together so I can runaway on Thursday with only 2 furry cares in my immediate world.  Here’s a peek of the cheap (and delicious) detour…

Wonton Soup

HBO and the promise of a short and sweet week that ends in Bali will lull me to sleep tonight…

I’m getting used to the speed of days here now.  They whiz past, stirring the dust up, then disappear off into the distance leaving me shaking the dust off and catching my breath.  Quiet days on my couch with my cats are one nice way of recouping from the exhaustion that comes when life moves at the speed of ‘wha?’

Friday night saw another holiday party, Saturday some shopping and today absolutely nothing at all.  So much nothing, in fact, that I don’t think I even uttered a word out loud.  I’m pretty sure that the chit chat with the cats was telepathic and I’m also pretty sure that I’ll be fast asleep before any friends on the other side of the world wake up and Skype me.

I did shoot a few new photos since last I wrote and can share a few…

Dongguan - China

Friday Morning - Eastern Street - Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

Brown Frown (aka Walter Sobchak)

A colleague asked me on Friday night if I thought 2009 ‘was good to me.’  I still have some days before I need to make the short list looking back on exactly how good the past year was but, without hesitation, I answered “yes.”  I’m crafting the list in my head and looking forward to sharing my thoughts on another trip around the sun with you soon.  Before then I have some work to do and another quick trip to China – north this time to Qing Dao – to sort out and then it’s on.

Click any one of the photos to find your way to some galleries if you want to…

“If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?” ~SW

I am very happy to welcome Friday this morning.  So happy, in fact, that I feel like playing a tune.  This ditty by the Tin Hat Trio will have me skipping into the city in moments and off for what I hope to make a very good day.

I have a couple photos from last weeks jaunt in the Pearl River Delta – Dongguan to be specific – but Ill share those later this weekend.  For now here’s a Beana Bern style Rorschach test to help you see where you’re at this morning.

in the details

Take today and rock it.

Another weekend has come and gone…

The ratio of peace to chaos this weekend was very healthy for me, Im guessing somewhere around a 90:10 split or thereabouts.  Some of that mellow mood can be attributed to the hangover that I had fun preparing on Friday night and late-sleeping that  I needed to recover on Saturday.  A wander through Mong Kok, a few hours in the Yeun Po Bird Garden and a couple loads of laundry topped things off.  If all goes according to plan i’ll be asleep before 11pm.

Tomorrow i’m headed to China for a few days of work so i’ll be off the radar for a bit.  Take a look at the bird garden if you’re inclined.

Bird & Man - Mong Kok

I can’t imagine why I haven’t shared this with you before now but, for whatever reason, I haven’t.  Some of you may recall that in the middle of last year I had the super duper fortune to meet one of the wonderful masterminds behind Lomo.  Another gift given to me from pmk, meine Lieblings Klub in Tirol.  Anyway, a friendship & sponsorship bloomed and I was invited to become a Lomo Amigo along with a laundry list of radical people like Elijah Wood, Dave Ortiz of Dave’s Quality Meat, Beirut, David Arquette, John Vonderslice, Bruce Lee and many others.  What an honor, right?  I know!!

Like Christmas in April the complete Diana F+ arrived with every bell & whistle you can think of along with a heap of fun, fun film and my task was to set out into the world and make photos.  Pretty much my dream job.  And so I did….  From the desert of Arizona to the beaches of Florida’s Gulf Coast to the high peaks of Austria’s Tyrolean Alps and the on to China, Russia and Mongolia I carried Diana, Holga and my beloved Seagull with me.  After some months of capturing my careful days I shipped all the film to Vienna for perfect Lomo processing.

Click here to see the original interview on Lomo’s website

Take a look at Photographer Beana Bern’s excursions in China with the lovely Diana F+ and the Diana 35mm Back+. Be struck with inspiration for all those wanderlust trips as Beana Bern takes you on an exhilarating photo tour!

REAL NAME: Kristina “Beana” Bern Schreibman
COUNTRY: USA

How long have you been a Lomographer (or are you new to this whole thing)?
Beana Bern: I got my Holga in 2006…my Seagull in 2007 and my Diana F+ in 2008. i guess, in the scheme of things, that makes me new to the game. the list of lomos i still need to try is long so i imagine that this is just the beginning of what has already become a beautiful friendship. next up is the Horizon if i have my way…

Describe the Diana F+ in five words.
BB: Liberation-onal. fun-ifying. textur-ific. nostalgi-tastic. deep-ilicious. not just 5 words but 5 specially invented words born out of a love of lomo. seriously, these cameras are very cool.

