Beijing's Old Stock Exchange – a history of cities in 50 buildings

1/40s, f/7.1, ISO 5000, 24mm (Nikon Df)

This week, I contributed a piece to the Guardian's series on "a History of Cities in 50 buildings". I wrote about the Old Beijing Stock Exchange and what it tells about the city's development. You can read it here. Make sure to follow the excellent series as well.

Under Guomao Bridge

15s, f/16, ISO 50, 24mm (Sony A7r; Nikkor 24mm f/2.0)

Guomao Bridge at Night. The first (east-west) section of Guomao Bridge was opened to traffic in 1986 as Dabeiyao Bridge (大北窑桥). In the 90s, when the third ring road was built, a north-south lane was added on top. Located in Beijing's central business district, it's one of the city's busiest intersections today.

Before it was named Guomao in the early 1990s, the neighborhood was known as Dabeiyao (大北窑), which means something like "large northern furnace". The name is a reference to the fact that the Japanese used the area as a brick kiln during World War II. Continue below the fold for a picture of Guomao from the mid-1980s.

Dabeiyao Bridge, 1986 (picture courtesy of 中国桥梁网)

Autumn

1/40s, f/1.2, ISO 3200, 85mm

[l(a]

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iness

E. E. Cummings, 1958

The Former Beijing Stock Exchange

1/400s, f/2.8, ISO 800, 24mm

The former Beijing Stock Exchange (中原证券交易所) at 6.30am on a Sunday. Opened in 1918 and tucked away in an alley behind Qianmen, this was Beijing's first stock exchange. Thanks to Sue Anne for the discovery. If you haven't already, do yourself a favor and follow her stories and pictures at Shanghai Street Stories.

By the Second Ring Road at Dusk

6s, f/20, ISO 200, 24mm

The second ring road in Beijing (more or less) runs the parameter of the old city wall. The Beijing city wall stood for more than 500 years until most of it was torn down beginning in the 1960s to make room for Subway Line 2 and the second ring road. The Beijing Ancient Observatory, which formed part of the city wall, is visible on the left.

I shot the picture just after sunset on a hot July summer night on a pedestrian bridge. The exposure is six seconds long at the lens' minimum aperture at f/22. Taking long exposures on Beijing's pedestrian bridges can be tricky because the bridges to to shake a little large vehicles pass below. If the platform had been a bit steadier, I would have gone for a slightly longer exposure to make the light trails a bit stronger.

Guilin in 3 Days

1/640s, f/5, ISO 200, 43mm

I finally got a chance to explore Guilin and YangShou. It was a short trip with packed program and I didn't get to spend as much time shooting as I would have liked. In the picture above, I was really drawn to the life by the river side around sunset and the contrast between the rigid lines of the manmade bridge and the hills and rock formations in the back. A similar contrast is present in the picture below on a larger scale.


320s, f/11, ISO 400, 24mm

The Lakes at Night, Copenhagen

2s, f/3.5, ISO 800, 27mm

Officially, the Inner Lakes of Copenhagen, the Lakes (Søerne) are a row of three small rectangular lakes on the western edge of the city center. The Lakes date back to the middle ages when they formed part of the fortifications of the city. The paths around the Lakes stretch for about 6 kilomaters and are a popular with bikers and runners.

At night, old school neon ads light up some of the buildings around the lakes. I took the picture on a late January evening. I wanted a longer exposure to make the reflections in the water a bit more smooth. But just as I was about to take the longer exposure I ran out of battery. I didn't get a chance to go back and so had to stick with a shorter 2 second exposure instead.

Happy New Year

1/640s, f/5.6, ISO 200, 35mm

Best wishes for the New Year! May it bring happiness, joy and smiles to you and yours.

The image above is from the Temple of Heaven in Beijing a few months ago.

Beijing Behaving

1/640s, f/6.3, ISO 200, 27mm

With the odd day or two of smoggy air, the last month have brought unusually clear skies to Beijing.  The city is a different place when the air is clean.  From smiley faces on the streets to chummy taxi drivers, you can feel the people of Beijing draw a collective sigh of relief.  And no doubt most Beijingers enjoyed a moment of schadenfreude as Shanghai reached record breaking pollution levels a few weeks ago.  Perhaps the liquid nitrogen is already working its magic.

On a beautiful day earlier this week, I stopped by the Hongqiao Pearl Market across from the Temple of Heaven.  They have a balcony with great view of the park.  Above is a shot from the late afternoon.

50 Years ago

Fifty years ago this month, my father boarded the SS Constitution at Pier 84 on Manhattan. At 23, he'd just driven across the country from San Francisco to Washington DC and then up to New York. He was on his way home. Some two years earlier, he had left Denmark for America to work on farms in Montana and California. 

