I'm lucky enough to know the Assistant General Manager of Marketing at Harbour City. So I knew that the famous Rubber Duck, by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman was planning to sail into town and rock my boat.
In fact, so many people knew that my friend in the UK posted this:
and my dad posted this (in the mail of course, not online).
But, I was away when the great duck arrived, so I missed any opportunity to attend the press event and get first beak peak at my new web-footed friend.
Having missed the timeliness of this, I won't go too far in explaining it because everyone else has beaten me to it. The duck has visited several places like Sao Paulo, Auckland and Osaka. Now, it's in Hong Kong, where it was cutely pulled into place by a tug boat on May 2nd.
If you're a friend of mine, you'll know that I have a collection of over 130 snapshots of me, with different giant objects. And I don't mean big, I mean oversized. You know, like in a Claes Oldenburg kind of way. So that's why all the overseas notifications of what was happening here. I can't believe I missed my chance to be first in on such a GIANT thing!
Today, I finally got my chance – because Ducky had bird flu when I first came back... and was proudly reinflated during Art Basel week (intensely hectic), so I missed that too. Following a meeting in TST, I saw my chance and swooped in for a view (via the #5 bus from Chatham Road South).
I felt ridiculously happy at the sight of my giant inflatable friend. But after a quick photo and a look around, what to do?
That's when I met Dreamcatcher Jessie. She had set up a tripod and sign, saying she would take photographs of you with Rubber Duck, with her beautiful Polaroid range finder camera. What better a way to capture this most momentous instant since I started my album of Giant Things photos in Japan (where else?) in 2009?
Dreamcatcher Jessie has a Facebook page set up, which shows that she's doing more than cultivating a love of ornithology by way of the Polaroid.
She took such a sweet photo the first time that she asked to keep it. So I let her and we agreed to take another, for free.
And I have to say, she really made my day.
*I coloured the duck yellow; Dreamcatcher Jessie uses black and white roll from what I've seen online and in person.