The strangest, funniest, or hands-down greatest photographic/Lomographic encounter that you have ever had.
BB: Opening my first roll of film a couple days after i bought my Holga was memorable and perhaps the story that I should tell but i’m going to tell you about something else. traveling through mongolia some months ago i was shooting a portrait of a herdsman named Baatar somewhere south of the Russian border. he was totally enamored with the seagull and wanted to try it out. i gave him the camera and watched him turn a full 365 degrees to try and get me in the frame. the reverse image, which confuses me too sometimes, had Baatar going in circles and we both ended up laughing hysterically. we couldn’t communicate with language but bonded over photography and had wonderful fun…

Trans-Mongolian Railway - Diana F+

If your photos shown here could have a soundtrack of three songs, what would they be (song title & artist please).
BB:

• Pink Eye (on my leg) by Ween
• Into the Universe by Chris Harford & the Band of Changes
• The Woods by Portugal. The Man

The one person (living or deceased) who you would most like to photograph.
BB: Hard hard hard question. there are SO many people that i would love to photograph both alive and dead but if i have to choose one i think it would have to be Benjamin Franklin . . . or maybe Hunter S. Thompson. I think it’s a tie

Your advice to future Diana F+ shooters.
BB: I guess i would say be fearless and bring your camera along for the ride.

If you could take your Diana F+ and a bag of film anywhere in the world right now, where would you go and why?
BB: I’d like to fly into Port Moresby and trek out into the jungle of Papua New Guinea to shoot the cannibals and beautiful, vibrant indigenous life that thrives there. i spend the majority of my time in the modern world, connected to the internet and spinning my wheels in a static bubble. stepping out into the ‘real world’ where water, food, shelter and community are still the key elements keeps me connected to the world and feeling alive. indigenous cultures, dance, clothing, food, art, language and traditions inspire me in tremendous ways and i feel like southeast asia is next on my list. if im too delicious to hang with cannibals then i would say Tanzania would be a good second choice though I read that white people are too salty for them so I should be okay.

Do you have any tips for would be traveling Lomographers and their camera?
BB: I made the mistake of bringing too many parts for Diana on some legs of my trip and, as a result, ended up not shooting so much because i was always tinkering. i would recommend that, for a given outing anyway, that you commit to one or two set-ups and explore with them. the gearhead in me is always tempted to bring it all but the beauty of the lomo is complex results with simple tools….do more with less.

Three Camel Lodge - South Gobi, Mongolia - Diana F+ 35mm Back

Tell us more about your inspiring trip. Is China a place you have always wanted to explore and if so, why?
BB: I have always suffered from chronic wanderlust so yeah, China has been on my list of must-see’s for a long time. The East has a kind of mystic or mythic draw for me and it was joyful to be able to wander around Peking for days and then to see some rural countryside on my way through Inner Mongolia towards the Gobi. I was curious to experience the Nationalism first hand and hear from Chinese people about their government, their politics, their future and their stand on topics like Tibet or the Olympics. What struck me was how totally dynamic Bejing felt…like it is changing before your eyes. The brick dust in the air represented a city being torn down and built up simultaneously and it is disorienting but also exciting. The kind of massive and fast transition that the country is undergoing is bound to have a big impact on the people that live there and it was excellent to experience that. Oddly enough, shortly after I returned from China and Mongolia I got word that I would be moving to Hong Kong and in October I go. I am already scouting my map of Southeast Asia and looking forward to a lot more exploration (and lomography!) in the Far East.

