Finally...

1s, f/4.0, ISO 800, 35mm (cropped)

What a relief!  After a week with heavy smog, a rainstorm came through last night and washed away the polluted air.  This morning it was all blue skies and the light in the early dawn was totally stunning.  Beijing will seduce you like that.  Just when you think you've had more than you could possibly take, she will come back with the most amazing weather.

Regular blogging will resume soon.  I've been travelling over the last month and will be back with some shots form Denmark and France.

Behind Sanlitun (三里屯的后边）

1/500, ƒ/2.2, ISO 400, 35mm

Sanlitun is an area in Beijing's Chaoyang District packed with high and low end shopping malls, restaurants and bars.  In the 1950s, the new government moved most of the embassies here and built several apartment complexes reserved for foreign diplomats in and around the neighborhood (until the 1980s, these apartments were generally the only places where foreigners could legally live).  As China opened up in the 1970s and 1980s, bars and restaurants catering to foreigners began to appear.

Like most of Beijing, Sanlitun has undergone a dramatic transformation.  Until about a decade ago, most of the businesses catered to a younger, budget-minded audience, and cheap bars and hostels were surrounded by low-rise apartment buildings and hutong neighborhoods.  Then the Olympics arrived and with that several high-end developments.  Today, an upscale, open air shopping complex called the Village (recently renamed Taikoo Li in an effort of corporate branding) has become the center of Sanlitun complete with designer stores like Rolex and Versace and a trendy boutique hotel (where the nightly rates exceed the monthly salaries of people living just blocks away).

Despite the changes, traces of old Sanlitun remain.  I recently took a walk with my camera around one of the hutongs behind Sanlitun Village.  The contrast between the new and the old is mind-boggling, really--even if it's typical by now for most large Chinese cities.


1/2000, ƒ/1.4, ISO 1600, 35mm

Read on below the fold for more shots.



1/2500, ƒ/1.8, ISO 1600, 35mm


1/160, ƒ/2.5, ISO 1600, 35mm


1/4000, ƒ/1.4, ISO 400, 35mm


1/400, ƒ/1.8, ISO 1600, 35mm

Meanwhile in New York City

1/100s, f/2.8, ISO 3200, 115mm

I want to be lost among
your thoughts
the way you listen to New York City
when you fall asleep

Leonard Cohen

Beijing Cabbies

1/2000, ƒ/1.8, ISO 400, 35mm

Beijing taxi drivers know life.  More posts soon.

Into the Night

1/25s, f/2.2, ISO 800, 20mm

Sometime it's not really necessary to focus.

With or Without

1/2000s, f/7.1, ISO 400, 28mm

I went for a quick walk at the Summer Palace in the late afternoon last week.  The night before, an unseasonably late snowstorm had covered Beijing in a thick lawyer of snow.  By the afternoon, most of the snow was gone and with blue skies over the city, the Summer Palace was not a bad place to be with a camera.

The light was a real treat.  On the way up Longevity Hill (Wanshou Shan), I came across this hallway where where the late afternoon sun was creating some beautiful long shadows.  With few people around I was able to capture the scene pretty well.  Still, I wish I had taken a wider lens along, so I could have gotten some more windows inside the frame.

Pretty happy with the final result, I still can't decide if it works better with the silhouette of the man passing through the door (above) or the more deserted look with the view of the mountains in the distance (below the fold).  I suppose, they are really two different compositions but ultimately I feel like the person adds more of a story to the picture.  Thoughts?


1/3200 secs, f/7.1, ISO 400, 24mm

Evening Photo Walk in Shanghai

10s, f/18.0, ISO 200, 48mm

I went to Shanghai for a short trip last week. I only got to squeeze in a short walk with my camera but luckily the timing was good.  I got in on the train from Beijing late in the afternoon and arrived to blue skies and warm spring temperatures.  The late afternoon light was beautiful and after walking around the area by People's Square, I made my way down to see the sunset and watch the skyline lights turn on  by the Bund.

It's hard not to be struck by Shanghai's immense contrasts.  From the uber-modern, rapidly changing Pudong skyline and the neon signs on Nanjing Road to narrow lanes and night markets, the old and new exist seemingly effortlessly side by side.  Read on to see some shots from around the Bund and People's Square.


