The Darth Mall a personal website

Taiwan

Black-capped Night-heron

A bird with deep blue feathers on its head and back, gray wings, and a white underbelly, and three long white feathers protruding from the back of its head over it’s back, stands on a large stone surrouned by water with its head lowered, looking intently at the water (or something in it).

Afternoon Light

One half of a set of old, wooden double doors stands open, afternoon light streaks across the open door and the three panels of opaque white glass set in its top half, leaving the bottom half of the door in shadow; another outer door, this one closed, with thick metal bars is visible through the open door; the other half of the double-doors is visible only as three white rectangles of the glass set in the top half

Welcome Incoming Fortune

A narrow hallway leading to a door with a piece of square red paper taped to it; the square is rotated 45 degrees so that the corners of the square are oriented vertically and horizontally, and on the square is a single, complex piece of Chinese calligraphy; the hall is illuminated by a red paper lantern with a tassle hanging from the bottom hanging just in front of the door on the left of the frame, and a scooter is parked in the hall, taking up about one third of the hall on the left side of the frame in front of a metal garage door

A black and white photo of a toddler standing at a window with his back to the camera looking out between a pair of sheer curtains with his arms spread wide to either side; the light coming in through the window is so bright that the window appears to be a solid white wall, nothing on the outside is visible

Photos from a visit to the Taipei Zoo

29 November 2022

An enormous tiered yellow sphere lit from above; the sphere is made of short, progressively smaller cylinders stacked atop one another

A black and white photo of a dense city pocked with skyscrapers; rays of sun shine through hazy clouds over the city, and in the distance sillhouettes that hint at the presence of mountains

Lantern Festival (2019)

A praying mantis lantern made of translucent paper in reds, yellows, and white stretched over a frame of thin, flexible rods and illuminated from within rears back on its hind legs and raises its arms menacingly; it is surrounded by other large lantern insects in a variety of hues and of similar construction

Playing Gomoku with 木三 (Musan)

A Go board sits on a wood floor with two dozen black and white pieces on it; a person’s hand is visible on the left side of the frame with their middle finger resting on a white piece after having just placed it on the board

媽媽 (Mama) in 陽明山國家公園 (Yangmingshan National Park)

A black and white of a woman holding an open umbrella on a foggy day standing on a stone path; she is wearing a light colored hat with a brim that goes all the way around, a dark jacket, and dark trousers and is carrying the umbrella over her shoulder as she looks down at the ground towards the right edge of the frame; the path is paved with irregularly cut stones that are placed to form a relatively flat path with shallow steps leading from teh bottom center of the frame off to the right edge of the frame and is surrounded by trees and bushes

Hiking in 陽明山國家公園 (Yangmingshan National Park)

A black and white photo of a woman walking away from the camera along a stone path on a foggy day; the paving stones are large and irregularly shaped, but they form a flat, regular path heading off into the distance; the pathis surrounded by trees and bushes; the woman is kicking up her left heel as she walks and waving her arms above her head, she has long, dark hair and is carrying a purse draped over her right arm

(Former) Tobacco Factory

A black and white photo of two arches of a cloister; in the left arch, a lamp hangs from the ceiling, illuminating a double sliding glass door leading to a large empty room with white walls, a concrete floor, and an open ceiling with visible duct work; in the right arch two blurry figures in the center of the arch are walking along the cloister towards the left edge of the frame, the wall behind them is dark except for a vertical white rectangle containing three characters written in Chinese

Two sets of train tracks run down the center of the frame and then veer off to the right, they are surrounding by bright yellow roofs on the left and right; the roof on the left ends in the wall of a second story made of tiled glass blocks topped with a similar yellow roof; in the distance are tall buildings, and beyond that green mountains

A Dog Awaiting Their Human

A small white dog with a little reddish brown fur on its ears stands on the small platform of a gray scooter parked at the side of the street; its ears are up and the tips are flopped over forward as it looks out from the side of the scooter towards the left side of the frame as if it is watching something

A 北投區 (Beitou) Alley

An alley lined by apartment buildings; many of the buildings have awnings or metal cages protruding from the side of the buildings over the windows; a large tree on the right side of the frame grows up and over a concrete wall, providing a canopy at the entrance to the alley; the alley is concrete and has some inlaid square tiles forming two parellel lines down the center of the alley, with rows of perpendicular tiles at regular intervals dividing the concrete up into rectangles between the two liens

Empty Market Street in 九份 (Jiufen)

A black and white photo of a woman in a white shirt and dark trousers with a purse hung over her right shoulder walking down a narrow street lined with shops; most of the shops have paper lanterns of various shapes and sizes with Mandarin characters written on them hung outside

Temple Guardian

At the right of the frame in the foreground is the corner of a roof covered with round, bright yellow tiles; atop the corner, facing away from the camera toward the center of the frame, is a statue of a person with their left arm raised riding some kind of monster whose green, yellow, and orange fur resembles a sea anemone more than actual fur; the statue looks out over a bay surrounded by tree-covered mountains; a smattering of buildings is just visible along the coast