Which of the photos is your favorite? Please tell us why and what it mans to you.
BB: I’m still digesting all of the images and it’s hard to pick a favorite since each one of them takes me back to the moment when I made it…The dreamy quality of the images shot from the top of Khongoryn Els, the massive Gobi sand dunes, makes me warm and fuzzy. It was such an intense climb to get up there and then to see the steppe from the top, the windless dunes, the enormous pink sun setting over the desert, to hear the ‘song’ of the Singing Dunes and the far off cries of baby camels….life-altering would be the only way to describe that place and the hazy, blurry way the images came out seems like the only way to do such a magic place justice. Leaving the lines between what was real and what was imagined blurred so the memory can be as big as I make it and not confined by the razor sharp lines of my DSLR is liberating  Some other favorites are the double exposure of the women fan dancing in Ritan Park, the BW portrait of Baatar sitting by his yak and the totally unrelated BW landscape of my trip to Cinque Terra, Italy which I shot a couple weeks before heading east.

Please, describe yourself to us. Are you wanderlust and can’t stay in one place too long? Do you have any further travel plans for the future?
BB: I always ‘tag’ myself the same in the context of Bio’s and things like this…..Photographer. Traveler. Eternal Optimist. I am a believer that we can make our own luck and are only limited by our own imagination, desire and determination. I am loyal to my roots and desire a nest somewhere that I can call home but, at the moment, I am enjoying my freedom tremendously and letting the wind blow me as far and fast as it will. A friend of mine once told me that “luck is the residue of design” so I suppose I have to take some credit in forging such an interesting path for myself though, in my wildest dreams, I did not imagine how awesome my story would become. What lies ahead in Hong Kong remains to be seen and my eventual return to New York City, tentatively planned for sometime in 2011 give me enough of a safety net to hoist my sails and see where I find myself between now and then. I can be certain that there are still a lot of surprises on the horizon and many, many adventures to be had.

Great Wall - China Seagull TLR

If you go read the original interview you can browse through 2 big slideshows of images that Lomo liked the best.  Many of these have not yet found their way to my online archive so check ‘em out.  To see a little more of my analog work using my beloved Lomos, click here for HOLGA, DIANA, or SEAGULL.

There is some 120mm freshly loaded in the Seagull as we speak and I hope it wont be long before I can share some new work with you.  Hope you enjoyed the interview & images…I sure did :)

I’ve been singing the same song in my head for the last 48 hours.  That’s not an exaggeration.  An unending loop, it plays over and over again.  It’s not unusual that I stick with a song for days or weeks at a time, playing it so often that it becomes a part of me…melds with my skin, lingers in my hair and plays in my ears even when all is quiet.  If you can imagine, everything I’m about to share with you was experienced with this song as the soundtrack.  I was the spinning ballerina in the music box, seeing a bit more of the horizon each time the lid was lifted but always spinning to the same tune.

Friday night saw a brief return to a state of being that I haven’t felt in years.  Something about the uncertainty of work, the adjustment to Hong Kong, something I ate and the isolation of my existence here hit me.  It hit me so hard it knocked the wind out of me, actually.  I had my first taste of emergency health care on the island of Hong Kong which actually ended without any health care.  A  waiting room with 1000 masked sick people and 4 hours in an uncomfortable chair was enough and I left without so much as my temperature being taken.  Not to worry…I’m alright.  What took me out Friday night is nothing that a little Work-Life balance can’t sort out though the experience did motivate me to get acquainted with a Dr. here so that I don’t ever repeat the QMH emergency room insanity.

One by one the days are slipping up behind you
One by one the sweetest days of life go by

Saturday I woke slowly, still shaky from the surreal adventure of the night before.  Unsure if my sealegs-for-land had returned, I took a walk around the hood and decided that the couch was most likely the best bet.  Some provisions for me and the buddies and 6 movies later everybody was feeling better.  Can you remember the last time you watched 6 movies in a row?  2 cats, jasmine tea, a cashmere blanket, a macbook and 6 different HBO channels was the perfect way to collect myself.

One by one my dreams are fading in the twilight
One by one my schemes are failing fast away

Today I was open to giving myself another day of rest but really hoped for the energy to go find some adventure and clear my head.  With the sun came the full-glass-feeling that I am so lucky to be accustomed to so I packed a couple cameras and headed to Lamma Island.

