Swallows and cosmopolitans

"Swallows and Cosmopolitans". Today I've decided to reveal a previously unpublished image from my swallows nest story in Hong Kong. This image was shortlisted in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition this year the winners being announced 2 days ago. It has also won in another competition by the Royal Geographical Society since then and attached is an image critique by the judge Michael Kenna. I really went for it with regards to story telling ideas in this frame. An image which took me abut a week to story board the layers and figure out how best to shoot it due to my desire to have movings elements as well as carefully placed static ones. Everything you see in this frame has been deliberately included. Shot last year from inside a sandwich shop within a few minutes walk from where I live. Looking through the mezzanine window past the graphic inverted letters of the sandwich shop called "Sundays" but it could be saying swallows ;0, As an iconic Hong Kong tram goes past the window with the deliberately motion blurred shapes of a few local citizens sitting inside going about their no doubt hecticly busy daily lives and behind that the restaurant across the road well known to locals called Jaspas with its "Crazy Hour" sign in view across the street in the gap of the trams window and two patrons who look like expats interacting within the restaurant. The "Fusion" sign is the name of a well known local supermarket and alluding to the melting pot of cultures and cuisines that defines much about what makes Hong Kong the city that it is. On the left some iconic bamboo scaffolding, a unique feature of this city and which helps place this image firmly in Hong Kong. Finally or firstly depending on where your eye begins or ends its exploration, the cramped swallows nest with an incredible six chicks inside waiting for food from their parents. This also a metaphor for cramped housing in Hong Kong as well as completing the urban wildlife story. I am hopeful that there are other layers and stories which viewers will perceive. Please share them in the comments!
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