A lantern expedition

What with the weather not being so great lately, I took the opportunity to check out the recent lantern festival in Ximen a couple of weeks ago. There was a ton of home made lanterns all along the main road, all types of pokemon, 101 replicas and many more. It was so busy there the police even cordoned off part of the streets for the public to walk on the roads. It made for some nice street photography. 

There was some kind  of concert and event but I decided not to stick around for the enevitable crush that happens at the end of these types of events. The last few weeks has been pretty busy trying to work as much as possible and save up for a trip to Japan in early May hopefully! I think I was able to get a couple of good pics from the lantern festival though! It's always good to mix up the photos between street and landscape shots, I find it helps stem burnt out on a certain type of photo. The lantern festival is over now but there are a few lights still up dotted around randomly. I came across a good light trail spot near Ximen too which I'll share more about in an up coming post! hope you enjoy the photos! 

Sy

A Sanxia video

This is my first attempt at video on this platform, it's a bit rough around the edges and lacking in quality but you have to start somewhere right! Hopefully once my editing is better I'll start adding these into my regular written guides. Anyways feedback is much appreciated as always, cheers

Sy

Bit of a test video for future videos to accompany guides on syedbrookephotography.com, I know its fairly rough and amateurish but hopefully that will improve over time! music by:

前進樂團 Transition check them out at: https://www.youtube.com/user/transitionofficial

A Chinese New Year Hiatus

After dealing with 3 weeks of non stop rain in Taipei, it has been a bit of a test of patience for myself. Being stuck in the city constantly can be quite annoying, so with the arrival of the Chinese New Year holidays I decided it was time to get out in nature again. 

I decided to hike a trail from Shilin over the mountain ridge to Miramar in Niehu. It was a nice enough day, although  tad crowded for my liking. I guess thats the drawback of hiking during CNY is that the world and his wife are out and about. Hopefully once things calm down and everyone goes back to regular schedules I might think about a trip somewhere! 

While the views were nice along the various peaks, the heavy smog put somewhat of a damper on the chance to get quality photos from the hike. It's kind of frustrating in Taiwan over the last couple of years where the air quality has gotten far worse. When it isn't raining constantly theres a heavy blanket of pollution and smog hanging over Taipei it feels like. Anyways with that said if you are looking for very manageable hike with minimal obstacles along the way I would recommend this one to most beginners or those with lower cardio levels. Hopefully everyone enjoys the rest of Chinese New Year holidays if you celebrating it at the moment!