Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Kid Culture

Not long ago a series of pictures was posted on dogs and the way they are pampered in Taiwan and China.  The way they handle their kids is sometimes just as interesting...

Closer shot of this little guy (can he breathe?) as well as one captured at the airport below:

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Egg Bush

Ah yes, Chenjean's little village.  This beautiful paradise on the mountains in the jungles of Formosa, where the monkeys roam and eggs grow on bushes...

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Meat Vendor in Zhuqi Market

...very typical meat vendor in the Zhuqi market.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Market Lady in Zhuqi

 

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Mobile Vendors in Zhuqi

The market where we did most of our shopping in Zhuqi was interesting enough, with blocks of vendors and wall-to-wall people in the street between them.  But these types are what interested me the most.

One that was perhaps slightly more affluent below:

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Mannequien Arms

Chenjean was shopping in a clothing store there in Zhuqi when this caught my eye just outside...

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Homemade Pickup Truck

You would think that only an eccentric would drive a vehicle like this, but I saw several others just like it.  Must be a local guy just slapping stuff together and selling to his neighbors.  Reminds me of those horse-drawn wagons in Mexico with car tires just like these...

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Colorful Plant with Glowing Edges

Glowing Edges below:

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Eccentric Motorcycle Guy

Now THIS was an interesting character.  When we saw him we thought he was homeless, so after talking to him for a while Chenjean offered him some money.  No need, he said, and showed us his wallet containing a huge roll of cash.  Has a family with grown children in the area.  Nope, he's just an eccentric be-bopping around, flitting from place to place on his motorcycle, which to us seemed just as novel as its rider:

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Orchids in Zhuqi

These orchids were blooming nicely on the sidewalk just outside a coffee shop in Zhuqi.  Original pic below...

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Seamstress Setup

From Chenjean's little village we would often go to Zhuqi nearby, at 34,000 a metropolis compared to where she grew up.  After having lived in the region for more than a half century, the family knows quite a few people there, and we'd stop by to visit or do business.  Saw this contraption in a little shop where a seamstress they knew worked out of her living room.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Crate Pattern

Photographers look for patterns, so this one wasn't going to get away as we walked by.  Found and glowing edges effects below:

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Elevator Buttons

One the left we have the elevator buttons in the Yoyo hotel.  No cloning was used on the right side; the "Average" tool was used in the Blur effects of Photoshop to get a composite color for each.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Yoyo Hotel

Now THIS I found very interesting.  There's a building in Chiayi that houses not one but three separate hotels, each having it's own floor for check-in.  Ours was the Yoyo Hotel, and we had to go to the 11th floor.  It was middle-of-the-road quality, but adequate.

And it was here that we experienced the earthquake aftershock described in this post some months ago...

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Dog Culture

Dogs.  Yes, the doggies.

The dog culture is fascinating in Taiwan, as well as the mainland.  If you see someone pushing a baby buggy it might well be holding a dog instead of a human baby.  I've always seen this as a thing in the more posh cultures, but occasionally we've begun to see the same even in our middle-class Houston neighborhood.

 ...and those loyal creatures are pretty good about staying on a motorcycle:

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Purplish-Blue Flower Against Gradient Backgrounds

Next I used just one copy of the flower in its original color against various gradient backgrounds.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Purplish Blue Flower with Black and Gray Backgrounds

Seeing as how the flower in yesterday's post was so easy to select out and make into its own layer, I tinkered with the color a bit and set them against a black background.

Did the same with gray background below, applying a drop shadow to each:

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Purplish-Blue Flower

Here is a purplish-blue flower we saw on a walk somewhere.  I did some repair work on the pistil, and darkened and blurred the background for contrast.  Then I cropped to a 1:1 square ratio.  Original pic below:

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Calligraphic Signage

This is a sign very close to Chenjean's house, right down the street from her elementary school.  Sort of a visitor's center for those entering the beautiful Alishan scenic area.  The reason for its posting is because of the artful signage, designed to duplicate writing done with a calligraphy brush.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Tea House Sign

Tea for anyone?  Had to put this in here due to my favorite color combination of black and orange.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Shoe Rack

Speaking of traditional, cultural accoutrements...here we have a place for shoes at the end of the hallway leading up to our hotel room in Alishan.  This is Taiwan, so no fear that they would be stolen or messed with.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Old-Style Traditional Toilet

Ah yes, the proverbial Far East toilet, complete with grab bar in both directions.

