Rückkehr nach Luftspiegelung

▲ Mid-Autumn party in the new house, TAIPEI, OCT 3, 2009.

This was the first time that my parents and relatives had a mid-autumn party in my new house. It was also the first time that I took pictures for my family. The place was on the roof. It's a good place. My uncles, aunts and their children came together. It reminded me of some old things. I felt a little bit down.

At that night, I developed the film by myself.

某種程度上來說，沖底片跟煮咖啡，心態是很像的。不見得自己動手結果就比較好，其實享受的是那個DIY的過程，就像拼圖一樣。





Leica M6
Summicron-M 35/2 ASPH
Kodak Tri-X

顯影液：Kodak D-76, 1+1, 8:45" @24°C
停止液：Kodak indicator stop bath, 0:45" @24°C
定影液：Kodafix solution, 7:45" @24°C


It was lucky that Yin, daughter of my aunt, birthday was the same day. We celebrated her 24th birthday. She majored in piano and graduated from music college last year. Now works for music institute. I have never listened to her play. Her mom told me something about her current job. It sounds that music career is not a smooth road. Hope she has a bright future.

Below are pictures taken on color negative.







Contax RTS II
Carl Zeiss T* Planar 85/1.4 AEG
X-Tra 400

All color pictures @ f1.4, 1/15s

C told me the bad situation today. It seems that I'm not patient with everything. Not very good. I have no idea what hell I become this. It's too late when it's broken. I'll find a way.


(Video does not correspond with this topic)


▲ An impressive jazz violin duo Maiko & Toshihiro Nakanishi played SPAIN written by Chick Corea.

▲ A great knight statue near the Rhein river in Germany. In a certain afternoon. September 2008.

"You must speak every word loudly when you learn new language. You already knew English so that It's very fast to learn German. Very fast." S said, "Do you know how to sing ABCD song in German?"

I met S last year when I went to Germany to report a important exhibition. That was the first time I saw this great person. 1 month later, we met again in Taipei. Then, it's the unexpectable thing that we became businese connection in the beginning of this year.

He came to Taiwan this week. In the daytime, there was a long meeting battle. Everyone was serious. I learned many many things in the meeting. It was over last night. After dinner, I picked him up to hostel. We had a talk in the car. Talked about learning German, camera, photography, and others. I opened my case, showed him my M6, and told the camera story.

"It looks nice. Did you ever think you'd be here in the past?"

I really never think of it. Suddenly I felt a little depressed. I don't know why. Some images came to me. "May I take a picture of you?" "Of course!" He smiled. I put focus on his eyes, set open aperture, turned shutter speed to 1/15 second, and then pressed shutter button quickly.

"Wiedersehen!" I said. I think it will be a nice B/W picture.

Today my military fellow, Ray, and me went to Wu's wedding. Ray is Weida Cheng, the same last name as me. And Wu is another military fellow. We entered military service at Ma-Tsu island. A absolutely ridiculous time.

In fact, I'm not very familiar with Wu. He was in different unit then. After retired from military, he works as a junior high school teacher in his hometown, Chia-yi. Today he took his wedding a grand success. 50 tables! Maybe it was too large. Like uncontrolled chaos. At the end of the wedding, I felt a little depressed. Why should I go there? I have no idea. It might be see old frined.

Yesterday, I lived in Ray's home. He took me to the seashore at midnight. Played guitar, took picutres. Very nice! It seems that I've never told his story. I must to say he is a real man!


▲ On a certain summer night last year, Ray came to Taipei. This was his second time to attend business training. I forget what we had for dinner at that time. / August, 2008. (RDPIII)

Ray met his angel when he was a senior high school student. He wrote to her constantly. But she didn't put it in mind. 2 years later, she went to Germany to study music. Lost all messages. 5 year later. He told me the story. Thanks to internet, I searched and got her message in the internet. She is still in Germany now.

Last night, Ray showed me his very longtime hand-writing letters and photos. I sincerely said that the scene touched me, deeply.

Reality is sometimes stranger than fiction. Whatever happens in dreams. Everyone know it can't be worse than this. So he prefer to sleep.



Leaves' Eyes, gothic metal band. The song name ist "Norwegian Lovesong".

▲ The girl is YU's daughter, watched birds by using Leica APO-Televid 77. --Feb 22th, 2009.