Lamma Island

Arriving by ferry at one end and walking the length of the island proved to be a most theraputic and wonderful day.  The breeze was blowing up off the South China Sea and the heavy smog made the air seem bent and rounded and soft.  I had no plan, no map and no expectations so from when I landed to when I left I just wandered.  Here is a peek of what passed as the soundtrack in my head played on…

Peep Toe

l o v e

Lamma Lady

Twilight Riders

The island basically consists of 2 fishing villages with a couple other small settlements sprinkled around the beaches and hills.  The most striking component of the place is the huge power station that sits on the west end of the island.  The dichotomy of a huge wind generator spinning in the breeze while the massive power station belches CO2 into the already-thick air stuck me as interesting.  Also interesting is the ease with which people swim in the waters touching the power station and hike the surrounding hills as though the nature there is unspoiled.

Dichotomy 2

The smog was so thick today that a clear view back to Hong Kong Island was impossible and only a slight outline of the high rises sitting in Pok Fu Lam was possible.  The fog in the air made the fog in my head seem like nothing…

One by one my hopes are vanished in the twlight
One by one like snowflakes melting in the breeze

Riding back home the city began to light up.  The tankers all flourescent and the skyscrpaers drapped in X-mas kitsch.  Seeing my apartment from the ferry I smiled – my one little light twinkling amongst the thousands.   I guess I left the light on for the cats :)

It felt good to get outside of my routine and outside of my self.  Even the never ending Tweedy, though slightly melancholy, kept my head from swaying back to work and the stress of my Friday night ‘lights.’  Tomorrow kicks off another week and I am feeling ready for whatever it my toss may way.  One by one, I’ll take the days as they come.

If you’d like to travel vicariously through more of Lamma Island, click here.

Time to share some silk screened inspiration.  No paint here.  No tool box.  None of the color or accessories that lets me make my own pictures so Ill fill myself up with others…Bear hugs are on my mind…

Free Hugs - misnopalesart

Royal Panda - Alice Gabb

Things I Like - Richard Perez

Girl With Teddybear - Dolk

Bear on a Bike - linocutboy

Bear Hug - Matt Sewell

Tall Bike - Antonia Schulz

In the blink of an eye routine can be broken.  Surroundings change, change becomes comfortable, comfortable becomes routine and in another blink of another eye, routine re-emerges.  In my case, in a new language or perhaps a new alphabet…as though I woke up to a new life framed by the same familiar face in the mirror.

The last days have been intense with work and planning and, in the midst of the stress and work, I shelved the ‘adjustment’ and just plugged away like life in Hong Kong is totally normal.  That can of ‘adjusting’ rolled off the proverbial shelf and knocked me unconscious this past weekend.  Vegetative state would be an insult to parsnips so I’ll impress you with another metaphor…savasana.  Last weekend was a little death or, if that makes you worry about your far-away friend Beana, we can call it a mini hibernation.  I don’t think I said more than 25 words out loud between Friday and Monday and only managed to emerge from my flat once for a hot yoga class that almost made me vomit.  Clearly I needed a withdrawal.

I shook it off this morning and, like it just happened yesterday, my eyes opened and I realized that I am alone again in a far away place with a very cool job, everything I need to feel safe, joyful and free and yet, somehow, still totally isolated from the people that I love….now even more of them.  The longing is no longer contained to North America since there is a slew of ‘family’ and dear ones now nestled in the Alps too!  I remember this feeling well from when I experienced it 2 years ago in the tiny village of Wattens though I can now confirm that size is irrelevant….tiny village or throbbing metropolis, being alone in the world feels the same wherever you are.  Im guessing that my situational longing has something to do with the fact that all over the USA, people that I love are coming together tomorrow to eat and fight and laugh and talk and fight and play and then eat again.  I have no doubt that each of you reading this has your own laundry list of things to be thankful for and, if its not already high on the list, please add proximity.  Breathing the same air as people that are close to you and hugs from family and friends usually need proximity so count that among your blessings and take it from a person lacking it to know that it matters more than you realize.

I have been joking all week that I will celebrate Thanksgiving with some Peking Duck but the reality is that I will probably work late, do a little yoga since that’s one of my new things and then come home and let my mouth water reading Facebook updates on feasts aplenty.  I’d prefer Ready-Whip with Max and Cal, dress-up with Lucia, fetch with Sailor or Annie, Dominos with Popi, Rodeling with Innsbrucklyn or any variation on these themes but I will make the best of it and hope (just a little) that the ones I’m missing are missing me too.

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”  ~Buddah