Will never forget the first time I saw one of these things, in Chenjean's house back in 1987.  Wow, what do I do here?  Instead of a grab bar there was a plumbing pipe that ran up the wall, but I managed...

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Culturally Compliant Toilet

Huh?  I did some research, and found that there are indeed very specific instructions.  Wikipedia article here if interested:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_toilet_etiquette

This pic was captured in Alishan.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, High Contrast Comparisons (Alishan Tree and Street Scene with Vendors)

The two pics in this post demonstrate the superior dynamic range of the iPhone when compared to the Bigger Cahoona.  The subjects in both of these pics have already been posted, though captured with the D850, in which quite a bit of finessing was required to accomplish an acceptable level of dynamic range (here and here respectively).  Another useful feature in the iPhone is that it also automatically corrects for lens distortion.

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Dad's Dog / In a Police Car #3

The pictures in this iPhone series will not be thematically posted, but will appear in random order depending on where and when they were captured.

This is my father-in-law's dog, interesting in that he has a black head that makes him appear somewhat demonic, though he's sweet as sugar and wouldn't hurt a fly.

_______________

The third time I ended up in a police car was much later in life, when I in fact was working very closely with the police in securing funds from the State for their departments.  Thus, in the course of my work there were many opportunities to ride in police cars, both marked and unmarked.  One of the most memorable times was when the chief of a smaller department in Montgomery County gave me a tour of his jurisdiction and environs in an unmarked admin car.  He took me way deep into the woods, where a smattering of mobile trailers sprang into view.  They were haphazardly arranged in the space of a few acres, and the squalid environment created by their inhabitants was surprising.  There were no steps leading up to the doors, so there was a four-foot drop for anyone exiting and a four-foot climb for anyone entering, even small children, of which there were plenty.  There was no infrastructure, so no plumbing...where they got their water to bathe and cook I have no idea.  The chief explained that these illegals were squatting on federal lands, almost impossible to ferret out without considerable assistance from the State (the reason he was showing me) or the Feds.  He didn't say it in so many words, but these encampments were certainly the evidence of Mexican cartels embedding within our borders.  To this day I shudder to think of the potential ramifications.

But those types of ride-alongs aren't the experience I'm referring to as "In a Police Car #3".  This was in a much friendlier environment, albeit an irritating one.  You see, as my career grew I learned a few things working with Law Enforcement folks, particularly cops from the patrol level on up.  They are constantly on the prowl for weak links in the Criminal Justice system.  This is because one never knows when he or she'll have to depend on you to back them up in dicey situations, which are life and death in many cases.  Therefore anyone that works with them - whether it be on the streets or behind a bureaucratic desk (as in my case) can expect to be tested.  At times it's in the form of a practical joke, or verbal sparring; the snap you demonstrate when tested thus will determine the level to which you can be trusted.  It's just part of the culture.  I encountered this often in meetings, when an officer would attempt to put me on the spot in front of a room full of people by asking difficult questions that I knew they knew the answer to already!  I generally had a good working relationship with them already, and could detect a subtle smirk or smile as this was going on.  Pleased to report that I was usually able to hold my own and pass those (and other) tests with flying colors.

There was one time, however, that I found myself subject to a practical joke that I really could do nothing about.  And yes, there was plenty of glee and laughter at my expense.

We were working with one of the larger agencies in the region on a contract to provide Law Enforcement Training.  This required regular site visits, so a couple of us on the team went to go check them out.  When it came time to eat lunch we decided where to go, and took a patrol car to the restaurant.  Getting into the car, I drew the straw to sit in the back seat.  Off we go to the restaurant, talking shop along the way.

After arriving, my colleagues got out and simply walked their merry way into the restaurant.  Trouble was, I COULD NOT GET OUT OF THE CAR!  Police cars are designed so that it's impossible to exit the back seat so that prisoners can't get loose and bolt.  And there I was, a prisoner in this back seat, watching forlornly as these creeps disappeared into the restaurant.  Of course this was all done on purpose, and I didn't panic or anything, but could only wait - and bake, because it was summer - until I was rescued.  Meanwhile, other patrons of the restaurant gave me nervous glances as they walked by.  What's this guy in a suit doing sitting in the back of a police car?

