4 days. Driving from North to South. It's a completely different vibe from what you see on TV or how you expect a mature society to look and feel. Think Southeast Asia clashing with North Asia vibes - Vietnam x Okinawa. It's trippy.
Hualien, where the Pacific meets the mountains, is pure Leica territory: quiet, deliberate, high-contrast. Le Méridien Hualien opened in late 2023, was struck by the April 2024 earthquake soon after, yet still stands intact and well-built—a survivor, not a ruin, framed through a Leica viewfinder
Hualien, Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Hualien, Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Hualien, Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Hualien, Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Kenting town is all tropical contrast night-market steam, scooter headlights, and the bright, open horizon of the coast. We took surfing lessons at the surf shop Tribe 1173, where the crew got us from nervous first waves to a few shaky but unforgettable rides. I brought the Leica down to the sand between sets, but the best frames were the ones I didn’t take: salt on the lens, boards under arm, and that wide-aperture feeling of being exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Kenting, Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Kenting, Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Kenting, Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Kenting, Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Kenting, Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Kenting, Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Kenting, Taiwan - Fujifilm X100VI + TCL-X100 50mm
Kenting, Taiwan - Fujifilm X100VI + TCL-X100 50mm
Six seats, one man, ladle and timer. In a sleepy Taiwan street he works like a Tokyo master, noren swaying, shoyu in the air, until scooters and sweeter soy pull you back. Japanese influence here isn't costume; it's sediment. I raised the Leica, then didn't—the shutter felt too loud. Let steam take the frame: one bowl, one borrowed Tokyo night in Taiwan.
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
The Central Cross-Island Highway is an east–west truce with the mountains tunnels bored through marble, gorge walls rising like set pieces, then the earthquake tears it open again. Repair crews are permanent fixtures: excavators on cliffs, fresh rockfall, a road that never stays fixed. I shot it with the Leica, but the real frame is the tunnel mouth—black, then blinding peak, then the next scar. Grand, fragile, forever under repair.
Taiwan - Leica M11-P + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica M11-P + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Vario-Elmarit 24-90mm F/2.8-4
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Vario-Elmarit 24-90mm F/2.8-4
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Vario-Elmarit 24-90mm F/2.8-4
Taiwan - Fujifilm X100V + TCL-X100 50mm
Capturing Taiwan’s east is chasing two horizons: green mountains folding into mist, then the Pacific unrolling in one clean sheet. At Qingshui Cliff they don’t meet—they fall into each other. The Leica loves this contrast: jade ridges against cobalt, wet fern against salt haze, cloud caught in the peaks. I shot from pullouts, tunnel mouths, and scooter mirrors, letting the coast steal the frame as often as the mountains. Every bend is a new exposure—green holding the island, ocean letting it go.
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + Vario-Elmarit 24-90mm F/2.8-4
Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica M11-P + Elmarit 28mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + C Sonnar 50mm F/1.5
Taiwan - Leica SL2-S + C Sonnar 50mm F/1.5
Taiwan - Leica M10-P Reporter + Zeiss C Biogon 35mm F/2.8
The east is Taiwan’s emptiest quarter. Hualien and Taitung hold just 2.4% of the population across a fifth of the land. No HSR, no MRT, no rush. City life here moves at fishing-boat speed: harbor stalls, night-market smoke, plastic stools on the pavement like Saigon by way of the Pacific. The pace suited the Leica: less skyline, more steam, more salt. A slower island, holding its own.
Taiwan’s history runs through Dutch, Qing, and Japanese layers, and each left structures that still stand or fall in the landscape. In the mountains, Xiangde Temple’s white pagoda sits above Taroko, built in 1968 against marble cliffs and mist, while Longteng Bridge records the other side of that history as a Japanese colonial railway span broken by the 1935 and 1999 earthquakes and left as a ruin.
