In the far north eastern corner of Hong Kong lies the Pat Sin Leng mountain range and surrounding countryside, a small slice of rural Hong Kong and one that is fading into memory. I had been planning on visiting Lau Shiu Heung reservoir for a little over a year and specifically I had wanted to visit during late winter to photograph one of the few trees that change colour in the region, the Gum tree.
To reach Lau Shiu Heung reservoir you need to take the MTR to Fanling station and take exit C. From there you can catch minibus 52B and ride until the mini roundabout about fifteen minutes into the trip.
Upon arrival you follow a winding road downhill, along this road there were what seemed to be wild dogs and a small wild boar the latter of which gave me a fright.
There's a short paved track that winds its way around the reservoir, the gum trees I mentioned earlier are opposite from where you start the trail. In order to get the image I had in mind I had to climb over a fence and clamber down a dry and loose dirt bank. That was the easy part, next I had to set up my tripod on the aforementioned ground without it all falling down into the reservoir. Once everything was set up I decided I wanted to make a long exposure of the scene to get the smooth reflection of the gum trees in the reservoir's water.
The fence on the left is where I climbed over in order to get the composition I wanted, however upon setting up there was a couple enjoying the peacefulness of the environment right in the middle of my frame. At first I waited to see if they would move on to no avail so I decided to include them in my scene. I originally made a panorama using my 85mm f1.8 lens taking 5-6 frames as well as using a ten stop filter. In the past I have often taken the same shot repeatedly and have regretted not getting the 'safe shots'in too. So once I took the panorama I decided to take some standard shots all using the 85mm lens set at infinity focus. I took shots with and without the ten stop filter too to maximise the variety of images to work with in post. It wasn't a particularly windy day so the filter didn't do much apart from slightly smoothing out the water's surface.
As you can see from the image above the couple resting by the trees kind of add to the overall aesthetic of the image. In Hong Kong it is nearly impossible to escape to solitude. My current on going landscape photography project focuses on Hong Kong and it has taken over a year to compile already. At first I was adamant about not including any obvious signs of the built environment but I slowly came to realise two things. 1) It would be foolhardy to trek to the corners of the region and expect no sign of human activity being such a small place and 2) That humans are a part of this landscape and we are a part of nature.