Finally, after what seemed like a long time but was probably only about 30 seconds or so, one of my examiners popped out of the restaurant and let me out, providing fodder for stories at the office for a long time to come...

Taiwan 2024 - iPhone 15 Series, Taipei Street Riders

Well, I'm starting something new here.  In the past I've consistently maligned the quality and usefulness of phone cameras.  Even on this trip, earlier in this "Taiwan 2024" series of posts, I did a comparison of the technical quality between my iPhone 15 Max Pro and the venerable Nikon D850, affectionately known as the Bigger Cahoona.  As seen from that post, at close examination the DSLR came out on top.

That being said, in a slight concession I'm going to switch gears beginning today.  This is partly due to the fact that, at screen resolutions and even in print, the detail that comes from the phone is more than adequate.  Also, I observed on this trip that the iPhone in fact does a much better job with certain types of pictures, particularly those that have high contrast with the sun out.  And finally, on a recent trip to Seattle a nephew taught me how to extract the very best potential from the phone using RAW, which improved color fidelity and resolution tremendously.  So here we are.  Phone pictures are good enough - perhaps even better - in many situations, especially when I want to capture cultural and candid shots where silence and discretion are a priority.

Next I had to learn how to work with the iPhone pics.  How is this animal different?  For beginners the dpi straight out of the camera is 72 (instead of the 300 defaulted with the D850), normally ranging in size between 5 and 8 megapixels.  In one street scene I upped the resolution to 300 dpi, and the size of that single JPEG ended up being a whopping 810 megabytes!  Wow, so we keep them at 72, then up it to 300 only when a print is needed.  Another adjustment to my workflow will include working with RAW files.  Using what my nephew taught me in Seattle, the pics snapped with the phone are nothing less than astounding.   I have Lightroom now and need the experience, so there's no excuse for not taking things up to the next level.

In post-capture after a trip or other photo session, I:  1) examine every photo taken and delete those that are not worth keeping in what I call the first cull - generally this ends up being about two-thirds of the lot; 2) carefully select those deemed blogworthy, frequently deleting more pics in what amounts to a second cull; 3) open each selected picture in Photoshop and touch up, saving the result as both a .psd and JPEG at lowest compression with the letter "a" appended to the file name; then finally 4) compress each touched-up picture down to about 1 megabyte with "comp" appended to the file name.  This smaller file size allows for faster upload times when posting each day.

Last night, in going through Steps 1 and 2 above with only the pictures taken with the iPhone, I ended up with a selection of 104 pictures!  Many surprised me at the look and technical quality when examined.  But if I post each of these pictures we're looking at another couple of months of the Taiwan 2024 series, and at present there are two more trips to cover.  Thus, I'll try to go through a second selection to narrow it down to 20-25 pics that might be of greater interest.

So here we go.  The picture above was captured from a car stopped at a light.  What makes it unique when we stop at lights all the time?  That would be the fact that the motorcycle riders are our niece and her son, who we saw on our way to somewhere.  Looks as though our niece has taken the opportunity to rest her eyes a bit before continuing their journey.  There are two other similar postings that come to mind:  this one and this one featuring my wife and sister-in-law from 2016, and this one from 2010 featuring my son and another sister-in-law.

Taiwan 2024 - Manhole Cover in Museum Area

...and this was in the middle of the sidewalk.  Must've taken a cue from the Japanese, as they're known for creating a multitude of unique designs for manhole covers throughout their cities.

Taiwan 2024 - Banyan Strands in Museum Area

This was over the sidewalk leading from the museum to the main temple.  Reminded me of this post from back in 2019...

Taiwan 2024 - Museum Grounds, Entrance Gate / In a Police Car #2

After spending some time with the Calla lilies we went with Chenjean's brother to this museum, but found it closed.  No matter...there were plenty of good photographic opportunities.

_______________

The second time I ended up in a police car also happened in the wee hours of the morning, though this time it was in the front seat as opposed to being caged in the back.

It was almost 1:00 a.m. and I was going home from a friend's apartment.  It was cold outside, so I hunkered down for the two-mile walk.  I hadn't gone far - about a quarter-mile - when I noticed a police car parked in a small parking lot to the right.  I was a little inebriated and underage, so did my best to walk by without attracting any undue attention.  That became a moot point, however, because when I got close it was obvious that the officer was asleep!  His engine was running, but he was slouched over in the driver's seat with his head resting against the window.