Along the way, he took more than 1000 photographs. And he seemed to carry his camera everywhere. The pictures show him working the fields, drinking with friends, and cooking turkey in the oven.  There are shots out of airplane windows, of skylines and street life and tomato pickers. He would have been a great instagrammer.

My family recently had the photos scanned and it’s been a treat to rediscover them.  I grew up with those photos along with my dad’s scrapbooks with maps of cities and states. About once a year, usually around the holidays, he would get out the slide projector and show his pictures and tell his stories. He was the best storyteller I knew. And as a kid, no-one seemed to know the world better than him. 

The pictures shaped me. There were landscapes and cities on a scale I would never see in Denmark. And my father’s stories suggested that travel and discovery was a normal part of adult life. I understand now that those experiences were based on choices. My mom made similar choices in her early 20 and spent time as a waitress in Germany, a nanny in England, and later as an exchange student in Spain. The experiences of my parents had a profound impact on me, and I couldn’t wait to go out and see (and photograph) the world on my own.

My father was born on a farm in southern Denmark in 1940. His name was Hans Oluf Knudsen. As the middle son, the family farm passed on to his older brother. He came from a family of farmers going back generations and never seriously questioned a different career. But not having the responsibility of taking care of the family farm suited him just fine, and he was off to the States soon after he completed his military service and vocational training

The winter my dad returned to Denmark, he reunited with my mom at a New Year’s Eve dance. He'd left her behind a few years earlier and would soon leave again for another year (to be a bus driver on the American military base in Greenland). But this time my parents kept in touch. At 25, he was back in Denmark for good. Together, my parents bought a farm close to where they’d both grown up and raised three children. And they stayed put. Once their children moved away from home and began their own lives, my parents took pride in seeing them move around the world. We didn’t travel much growing up but once my brothers and I gave my parents places to visit, they eagerly followed. 

My dad’s photographs is a window into his personality. There are shots of children playing in the street, friends staring dreamingly into dramatic scenery, laughing co-workers on large farming equipment, and open roads. Going over each shot, I’ve paused to think of the moment before my dad pressed the shutter--what prompted him. The shots seem so very him, but I find it difficult to describe exactly what it is about the pictures that reveal his personality. A friend once wrote about how describing his dad made him feel like a fish who can’t describe the sea. I feel the same. Both my parents were so central to my upbringing that I too struggle to describe who they are.  I can still see and feel who my father was, and some details stand out: his kindness and compassion, his teasing and his laugh. Yet, I can’t seem to get close to an adequate description of what made my dad who he was. Of course, a complete portrayal is impossible.  But the pictures fill in some important gaps and help me remember him.

I wish my father could have been around to show my children his pictures and tell his stories. He passed away suddenly last year from a heart attack when he was out biking with friends. I didn’t have the feeling that there was anything more that he needed to tell me although there were plenty of life events I still wanted to share with him. The last time I saw him, I told him that I loved him and wished him goodnight and safe travels.

More pictures below the fold.

Beijing at Night

1/60s, f/1.2, ISO 3200, 50mm

So I have been trying to settle on a new photography theme.  Lately, I haven't had a chance to shoot much during the day, so I've ended up with a lot of evening shots.  And most of them have been landscape shots of the citiscape variety.  When I lived in New York and Hong Kong, I ended up doing a lot of late night street photography but in Beijing I've found this type of photography more challenging.  This is mostly my own fault.  Unlike New York and Hong Kong, I no longer have a bustling street at my doorstop.  I have lived in Beijing neighborhoods without much street life, and to capture street scenes and portraits, I have had to make it a point to go somewhere and shoot.  But I am trying to change that since Beijing has so many parts that are rich with street life, character, and contrasts.

In this post, I have compiled some of my street photography highlights from my time in Beijing.  More to come soon...


1/800s, f/1.4, ISO 1600, 35mm

More shots below the fold.

1/400s, f/1.4, ISO 1600, 35mm


0.6s, f/2.2, ISO 1600, 35mm


1/125s, f/2.0, ISO 1600, 135mm


1/80s, f/1.7, ISO 1600, 20mm


1/50s, f/1.6, ISO 1600, 35mm

Poem for a Wednesday

1/800s, f/10.0, ISO 400, 30mm (HDR)

Ithaca

As you set out for Ithaca
hope that your journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laestrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare sensation
touches your spirit and your body.
Laestrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope that your journey is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and learn again from those who know.

Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so that you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.
Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would have not set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean.

C.P Cavafy (1910, 1911)