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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jul 6, 2007 2:42:24 GMT -5
O.K, I'm cheating. It's winter here in NZ and durned wet with it. I'm trying to take pictures of my town, but inspiration is difficult, so I'm going to offer up pictures from my last hometown, Nanchang, China. My wife (who was born in China) always berates me for only photographing the dirty and seedy and decrepit in Chinese cities. She has a point, but dirty, seedy and decrepit are MUCH more photogenic! All these photos were made on an eos 500 (rebel) and 28-70 or a Phenix DC701 with a variety of Chinese glass. All pictures were made in 2002 and 2003. Feel free to critique. 4 roads, no stoplights, lotta rain! dusty work. They're cleaning dirt from a building sight that's been dropped from dumptrucks and hammered into the pavement by traffic. Sometimes Chinese cities are Dickensian behind their modern façades Can you feel the heat? Most buildings in Nanchang are brick, plaster, concrete and tiles. I loved this ramshackle, half timbered shop just a stone's throw from the modernized streets full of glitzy jewellery shops and clothing boutiques. The guy in the bikeshop is fitting an umbrella holder to the bike, protection against the sun at that time of year. Family day in the park. I admit that I had pretensions of Cartier Bresson as I released the shutter. They are not my family; I just sat down by them, fiddled with the camera a bit, waved it around at various objects, and released the shutter when they all looked relaxed.
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 6, 2007 4:08:53 GMT -5
China has always fascinated me and is a place I'd like to see. Your slice of life photos just increase that urge. With China changing so rapidly it is full of contradictions and contrasts as your photos have shown. The one thing I hope will not change is what I perceive is the importance they place on family, which I think your last photo shows. Thanks for sharing.
Bob
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 6, 2007 9:27:09 GMT -5
Hi Michael,
To reply to two postings in one: first I'm pleased you got the Hi-Matic metering up and running again, and pleased that you did it the 'proper' way instead of using glue. Brass terminals are fine provided you don't leave a dead battery in there, though you may find that a spot of switch cleaner on a cotton bud (Q-tip) every six months or so helps to keep good low resistance contact.
Now on to your pictures of Nanchang. I like them. They make me feel I could spend days in a city like this just taking pictures to show the contrasts as China moves further into the 21st century.
Also they're full of my favourite subjects, people. I love looking at pictures of sweeping landscapes and natural features even though I very seldom try to take them. I suppose, being city born and bred, I've always been a 'people' photographer at heart, and try to tell a story with each picture - although over the years my ratio of successes to 'almosts' hasn't been as high as I would have wished.
You ask for critiques. OK, here, for what little they're worth, are my thoughts.
Picture 1. Not a lot I would suggest here. I like the way it shows how the still unregulated traffic at a major junction seems to be able to sort itself out OK, but I wonder what happens to pedestrians who want to cross the road? A case of the quick and the dead, perhaps?
It also shows the number of pedal cycles that are still used for personal transport in China. The long all-enveloping cycle capes and the shopping baskets on the front of the handlebars take me right back. Pictures like this of UK towns from the 1930s to the 1950s are being studied by social historians and students who write long theses about them and what they show. Sometimes the conclusions they draw are a bit fanciful to people who lived through those years and remember them, but that's another subject.
Almost the only cycles you see about in Ashford where I live are stunt-type bikes ridden by teenagers who always seem to go for a bike far too small for them.
They stand up on the pedals and weave in and out of the traffic, often jumping the bike up on to the pavement. They also race through pedestrianised areas, they're arrogant in the way they ride, and they're a complete menace to both drivers and pedestrians. A few years ago they were all on skateboards. I wonder what the next craze will be.
Picture 2. Again a picture that I imagine will be history in China before very many years. It harks back to the 'bad old days' in the UK when manual labour was still cheap and environmental and safety at work laws were more lax. No traffic cones to protect the workers, just a guy standing there directing traffic round them
Nowadays dump trucks wouldn't be allowed to drop that amount of debris, and contractors would be required to clean up what was dropped almost immediately, usually with big sweeper-suction machines.
Picture 3. Dickensian? This is harking back to at least a century before Dickens. You've caught the atmosphere of life in that mean little street very well. I like the composition of the curve to the right, and the slight haze in the distance that adds depth.
The only 'improvements' I could suggest would be if the woman in the right foreground had moved out of shot, and the lad with the obviously heavy shopping carrier had been coming towards you instead of going away. But then, as the saying goes, you can't win 'em all.
Picture 4. I love this picture of the two ramshackle shops that, probably again, will soon be just a memory. Critique? Maybe I would have moved in a little closer and possibly over to the left a little to concentrate on the two main characters in the picture (I like the way one of them is working and not just looking) and take out the parts at the edges of the picture that don't really contribute much - maybe worth pictures in their own right? I would also have waited till the lad with the backpack had moved out of shot even though I like the purposeful way he's striding along. Another subject for a possible picture? But then I wasn't there, so ...
