backdrop Photo | TrekEarth

Photographer’s Note

A week in Shanghai.
For seven days now, the weather has been more or less the same: the air is covered in a thick layer of white that seems to crush everything under motionless heat. From time to time, the sun manages to pierce through and some shadows appear here and there. Last night, the thunder and rain they'd been promising for a week finally appeared.
Walking outside was like taking a shower with disco lights on.
Quite different from what we are used to in Europe.

I've been in this city for a week, but downtown only three times.
I've spent most of my time at my friend's mother's house waiting for her husband to get better (he got a violent stomach flu), or then simply waiting for the weather to become more bearable. And if it wasn't any of those reasons, then it was something else. And in any case, it takes about an hour to come downtown from the western suburbs...

On one of our three outings, we finally made it to the Bund. I say finally as my dear friend hadn't even thought about taking me there... when I asked her what it was (when I saw the name on a road sign) she wondered why I hadn't been there before. I looked at her with a blank stare and reminded her that this was my first time in China, let alone Asia...

Myeah, the joys of travelling alone are often undervalued, but still, it is a true privilege to be able to spend time within a Chinese family, eat with them, live with them and get to know them (as much as possible). I wish my brain would finally just open itself to understanding this fascinating language!

About the picture: I wish I'd checked out the image I took before heading off from the place. As I looked through the viewfinder, the ground was perfectly aligned with the lower bottom of the picture. It's only once we were back at the house and I uploaded the shots that I realised I'd screwed the eight pictures I took from this spot. In each one of them half of the people's feet are cut off.

I hope you will still be able to enjoy this sight of the (apparently) world renowned Bund. What you are missing in this picture is the wide river filled with ageing boats, loaded with various materials and people. But at least you get the Asian tourists (and some from other continents) looking at the impressive scenery and a hint of the sky scrapers that soar on the riverbanks.

The image appears quite a bit brighter on TE again... even though I managed it in sRGB mode ? I'm a bit lost with colour management and TE... anyone willing to give me lessons ? ;-)

A week in Shanghai, and today we finally moved into town.
Things might get a bit more interesting from here on... or so I hope ;-)

An advance Thank You to all those amongst You who take the time to criticise and/or leave a comment!

ben4321, indoka28, luisafonso, e30mike, notrap, SchwebagMike has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

ben4321 (9781) 2007-06-24 9:57

I like this - your low viewpoint works very well. It's good how you managed to (almost) exclude the ground without cropping the feet of the people in the foreground.
The low viewpoint exaggerates the height of the people, complementing the monumental scale of the architecture in the background. It's very atmospheric too, with the misty haze over the unseen water.
Good work Julia.

Cheers,
Ben

indoka28 (5183) 2007-06-24 9:57

Hello Julia,

This is a beauty with a low POV..!! great daily life shot with the static structure in the bg and the moving life in the fg...the colour contrast of the static and dyanamis objects in the shot is also very nice..!!

Great composition and well framed...with good soft colours..!!

Regards,

Indro

sevy (12893) 2007-06-24 12:37

Bonjour Julia,

J aime beaucoup ta photo: malgres la difficulte d avoir a gerer le ciel laiteux, generalement ca me demotive et je ne sors pas l appareil, le rendu est sympa.
En effet, les 2 personnes de premier plan portent des habits blancs qui repondent bien au ciel et je trouve l idee du cadrage au ras du sol (tout en laissant les pieds, je suis d accord avec toi, c est tres important) dynamise pas mal l image: la contre-plongee grandit les touristes et fait un rappel au building d arriere plan.

Pour ce qui est du Bund, je n ai jamais eu l occasion d y aller, meme si je reve de decouvrir la Chine. J en ai surtout lu des descriptions dans des romans policiers qui se passent a Shanghai et qui sont ecrit par Qiu Xiaolong. J en recommande la lecture pour sa description de la vie de tous les jours des chinois dans le post-communisme.