February 21th, 2009-- It's my first time! I've never been birdwatching before. Last week, WBST(Wild Bird Society of Taipei, 台北市野鳥協會) and my company held a joint activity. The location was at Hua-Jiang Bridge Natural Park(華江橋自然公園), under Hua-Jiang Bridge. The goal is simple, to raise environmental concerns.(Even I think it's useless...) Of course, my holiday was gone. I should stay there for whole day.



▲ WBST and we arranged a row of telescopes.

We supported them several high-quility (also high prices) binoculars and telescopes. Any binocular costs over NT 80000! We displayed these equipments to let people try it. Everyone was surprised at its quility, including me. Very clear, vivid, and shock!

"Oh! what a wonderful binocular!!" said a woman, looked like 45+ years old, "I think it must cost much money! Does it cost over NT 4000?"

"Errr... sorry, madam. Thie one in your hand costs about NT 115000." I said in a little voice.

"You bandit!!!"



▲ Mr. Ru, a Leica binocular user. He observes environment around Hua-Jiang Bridge every week.


▲ He attends a projcet(國科會計畫). He's also a ecologist.

All the members of WBST are very interesting. They are mostly old, retired, rich people. Yes, they are also very very wise. For example, Mr. Ru is a professional wild bird expert from NTU(台灣大學). He is under a project(國科會計畫) to observe environment in Taipei. Accoding to his research, wild birds are on the decrese every year.

接下來一定要用中文講比較好玩，當我跟他聊到一半的時候，旁邊的鳥會義工突然轉過頭來說：「快看！那裡有一群鳥飛過去了！」盧老師聽到後立刻拿起望遠鏡，隨著鳥飛過去的路徑掃看過去，差不多看了兩秒吧，接著他拿出冊子低頭做紀錄：「品種：XXXX，數量：47隻，」哇靠，這樣掃一眼就算出幾隻，太猛了吧！（就是上面那兩張圖）




The girls above are very sweet. In fact, except birdwatching, we had a boring, terrible show in the festival. WBST prepared many performances, mostly folk activities, in order to make it hot. I asked the grils let me take a picture. And they did.

As you see it, the left girl behind her sister reminded me of a impressive photo. So I pressed the shutter button.

February 11th, 2009-- "Ich bin Citta, Wie heiße du?" I begin to study German (Deutsch) today. This is the only sentence I know. Why do I study German? Just for work. I must make communication between main company (German) and branch distributor (Taiwan) everyday. Even English speaking is OK, I have a mountain of technical data sheets in my bookshelf. Most of them are German papers! And it's important that the opposite side is German. I don't like to admit defeat.

The German teacher is a tall, serious, boring man. Even he speaks Chinese very well. I guess he has less experience in teaching. Fortunately, our girl classmates are bright, easy to talk. I think the course is too long. I can't concentrate for 3 hours.

This diary note has no photo. So I put a music video here.



This is the legendary Angra classic tune "Carry On" played by Pre-Angra at unknown rock festeival in 1989. 12 years ago, I saw this video for the first time when I was 15. This awesome tune reminds me of our wonderful past time.

Uncle Lee, nickname of my high school classmate, gave me a secret music tape on a certain day. At night, I cannot get to sleep. He pushed me to open the door to the realm of METAL music. in the period of 7 years before graduated from university, I felt into metal enthusiasm, especially for North-European music, and formed several metal bands.



Original Angra splited into two bands. Andre Matos, ex-vocal of Angra, formed a new band "Shaman" with original rhythm section including bass player and drummer in 2000. They perfromed the same tune "Carry On" on their world tour in 2003. The feeling is gone...

▲ Photo by Tina who held Leica D-LUX 4 on February 7th, 2009.

「不要去比較，你所謂的壓力其實是多餘的、自己去設限的。」當我在天燈寫下預祝工作順利，將希望拋往天際的同時，T對我說了這番話。



▲ Ying-yin, in the white coat, is a teacher. She teaches Mandarin at National Taiwan University (台灣大學). The boy on the left is me. Photo by Y --February 7th, 2009.

