Dear Vicky: The Bootleg Series

Hello, everyone!

I am back. It’s been a busy fortnight here. Between the runnings and some family stuff, I didn’t find much time to be on this platform. I hope you are all doing well. Not that you’ve asked, but I am getting by, just barely.

Three weeks ago, I mailed out two rolls of film to my Hong Kong film lab, and apparently, they were sunk in the strait of Hormuz, or the postal service here sucks. There goes my first effort at shooting in 2026.

All social media platforms have become dumps for AI slops. Just this week, I discovered on Youtube two channels filled with AI slop Bluey videos, and one AI slop Richard Feynman video, and I wasn’t even trying. I left Instagram and Facebook a long time ago, but based on what I’ve heard they are the biggest AI dumps in the world. And then there’s what was former known as Twitter, booting a slop engine with a Nazi twist. Netflix is insulting its audience with AI dubbing. The zone is being flooded, and there’ll soon be a point in time when AI slop becomes indistinguishable or people stop caring. Imagine watching a movie without any human input, or reading a slop book, or buying food made on an automated production line based on slop recipes. We don’t need an AI uprising to kill off humanity. Humanity will kill itself.

And that is my light-hearted Friday rambling.

We are now a quarter into 2026, and other than the two rolls MIA, I have two other rolls finished, but am not sure if I should send them to Hong Kong. Other than that, I don’t have anything to show for it this year. So here are some random shots from Hong Kong that didn’t make it into my previous posts. I’d like to call them the bootleg shots. Anyway, here they are.

I was going for some Edward Hopperish shot, but it didn’t quite work out.

A seafood restaurant at night.

Hong Kong stuff.

A bar.

Local craft beer bar.

Pawn and foam.

Sauna, night club, etc.

It’s that type of establishment.

Just another pawn in my shot.

Midnight diner.

Barber shops. The neon signs on the lower level are kinda funny.

Pawn and pedestrians.

Star Ferry interior. The capacity of this particular one is a very specific 299.

The Star Ferry Man, and father-and-son duo by the window.

The jungle.

That’s it. These may not be good, but they were shot, developed, and scanned manually. Thank you for coming back to my corner of the stack. Have a good weekend!