Shanghai Street

2011 was a pretty good photographic year for me. With the regular camera, I was able to capture some landscape and travel images that I am pretty pleased with. But looking back, one of the highlights is certainly how much street photography I was able to accomplish. It is not a genre that I usually pursue but one of my favorite things to do while traveling is to wander around, observing people as they lead their regular lives. These are several mobile phone images that I made during my wanderings in Shanghai. Please let me know what you think?

Photog Notes
These images were captured with a T-Mobile G2 (aka the HTC Desire Z), using an application called Retro Camera. I really like the various styles of output that the app is able to produce, but this comes at the expense of shutter lag – it takes 1 to 2 seconds to focus and capture the image. Not particularly good for candid street shots but one eventually learns to prepare and anticipate. 😉

 

The Turning of the Year

Old Town, Shanghai

Today (January 23rd, 2012), about 1/5th of the population on this globe celebrates the Chinese or Lunar New Year. There will be family reunions and feasting, fond reminiscing of good times, and hopeful planning and eager anticipation of even better times. If you are celebrating this auspicious occasion today, I wish you a Very Happy New Year. May the year of the dragon bring you health, happiness and good fortune. 新年快乐! 龙年行大运, 恭喜发财!

Photog Notes
1/750 second, f/8, ISO 200 on a Nikon D300 + 18-200 mm Nikkor at 200 mm. I made this image on a gorgeous spring afternoon in old Shanghai last year. These decorations were on the vertical display of a streetside vendor. The symbolic shapes, bright colors and characters of good tidings are popular year round, and especially proudly displayed during the weeks surrounding the turning of the year. In making this image, I chose to isolate the bright red-and-gold fish with an especially short depth of field (f/8 which, not coincidentally, is the sharpest aperture on my 18-200).

Red Flags

The Bund, Upriver

Back from a hectic week in China and a week catching up to my Seattle life, I am starting to breathe again.

I made these images while in Shanghai last week. It was friend Mark’s first time there. On this evening, we stationed ourselves at a favorite watering hole to watch as the sun set and the lights of the city sprang to life.

Glass of Wine and a Good Book

Photog Notes
I made both of these images with the Tokina 11-16. The outing was first and foremost a social visit, so I took the ultra wide lens to commemorate the outing. Once photo album obligations were out of the way, I made these images as the red flags started to glow under the darkening sky. In processing, I applied nothing special, save for a bit of selective exposure adjustment to compensate for the uneven light and shadows caused by the surrounding buildings.

 

Tianzifang

Happy Feet

One my favorite things to do in Shanghai is to sip coffee and browse curiosities and snap photos at Tianzifang, a preserved part of town where modern retail comingles with French Concession-era shikumen housing. Traditionally known as the creative and bohemian center of Shanghai, today’s Tianzifang caters a great deal to the tourist and expat populations. Nonetheless – thanks to conscientious preservation – much of the charm remains, especially when one goes off season and wanders off the beaten path. Here are some images that I made on the last trip. These are dedicated to all of you who help feed my Tianzifang fascination. I hope to see you (there) again soon!

Shanghai Story

Night Out

 

Photog Notes

Apart from the signage and storefronts, Tianzifang isn’t really all that bright at night. I made these images with the D300 set to 1600 ISO and the Tokina 11-16 wide open at f/2.8.

Happy Feet – The Chinese characters say “Tianzifang 43”. The advertising was “painted” onto the ground by a projector fitted with a mask over the lens. It moved about the courtyard in an elliptical pattern. The EV range in this scene was thus rather large. The camera did a great in capturing the darker detail – something not so apparent until I processed the raw file in Capture NX.

Shanghai Story – This was the image that I had to process the most. The strong directional lighting created highlights in a lot of places that I didn’t like. I ended up doing a lot of burning to minimize them. The mixed incandescent and fluorescent lighting sources also played havoc with the tones on the subject. Her face came out dark, with a fluorescent blue-green tone. I ended up taking care of this by creating a new layer, correcting for her face, and blending that into the rest of the image.

Night Out – Pretty much straight out of camera. To punch things up a teeny bit, added a small amount of contrast.

Winter Night, Shanghai

Shanghai Winter Nightscape

I made this exposure from my hotel room in the Jingan District of Shanghai during my trip in February. Shanghai winter nights are usually foggy-hazy-dewy but I was lucky on this particular evening. I was even more lucky to have the company that I had on the trip. Family and old friends Bernard, Cal, Chris, Pete, Sam and Tim all made it over. Thanks also to local hosts Eric, ML and TS. What a crew! What a time!

Home Again

Self-Portrait in Acrylic

Shanghai – Chengdu – Kunming – Shangri-la – Lijiang – Shanghai in 11 days. Wow, what a trip. I caught a cold in Shanghai, an auspicious start that was followed with a bit of altitude sickness in Shangri-la. But all the while, the company was great. I got to see lots, do lots, accomplish lots. Caught the holidaying crowds in a festive Lijiang on Duanwujie, strolled down a Chengdu boulevard where the entire street smelled like Ma La (Sichuan hot pepper) cooking, had dinner and drinks with a celebrity hairdresser in Kunming, even got to belt a few at a Tibetan-style KTV in Shangri-la.

But by the end, I was glad to be heading back. To the quiet and tranquility and solitude of my special space; to the safety and steadfastness of the rock of my life. Ask me in a couple of weeks and I’ll probably tell you that I’m ready to go again. But for now, nothing beats being home.

The Gourd Seller

The Gourd Seller

I shot this in the Yuyuan (Yu’s Garden) area of Shanghai. A popular tourist spot, most people come to see the architecture, to snap a few pics, and to buy knick-knacks. I like to go there to observe the goings-on, and to people-watch.

Roast Meats Culture

Roast Meats Culture

Passers-by peer into the window of the local roast and grilled meats place. I made this image in the Changning district of Shanghai. Windows like this dot the bustling streets of most Chinese cities and, come to think of it, most Chinese communities around the world. This stuff is our fast food.

Shanghai Night

I did quite a bit of running around in Shanghai and didn’t really do much shooting. We did, however, have drinks/dinner at the top of Three on the Bund so here it is: my self-indulgent Puxi–Pudong nightscape.

Eric – thanks again for taking us around. I owe you (or is it that you owe me?) a return trip to catch the dancers at dusk.