Bonne suite,

Yves.

cobraphil8 (11650) 2007-06-25 1:05

Salut Julia,
il est clair que tu es privilégiée de partager le quotidien d'une famille chinoise et tu ne serai sans doute pas passer à côté de grand chose si tu n'avais pas visité cet endroit rempli de touristes, sans doute la vue sur les paquebots vaut-elle le coup? Mais n'est-il pas plus agréable d'être au milieu de la "vraie population"?
Comme Yves, avec un tel temps, je n'aurai sans doute pas sorti l'appareil photo mais en numérique tu peux te le permettre...
Ce qui est marrant dans ton image, ce sont les placements des personnes par rapport aux grattes-ciel, ceux qui sont grands correspondent avec les personnes les plus près de toi...
Bonne continuation en Chine et merci pour cette 1ère image de ton parcours asiatique :)
Bisous
Philippe

luisafonso (858) 2007-06-25 6:34

I like this one a lot. Somehow, that white curtain is very appropriate here as every one seems to be wearing... white! But my favorite thing about this image is the way you have mimicked Shanghai skyline with the standing attitude of the tourists, specially these two on the foreground. That's really nice. Wishing you a fantastic stay in far far east Asia. Stay safe, l.

waseemkhan (1070) 2007-06-26 13:30

Hi Julia,
This is a beauty with a low POV..!! great daily life shot with the static structure in the bg and the moving life in the fg...the colour contrast of the static and dyanamis objects in the shot is also very nice....................
well don,
TFS,
waseem khan

vapours (7913) 2007-06-30 9:56

Really really great image Julia. Love the way the people imitate the massive buildings in front of them, and the softer colours of the buildings. The two people closer to us wearing the same colours is a great touch.

rushfan2112 (2965) 2007-06-30 21:13

Hi Julia. I love this shot. The tonal recession into the distance creates a great 3-D effect and I like the slightly muted colours. In fact, the guy in the orange shirt makes this shot work for me as it could almost be a B&W shot otherwise. Good luck in China and hope you create some more stunning images like this one. Kind regards, Paul.

e30mike (300) 2007-07-08 13:00

Very nice shot of the bund, and from a new angle too. Good to hear you finally got there with that story. Hopefully you get to explore around Shanghai a bit more, it's a really cool place and the people are friendly, Thanks for sharing!

iamback (50) 2007-07-11 9:14

I really like this view of Shanghai, with the low POV, and the typically ordinary young generation Chinese people!

Unfortunately, the "white sky" seems to have become a common problem in China's big cities - the result of increasing pollution due to burgeoning car ownership; it's exactly the same in Beijing, as I learned after a few visits: a blue sky, or a blue sky with little white clouds, is very, very rare! So in this respect it's a good picture, too, but the white sky merging into the very visible haze gives an aesthetic effect to this image as well.

Excellent! One for the "White skies theme", too.

SylvainMichel (122) 2007-07-12 6:33 [Comment]

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Furachan (0) 2007-07-14 3:51

Lovely shot, Julia, very nice indeed, really captures the strange almst artificial beauty of Shanghai - a science fiction feel to this with good balance and a low POV that really works.
See you on Monday!
Francis

SchwebagMike (1490) 2007-07-26 1:00

Hi Julia,
An interesting POV to start with! Of course a great note, like always ;-) Indeed astonishingly (for me) almost only asian toursits! A lot of contrast in the picture: the clearly vsible, lively people in the foreground and the big misty skyline in the background, a bit like guarding the tourists (at least in this peacefull shot). The framing and composition are great and I don't really care about the alignement (if you hadn't written, wouldn't have noticed).
Greetngs from Luxembourg, Mike

Stepan (27167) 2008-02-22 22:53

Et bien, je trouve ce pov très original pour cet endroit, comparé à tout ce que l'on voit d'habitude. Et puis, cette histoire de pieds coupés, elle ne me gêne pas plus que ça.
L'ambiance du Bund est là et c'est vraiment ça qui compte. Très bien vu, selon moi.
Stéphane