1/80s, f/1.4, ISO 1600, 50mm



1/640s, f/5.0, ISO 800, 27mm


1/400s (bracketed HDR), f/6.3, ISO 800, 24mm


0.3s, f/5.6, ISO 400, 24mm


1/30s, f/1.4, ISO 3200, 50mm


0.8s (bracketed HDR), f/2.2, ISO 800, 50mm


1/320s, f/1.4, ISO 1600, 50mm


1/125s, f/1.4, ISO 1600, 50 mm


1/4s, f/7.1, ISO 400, 24mm


1/125s, f/4.0, ISO 800, 24mm

Behind Qianmen (前门)

1/60s, f/1.8, ISO 3200, 50mm

Qianmen sits on the south end of Qiananmen Square.  Also known by it's official name, Zhengyangmen, it was once part of the Beijing's city wall (Qianmen means front gate).  Today, the city wall is long gone but the gate remains.  It's one of the landmarks of the city and a popular tourist spot.  Despite being in the middle of the Beijing, the neighborhood around Qianmen is home to several hutongs and traditional courtyard homes.  Walking around the hutongs' narrow streets, it's hard to believe that you're just a few blocks away from the political and cultural center of Beijing (and, indeed, of China).

I spent some times getting lost in the neighborhood a few weeks ago.  Continue below the fold for shots of Qianmen and Tiananmen.


1/400s, f/2.2, ISO 200, 50mm



1/2000s, f/4.5, ISO 400, 28mm


10s, f/18.0, ISO 200, 32mm

The Lakes, Copenhagen

GF1, 1/640s, f/4.0, ISO 200, 20mm

The Lakes (Søerne) in Copenhagen are a series of five rectangular lakes in the center of the city.  On a cold February morning last week, the pastel colors, the clear lines, and the almost matching color of the icy lake and the sky caught my eye.

Stars

30s, f/4.0, ISO 1000, 24mm

It had been a while since I had experimented with shooting the night sky.  I've always been fascinated with astronomy.  I worked at a planetarium in high school and recall how frustrating taking pictures of stars would be with a film camera.  With the instant feedback of a digital camera, it's a lot easier to get a decent photo of the night sky without investing a lot of time in sorting out the right exposure.  Trial and error really go a long way here.

I took these two shots on a cold January night near Hornbæk in Denmark.  Hornbæk is about an hour north of Copenhagen and near the water.  It's a popular spot for summer houses but in the winter time it's pretty quiet.  And there is very little light at night.  On a clear, cold winter night, the night sky is absolutely breathtaking.  The first shot is a 30 second exposure, featuring most of the Orion constellation.  Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky is also visible on the left side behind the trees (or try following Orion's belt to the left).  In the second shot below, the exposure is about half an hour long.  It captures the stars as they appear to rotate around the North Star (of course the stars don't really move but we/Earth does).


33m, f/4.0, ISO 800, 25mm

Behind Every Single Window

2s, f/4.0, ISO 800, 24mm

Yesterday I got the chance to check out a rooftop in the Nyboder neighborhood in central Copenhagen.  What a treat.  I'm always excited at the chance of getting to the top of buildings--especially in the center of a city.  The views usually reveal something interesting that you won't experience from just walking the streets.   This time I got to see a multicolored, magnificently-lit courtyard.  A sort of behind-the-scenes-look.  And it got me thinking of Dan Turèll's old poem "Behind Every Single Window" (”Bag hvert eneste vindue").  Here's an excerpt:

"…You walk down through a long street

which you know or maybe don't know

in your own city or an unknown one

and you raise your eyes and look at those thousands

of shining lit-up windows

and you know that behind every single window people live

and that simple thought everytime is so new and strange"
behind every single window people live
people with real live problems
as concrete as a fist in the kisser
behind every single window men and women are breathing
easy or with trouble
each in his own rhythm..."

Dan Turèll, (1979) 

A simple message for the new year

1/6400 secs, f/1.4, ISO 400, 50mm

Poem for a Saturday

1/160s (bracketed HDR), f/5.6, ISO 800, 30mm

Encounter

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going?
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

Czeslaw Milosz (1936)

Frosty

1/640s (bracketed HDR), f/8.0, ISO 400, 24mm

Here's a shot from Slivsø (Sliv Lake) near Haderslev in Denmark.  The lake is one of the largest in southern Denmark but was drained and used for farm land for almost half a century.  It's a beautiful spot any time of the year but it feels particularly peaceful in the winter.  I used moderate HDR processing to capture the details in the sky.