I thought OK, don't have to worry about him, so walked on.

A little further down the road another police car pulled up alongside and asked me what I was doing out so late.  I was 15 years old at the time but probably looked about twelve, so wasn't surprised at the question.  I answered simply that I was at a friend's place and was heading home, and had Mom's permission to be out.  I mentioned something else, though.  Told him that down the road there was a police car running with the officer sleeping inside.  The cop's eyebrows shot up and he said thanks, speeding off in that direction.

About five minutes later the second cop came back to where I was walking, and offered me a ride home!  I didn't think of it at the time but, as the officer explained it to me, depending on which way the wind was blowing, the officer may not have been asleep at all, but unconscious or dead due to CO poisoning!  That's why he sped off the way he did.  Turns out the officer was OK - just sleeping one the job - but in appreciation he said to hop in the front seat so there I was, riding in the front seat of this Orange police car making small talk with my new friend.

But it didn't last long, and we didn't make it all the way home after all.  We were going down 16th street about five blocks from Chapman (where we lived) when a light flashed on the dash and a loud tone sounded.  Immediately the officer turned on his overheads, said something on the radio, and gunned the accelerator.  Evidently this he did reflexively.  Then, remembering that he had a passenger, he glanced at me and jammed on the brakes, explaining that he had an urgent call and, sorry, but he had to let me out.  I told him thanks, got out, and watched as he flew down the wide empty street with the pretty red and blue lights on (but no siren).

Walking the remaining three blocks home, I was frankly a little disappointed that the adventure came so close to getting even more interesting, but was cut short by his realization that I, a civilian, was in the front seat with him.  Looked in the newspaper the next day but didn't see anything spectacular, so thankfully whatever happened must not have been that serious.

Taiwan 2024 - Calla Lily Farm, Another Strange Chicken / In a Police Car #1

Since we saw how interesting the chicken was in yesterday's post, I kept my eye out for more strange birds and captured this guy in a frame of its own.

_______________ 

On several occasions I found myself on the inside of a police car.  The first time was when a friend named Doug and I were walking the streets of Orange in the wee hours of the morning.  A 13-year-old kid certainly couldn't get by with doing such a thing nowadays, but this was a time when the world was a less dangerous place for risk-takers like us.  Back then it was weekend routine for us to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night with a friend and go roaming, exploring a seemingly different world cloaked in darkness and quiet.

We'd been out for a while and, growing bolder because we'd not yet been caught, took one of the busier streets (16th) to head back to the house.  When a police car slowed down next to us we got a little nervous and adopted a more purposeful gait while trying to act nonchalant, as if it were perfectly normal for us to be walking around at two in the morning.  Having none of that, the officer stopped us and asked what we were doing out at that hour.

"We were just heading home, sir."

"What are you doing out this late, boys?"

"Just walking around, sir."

Evidently he found this to be an inadequate excuse, so told us to hop in the back of the car.  Doug and I were totally quiet on our way to the clink, not having any idea what would happen when we got there.  Would they put us in jail?  Would we be fingerprinted?  I'd gone there recently as a Boy Scout to get my fingerprinting merit badge, so knew what that was all about.  Would they take our picture?  Would this little excursion go on our permanent record somewhere?  Occasionally we glanced at each other with these questions in mind as the street lights created ominous shadows in our caged space as we rode along.

After arriving they deposited us into a little room where they called our parents.  Yes I was a little nervous but, strangely, not afraid.  OK so we're here, what's done is done.  Dad's going to get the news, and I'm in trouble.  We'll see where it goes from here.

Imagine my surprise when, after calling Dad, the desk sergeant chuckled.  Seeing my raised eyebrows, he told me that when he called to tell him that his son was at the police station after being picked up, Dad asked, "Which one?"  By then at least one of my older brothers (probably Allan) was a familiar face around there.

So Dad picked me up, and that's all there was to it.  No arrest for curfew violation (if there was one), no fingerprinting, no booking photo.  Just a couple of kids out when they shouldn't have been.  I got grounded for a couple of weeks.

Taiwan 2024 - Calla Lily Farm, Tea House Entrance with Unusual Chicken

Came across this tea house as we wandered the property, and I couldn't resist capturing these colors.  Being with a small group provided its share of distractions, so the strange chicken wasn't even noticed until we were ready to move on.  Made a pretty good cropped-in image of its own, though: