Andrew Hefter Photography - Blog » temple

China: A person, place, or thing

Andrew — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:22:46 +0000

The portfolio I submitted for the course I was, er, “taking.” Based it on the idea of using nouns to illustrate the country.

“Tiannemen”

“Nest”

“Red”

“Temple”

“Poker”

“Tai-Chi”

“Squatter”

“Store”

“Neighborhood”

“Xian”

“Clique”

“Home”

“Flute”

“Market”

“Metal”

“Monk”

“Boy”

“Lake”

“Wheelchair”

“Lunch”

“Window”

“Brick”

And there ya have it. I’ll be posting up my trips to Portland and Chicago in due time . . .

Shanghai returns

Andrew — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:44:00 +0000

Finally, back with the China pics. Most of these are from an “ancient” Shanghai “suburb.” It was rather nice actually. And while it was a suburb in the sense it’s 30 minutes from the city, it’s still not what you’d consider a Western style enclave or anything.

Virtually all with the 50 1.4, a couple with the 28 1.8.

First days of Shanghai

Andrew — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:47:03 +0000

Shanghai was a mixed bag in terms of favorite places I’ve been to. It’s a giant city – second largest in the world – but once you get past the surface, which looks like a culturally vibrant and crazy place, it’s really all about business. The arts scene was highly commercial, in a bad way, though it did have its gems. I’ll get to that even more in a later post. Architecturally though, it’s far and ahead one of the more interesting, in China and worldwide. The World Expo (aka World’s Fair) is being held there next year, so a lot of construction is going on to get these ridiculous projects built. What I also liked was in the mornings, people would be out and about right outside the hotel doing tai-chi and dance aerobics, even playing badminton. There was a pedestrian only boulevard / plaza in front of the hotel where all this took place.

That would be the boulevard. Behind me was where all the morning activities would go on.

Specifically, this is what was behind me.

Visited a museum of Chinese artifacts – this is outside of it. At this point in the trip, I was tired of museums – I would have much preferred to actually be out and seeing the sites.

The expo center, where we went to next.

They had this giant model of the entire city taking up most of the floor. I’d say close to 1000 square feet if not more.

A modern arts museum. This piece I quite liked – apocalypse hits the Chinese cities.

This is the start of the second day – we went to a temple. The light was bland and overcast – I don’t think we had seen the sun for 4 or 5 days at this point. It’s supposedly the rainy season, but I’m pretty sure it was also just smog galore.

Hey, that’s me . . .

A scuplture park. I have no idea why Albert was there.

Get it? See, it’s Rodin’s “Thinker,” but fat! Clever, huh?

Everyone’s a photographer. Actually, I saw lots of photogs whenever we were in these sorts of areas. Wedding shoots, fashion shoots, what have you.

Mix of the 20-35, 50 1.4, and 85 1.4.

Hangzhou

Andrew — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:37:51 +0000

One entry for Hangzhou. The least culturally vibrant of the places we visited in China. I’d associate it with the equivalent of the American upper middle class suburb, in the sense the architecture and environment reflected a concern with money and artificial beauty, rather than quirkiness and the embrace of organic culture. The temple area was rather pretty, but the city in general had that kind of vibe going for it.

People sure do like getting their pictures with Westerners.

She was taking a picture of me. I just shot off from the hip.

Oh Steve.

Our eats for lunch.

This area was a sort of sanctuary. Had a rock path up into the hills and a Buddhist temple.

We climbed a big ol’ rock.

So glad the light held – more than half the days in China were cursed by boring, flat, overcast light. Didn’t see the sun all that much.

For burning incense.

Those monks like their basketball.

Got caught up in a 3 way.

I’m on a boat!

The body of water is called West Lake.

More meta.

Was at a pond where you could feed the koi. People would pour out bags of popcorn and the fish would go nuts.

I unfortunately couldn’t take my exploding briefcase under the subterranean crosswalk. Which is another point of confusion, they use underground tunnels to cross the road, but call ‘em subways, so I’m always half expecting a subway entrance somewhere . . . but no.

I believe they were commenting on how dumb tourists are or something, then proceeded to point and laugh.

Bought some green tea leaves.

This guy was rather curious about the swarm of westerners crowding the tea shop.

You know the chicken’s fresh.

A mix of the 20-35, 50, and 85.

Flight to Xian

Andrew — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:19:21 +0000

Day 6 of my trip. A mix of … well, pretty much every lens (majority with the 50 and 20-35).

Final day of Beijing

Andrew — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 08:51:59 +0000

A short(er) post this time. It was a rainy day. Went to another temple in the morning, this one is the Summer Palace. All built around a small lake. Beautiful. Shot entirely with the 50 1.4 on the D700.

Day four

Andrew — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:21:42 +0000

In Beijing still, first set is from a temple, then we went to an arts district, and finally walked around at night. 28 1.8 predominantly, 50 1.4 at night.

A few more from day 2

Andrew — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:48:06 +0000

Some extras I neglected to put up. This was from the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Very pretty and great for infrared. Mix of 20-35 2.8 and 28 1.8.

Great Wall and Olympics

Andrew — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:28:51 +0000

The third day of my China trip. Most images with the D700 and 20-35 2.8 or 28 1.8, a few with the D200 and 70-300 VR.