At the Wet Market

1/640s, f/1.8, ISO 800, 50mm

I happened to walk past the wet market around Graham Street near Central in Hong Kong today.  It was a rainy, damp day, and luckily I had my camera along.  It was late in the afternoon, so the market was busy and the light great.


1/800s, f/1.6, ISO 800, 50mm

More shots below the fold.


1/1600s, f/1.8, ISO 800, 50mm



1/250s, f/1.2, ISO 800, 50mm



1/400s, f/1.8, ISO 800, 50mm



1/1000s, f/1.6, ISO 800, 50mm



1/500s, f/1.4, ISO 800, 50mm



1/500s, f/1.2, ISO 800, 50mm

Fall

1/500s (bracketed) f/4.0, ISO 800, 50mm

I don't like cold weather one bit.  But spending another fall in Hong Kong, I've realised how much I miss the changing of the seasons.  The weather in Hong Kong cools down this time of year but fall and winter temperatures are very mild.  I like how refreshingly crisp fall weather can be--especially after a hot summer.  It was therefor a welcome change when I travelled to Beijing this weekend.  The sky (for the most part) seemed almost an impossibly clear blue and the fall foliage was stunning.  I took a walk around the Beida campus but only had a 50mm lens with me.  A wider lens would no doubt have been better suited to take in the full beauty of the landscape...


1/800s, f/1.6, ISO 100, 50mm

Continue below the fold for a few more shots



1/800s, f/1.6, ISO 100, 50mm



1/125s (bracketed) f/5.0, ISO 200, 50mm



1/500s (bracketed) f/4.5, ISO 200, 50mm

New York, New York

I am submitting some of my NYC shots for a street photography exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum this year. Amateur and professional photographers are invited to submit up to 12 images. Selecting the shots was a difficult job. Almost all my New York street shots are well over a year old, and I hadn't looked at them in a while. Reviewing my own work was painful. I felt disappointed with a lot of my shots... many of them felt too much like snapshots that failed at telling stories or communicating something interesting about New York and city life.

Most of the photos I ended up with are from the subway. My hope is that they together manage to give some insight into what it feels like to be on (and under) the streets of New York.



Read on to see the entire submission.

Where to?

1/60s (bracketed HDR), f/8, ISO 800, 24mm

I will have more blog posts coming soon.  In the meantime, here's a shot from this summer.  I've tried to go easy on the HDR processing on this one but wanted to bring out a little more detail in the shadows.  The highway is in the southern part of Denmark near my parents' farm.

Around the CCTV Headquarters

1/60s (bracketed HDR), f/7.1, ISO 800, 24mm

This week, when the smog loosened its grip on Beijing for a few days, I went to get some shots of the new CCTV Headquarters. The building was completed earlier this year and dominates the skyline of Beijing's Central Business District. The futuristic design features two leg-like towers leaning against each other, linked on top by a perpendicular extension. It occupies a giant block between the Guomao and Jintaixizhao subway stops, and inside there some sort of sloped plaza between the building's two legs.

The building is no doubt a bold and remarkable structure, though I'm not sure I like its bombastic presence. But at least it's not another bland, characterless skyscraper like those popping up around Beijing with predictable regularity. A disappointing feature of the building is its total lack of integration with nearby streets. The complex is set back far from the street and surrounding by a two-meter high fence (two of the adjacent streets are completely blacked off). Even if the inside is opened to the public some day, nothing seem to be designed to invite foot traffic, and access would be limited to one or two entrances.

Locals haven't been impressed, either, by the way, nicknaming it Big Boxer Shorts (大裤衩).

As for the shots, I used HDR processing on most of them.  This allowed me to bring out more details in the sky and the shadows and at the same time give the shots a slightly more space-age feel to match the look of the building.

More shots below the fold.


1/640s, f/2.8, ISO 2500, 46mm


+ 1/400s (bracketed HDR) f/3.5, ISO 2500, 24mm


0.4s (bracketed HDR), f/5.0, ISO 1600, 30mm


1/8s (bracketed HDR), f/6.3, ISO 1600, 24mm

Poem for a Weekend Night

10s, f/5.6, ISO 800, 24mm

I wonder how many people in this city
live in furnished rooms.
Late at night when i look out at the buildings
I swear I see a face in every window
looking back at me
and when I turn away
I wonder how many go back to their desks
and write this down.

- Leonard Cohen