雖然藍白拖配上大提琴很奇怪，不過謝老還是讓我見識到他專業的一面。他是一位居住在台中的製琴師，工作室就在他家二樓，幾坪大的房間裡，用手工古法一刀一刀研磨木頭，平均做一把提琴需要花三個月到半年的時間。我想起去年在德國Solms參觀徠卡工廠，打從心底對工匠感到佩服。




上面這木頭，一塊可以做一把提琴。他指出，這些木頭都放了7～10年之久，為的就是能有共好的共鳴。






把上面的木頭平攤開後，兩塊接合，成為一塊版子，然後一刀一刀挖，「挖這個很辛苦，」他說。




各式各樣的工具，很多是德國進口的，「還是德國工具最精細。」






不止是大提琴，小提琴也有，上面這把是將指板與琴身黏合固定，已經到了最終完成階段，差不多再等一到三天的時間，一把提琴就誕生了。這把是他兒子做的，小我兩歲。




這位就是謝老了，當天剛好有位音樂班學生送把名貴的義大利琴來修，他就告訴我歐洲琴跟大陸琴的差異。這東西跟相機一樣，在很多小地方都得考量。

想想幾百年沒拉大提琴了，今晚拿出來小練一下，好險鄰居沒來按門鈴抗議...。

24小時沒睡，對我們這行業來說是再輕鬆不過的事，但48小時沒睡，可能就不是那麼簡單。我們打了徹夜的麻將，對的，我第一次學怎麼打麻將，會不會太晚？

當天早上坐火車南下，即使是自強號，2個半小時的車程還是讓我受不了，隔天回台北只好乖乖選擇高鐵。習慣高鐵的速度後，再也沒辦法搭其他火車；就像看慣了藍光或DVD，再也無法接受錄影帶的畫質；用過LEICA、ZEISS，再回頭看待CANON、NIKON...。

麻將這東西該怎麼說？終於可以明白整夜聽到隔壁鄰居西哩刷拉洗牌聲的原因。


（沒準焦）

這是D家裡的貓，長得跟他主人很像（這是讚美還是？），話說對她感到很抱歉，上回她訂婚我帶底片機去就算了，裡面還錯裝黑白底片，從此只要有聚會，我就會成為笑柄...。






這是另一個大學同學P，明年要嫁人了，所以PO照片上來應該不會被抗議，哈。這角度看來很像賭神（God of Gambler，硬要附上英文），事實上也是她教我怎麼打麻將的。嗯，很好的老師，所以我贏了所有人一大把，難道這就是新手的好運道？只不過代幣是假的就是了。


Photo Set: 20090130 - Play Mahjong

我漸漸能夠瞭解Wim Wenders的想法，相機只是工具，一種延伸內心世界的工具。別人透過照片，可以知道拍照者是從什麼角度、用什麼方式來生活在這個世界。


第一次看到N拿著Leica M6，心裡想著，他拍那麼好，肯定是因為用好相機的關係。如果我也有一台，一定可以拍得跟他一樣好。

當我開始使用Leica M6跟M8（前者底片機、後者數位機），覺得這台相機簡直糟透了！一台德國正統的旁軸相機，功能比十分之一價格的日系單眼還陽春，不能半按快門自動對焦、觀景窗不會顯示快門速度、單一M模式沒得選，只能手動對焦、自己調光圈、快門。

原來徠卡不是神話，底片洗出來，跟Zeiss Ikon、Contax、Canon、Nikon混在一起，老實說我看不出有什麼差別。只有畫質好一點、感覺優越一點，如此而已。原來用什麼相機都不是重點，任何一台都能拍出一模一樣的畫面，那只是工具，拍照的工具罷了。


半個月後，我持續拿著徠卡四處亂拍，發現照片開始產生一些變化。即使是使用同樣的50mm鏡頭、同樣的透視感，從旁軸相機跟從單眼相機看出去的感覺竟然不一樣。旁軸（Rangefinder Camera）可以很清楚地看到成像的外圍及內圈，擁有更大的畫面掌控權，如同法國攝影師布列松，在旋轉樓梯上「等待」腳踏車經過的Decisvie Moment一樣。而單眼（Single Lens Reflex）則是將焦點聚在一點，集中注意火力。

兩種方式如此不同，就像是換了一雙眼睛；徠卡教會我的，是另一種觀察世界的方式，至於用什麼相機，甚至是手機，都不是重點了。一台相機竟有如此大的魔力，可以讓一個人改變，原來徠卡厲害的地方在這裡，於是，我賣了所有攝影器材。


今天下午到威秀附近閒晃，拍了一些照片。拍照不再是最終目的，它只是伴隨生活的經過與方式。