Umbrellas & Canopies

This week, we’re looking up—and under—canopies and covers of all sorts. As we conclude the typhoon season and weather is unpredictable, I think this will work regardless of conditions.

Umbrellas, awnings, tarps, corrugated metal, pop-up tents — anything that hovers overhead and alters the space beneath it. Canopies are the soft ceilings of the street, the temporary roofs of a market stall, or the personal shelter of an umbrella.

They protect, advertise, decorate, and demarcate space. They give shape to the street and visual keynotes to the city. In sun or rain, they’re always there — fluttering, sagging, stretching, sheltering. Poking someone in the eye (me!).

This event is suitable for anyone, using any image-capturing device. Smartphones, point-and-shoot compacts, or interchangeable-lens cameras. If it's rain that day, you might need to choose your tool wisely.

What to Look For:

• Umbrellas — carried, clustered, stashed, or drying
• Storefront awnings — striped, faded, torn, rolled-up, or extended
• Tarpaulins — stretched across stalls, tied to poles, weighed down by bricks
• Corrugated metal roofing — overhead in alleyways, stairwells, or temporary structures
• Construction covers — fabric mesh, wraps, or temporary overhangs
• Human interaction — people ducking under, passing by, sitting beneath, or adjusting them
• Geometry — the construction and form by itself, or with a nearby structure.
• Light and shadow — how the canopy filters, reflects, or blocks the light

Tips:

• Include people — make the canopy part of a moment, not just a structure
• Shoot up — explore the underside and how it frames the sky
• Shoot across — catch the edge, the droop, the overhang
• Shoot down — get your camera overhead and shoot from a birds eye view (we’ll be shooting from the hip soon, so get used to not using a viewfinder.)
• Focus on material — folds, wrinkles, wear, texture
• Look for contrast — contrast makes geometry happen (I just made that up)
• Use weather — rain adds sheen, reflection, and urgency; sun adds contrast and intensity.
• Find repetition — rows of umbrellas, repeating awnings, stripes

As always, composition is the most important. Follow your eye through an image and see where it goes. Frame in-camera or in post, but watch the edges.

Bonus Challenge:
Create a visual study — a mini-series of 3–5 shots focused on one type of canopy. All umbrellas. All blue tarps. All makeshift roofs. Use shape, color, or material to tie them together and build a group.

I'd like to make the whole assignment only about umbrellas, so if you want this tighter constraint, please do so.

This assignment isn’t just about what’s overhead — it’s about how we respond to it, how we move beneath it, how it shapes the city and the moment. A good canopy photo captures not just shelter, but the atmosphere under the cover — the geometry, the texture, the human feeling of being there.

As always, I've posted a few to get your own ideas flowing.

Look up.
Get under.

Meet-up Plan:

Mong Kok MTR Exit D3 (aim straight ahead and look for the phone booth—yeah, a phone booth!)

It’s a busy area with endless canopy options: Fa Yuen Street Market, Tung Choi Street, the wider sidewalks of Nathan and Sai Yeung Choi with umbrella’d pedestrians, and the maze of narrow alleys and overhangs in between.

Time: 2:00 PM — let’s meet briefly and then spread out in pairs or solo. Too many of us in one group will block the way.

Let’s reconvene at 4:00 PM. I'll be finalizing our wrap-up location before we meet. Grab a refreshment, chat, and share your thoughts.

After the Shoot:
Please post your best shots to this Event when you can. If you’re not comfortable with posting, post anyway and invite a critique.

Name them only if need to guarantee interpretation and destroy free thinking. Please be sure to leave comments, praise or thoughtful constructive comments for others — we all grow through feedback.