Picture 5. I love this picture. I love the human interest and the 'composition within a composition'. The triangle formed by the two mothers with their children, and the way your eye goes straight to the expresion on the face of the mother with the young baby. It's a picture on its own.
Yet it's not out of place inside the main picture. From the mother with the baby, the way the man in the white cap is looking to the right takes your eye over the kneeling man looking up at his daughter(?). From his clothes he could possibly be an office worker spending his lunch break meeting his family.
You say you had pretensions of Cartier Bresson when you took the picture. I think C-B would have been pleased with this picture. I would have been delighted to have taken it.
Don't wait for inspiration to come to you in your home town. The familiar seldom inspires. Get out with a camera and watch the people. You'll find they're not interested in what you're doing. Look past them, and if they notice you at all they'll probably think you're just taking pictures of the town, and ignore you.
Try to imagine where they're going, and what they're doing. Are they just browsing in shop windows, already loaded with parcles and bags, and making sure the kids don't stray or get up mishchief ? Or are they in a hurry to get somewhere and cursing the browsers who get in their way. That's when inspiration pops its little head into the viewfinder and says "YES!"
I've always found this sort of photography fascinating. I just wish I wasn't so dependent on a walking stick and could wander about looking for pictures like I used to. Never mind. When I've got time, and its a nice day instead of the horrible June weather we've got at the moment, I'll prop myself up against a wall down town and wait for life to move in front of the camera.
Thanks agin for showing the pictures.
PeterW
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jul 6, 2007 20:18:49 GMT -5
Thanks for the kind comments, Bob and Peter. Bob, China can be incredibly difficult, culture-shock inducing, frightening and exhausting, but also vibrant, warming, earthy, tasty and downright fun. I love it, miss it and would unhesitatingly recommend anyone with a healthy sense of curiosity and openness to go and see it for themselves. Peter, your critique is perceptive. Coming from wide open spaces I'm more at ease with landscapes and shy when photographing people. I have far too many pictures of people's backs in my files. I think that this is responsible for my distaste for in-your-face professional SLRs. China was good for me. As a 6'2" Laowai (foreigner) with size 12 feet I got stared at plenty. Sometimes I'd get the hump with being the object of curiosity 24/7, but it did allow me to unleash my own personal 'old nick' and be a bit braver at photographing those around me up close and personal. Shooting in crowded Chinese cities poses a major composition problem: there is always someone drifting in or out of the frame! I should not whine about this as I know you have that problem in English markets too. I've tended to try and incorporate such movement as part of the picture, like the boy walking past the bicycle shop. I have several shop pictures like this with people walking/cycling past in various levels of blurriness. It is interesting to have your response on this habit. In the case of the blurry woman in the bottom right of the alley photo, she annoys me. If I was more skilled at Photoshop, she'd go! I have a lot of pics with these blurry half-people, usually in the bottom right - I haven't thought of it before, but I'm left-eyed, and can totally block out the usual exposure needle in the right hand side of the viewfinder, by ignoring it, it simply disappears. Maybe I tend to 'not see' the bottom right of the frame. Here is another image of the same alley. I like it for the smartly dressed girl and young boy walking towards the camera, they are definitely the subject of the picture, and there is no annoying half woman in this one. But I like the portrait format and resulting depth of the first photo and perhaps the dark mass of the guy on his bike distracts the eye in this one. That's why I went with the first photo. Which do you prefer? (I wish I'd got a usable portrait orientation of the boy and girl, but c'est la vie). I'm really chuffed that you like the family in the park; I think that it is one of my most personally rewarding people pictures, and perhaps the most adventurous. Maybe it is the switch from would-be travel photographer to one who lives in a place and gains an affinity for its people, their rhythms and personalities. But now I'm being pretentious. I'd better warn you all that I'm one of those social historians currently writing a master's thesis on common things from years gone by. We do have a tendency to over think the obvious!
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Post by herron on Jul 7, 2007 0:39:07 GMT -5
I like this set of pictures. I was in China, back in 1986, in both Beijing and Shanghai, and really loved them both. I'm trying to dig up the pictures I took (anyone know a good archeologist?), but I know they were not as topical as yours. We were escorted everywhere, and seldom saw what we were not supposed to see.
Still, I've often wondered how much it has changed in 21 years. I know Tiananmen Square is basically the same. There were few autos available to the masses in 1986...but thousands of bicycles! We went to a Fourth of July party at the American Embassy while I was there...interesting arrangement. To accommodate all the people, they walled-off a cross-walk to the Egyptian Embassy courtyard across the street. When the party ended, we walked back to our hotel, feeling marvelously safe. Our hotel was at the far east end of Jianguomen (the same boulevard that would become famous three years after we were there for the young man halting a line of advancing tanks)!
You've managed to capture images of places and things I could only get glimpses of...and they are nicely done. Thanks for sharing them.
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