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How to convey....
#1

(not sure whether this post should go into "snapshots"..? feel free to move if you feel it would be appropriate)

Most of you will know how I am always trying to somehow capture what I see here in China, and I have probably
mentioned that I often find it excruciatingly difficult to reflect the reality. It is hard to capture in pictures or put into words.
Usually I go for lots of detail, and hope that alltogether they will come together like a jigsaw puzzle to form a picture of the environment in the viewers mind. Partially this strategy is due to my photographic preferences of course. I usually am a miserable failure at filling a wider frame and can't seem to compose my pictures.

Now I tried something different, shooting from the window of a tricycle ( a la Don S Smile ) I was riding back home.
Our campus is located in a relatively new district of the city, we are surrounded by construction an grassland, and settling round here is mostly industry and several new campuses.
Residential buildings (condos) rise up all over the place, often decorated with pseudo-English advertisements and built in a funny mixture of styles.

I was just following an instantaneous idea when I was shooting these, so there can be no claim to quality,
but I would like to know what you see in them....

I really welcome any comments!

Greetins, Uli


[Image: IMG_9750.jpg]
1) window decoration in the tricycle

[Image: IMG_9752.jpg]
2) gate to a campus, street sweepers resting

[Image: IMG_9751.jpg]
3) vendors and students outside campus gate

[Image: IMG_9753.jpg]
4) common transportation: motorised tricycle. modern architecture under construction in the background

[Image: IMG_9754.jpg]
5) construction sites are always lined with walls, not with the fences we know.

[Image: IMG_9756.jpg]
6) modern building in middle of wasteland!

Smile
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#2

I like your series Uli, and I think this is the right forum for your pictures.

I see a different China in this series, with lots of details that I could compare with my country, not to say it is better or worse but different or similar. This place looks very clean, but I feel it a bit sad.

I like the decoration in the window and the colors. the colors go from red, yellow to green... it makes it look warm. Which are the most common colors in China? Which color you relate China with?

The colors in your pictures looks a bit washed out? As if it were foggy or lots of dust in the air... is this the way it is always?

Thanks for sharing your pictures Uli.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
Paul Cezanne
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#3

It's certainly a different view, and it does look a bit like Winnipeg. Big Grin

I think the second one is the strongest. The street sweepers are an obvious focal point, but looking at the photo a second and third time I'm struck by the young man and his pose. I'd like to think that he's lost in thought, unhappy in love, or wearily going to/from work. (I suppose I'm jaded enough to think that he's probably just talking on a cell phone.) Him standing there, not walking, is balanced in composition and concept by the "Don't Walk" light on the opposite end of the frame.

If the blue tarp was cropped out of the construction photo, it would be a mysterious piece of concept-art behind a wall...

I'm a recent convert to the idea of a spontaneous and quick photo shoot. What was it like to break from your usual habits and work differently?

matthewpiers.com • @matthewpiers | robertsonphoto.blogspot.com | @thewsreviews • thewsreviews.com
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#4

Thank you guys for your comments!

it is not me or the camara producing mute colors,
it really is just so misty! (dust caught under a layer of clouds mixed with pollution...my throat is constantly sore).

It is true, Irma, Chinese people love red, which is a lucky color, and lots of colors in their clothes and heaps of tacky decoration items. On the other hand, I find teh environment looking grim and grey most of the time, nothing like Germany or Toronto just to mention two places that come to my mind.
It is actually not very clean, interesting to hear you get that impression from the pictures....

What did it feel like? very interesting. As I said, it was a very spontaneous thing, I guess if I practise more I will eventually get the swing of taking pictures like these. And I would hope that I could capture another aspect of what I see here, a broader picture in the truest sense.
I like the feeling of having to be quick because the vehicle is moving. you see your shot, raise the camera and "click", you get it or you don't. no second try, no careful composition.
and considering that, I did still kind of like the result.

I think I will follow up with this momentary instinct....

Uli
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#5

I quite enjoy looking at them. It is a different culture we are appraising and your photo's are not the sort you would see in a travel brochure.
Whichever section you feel they belong, that is where they should go. Smile

Lumix LX5.
Canon 350 D.+ 18-55 Kit lens + Tamron 70-300 macro. + Canon 50mm f1.8 + Manfrotto tripod, in bag.
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