Tibetan Monk - Gansu Province

It has been some time since I have posted a ‘Photo of the Week’, so I thought it was about time that I revived this popular feature which I hope gives you a small insight into some of my thought processes when making images.

This week’s image comes from western China, from the Tibetan regions where I have been recently travelling.  The Tibetan areas of China not only comprise of the Tibetan Autonomous region but also spreads into neighbouring province Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan. Most of my travelling the past week was in Qinghai, a visually stunning part of the country, rich in spectacular landscapes and a diverse mix of people. This image however was taken just across the border of Qinghai province, in Gansu province.

As is quite clear, the image is a portrait of a Tibetan monk. He is standing in a cave that we were visiting, deep in the mountains in the west of the province. Inside the cave are a collection of Buddhist artworks and special areas which house shrines that people often make pilgrimages to.

I chose this image as it is maybe my favourite portrait of a monk that I was able to capture during my short travels. As many visitors to this blog will know, I primarily use natural light and am always looking for how I can capture images without having to rely on artificial light. For this image, the only light that was used was the light shining from the entrance to the cave. We had just completed our trip into the cave, a somewhat difficult and arduous journey into the depths of the mountain. Preparing to leave, I was stood near to this monk and saw him gazing out of the cave entrance. Even though I was very tired from the climb inside the cave, I tried to steady myself enough so that I could compose the shot. I was wide open at 2.8 and knew that would have to be incredibly steady and accurate to capture a sharp image in the limited light. I captured a few frames and this was the one I was most happy with.

Camera Info: Canon 7D | 16-35mm f2.8 lens | ISO 400 | f2.8 | 1/10th

[slideshare id=6014053&doc=yugongyishanexhib-101203023041-phpapp02]

The evening of November 22nd saw the opening of the first public print display of ‘China’s Threatened Waters’, as part of the Greening the Beige annual party. We had a great attendance with a few hundred people attending the events and it really was a wonderful evening. Please find above a small selection of photographs from the evening, taken by myself, volunteers and GtB’s event photographer Jordan Thomas Mitchell.

Next week, I shall be heading back to western China again to visit the province of Qinghai (hopefully some very exciting developments will be announced after, and as a result of, this trip — please stay tuned!). I won’t be posting as much, so I shall leave you with these photos for the time being. There have been plenty of posts this week, so if you missed them , please go back and check them out. To help point you in the right direction, I have added a new plug-in which will recommends other blog posts to you that you might be interested in, depending on which you are reading at that time. You can find this at the bottom of each post. Happy reading and exploring!

Bruce Lee Statue in Hong Kong. 2008

Last Saturday (November 27th) saw the 70th birthday anniversary of Bruce Lee. As a belated birthday tribute, I decided to write this post not just as a personal homage to a movie star who had a big impact on me growing up, but to also relate some of Bruce Lee’s thoughts on martial arts and how they can be transferred to photography. “Seriously?” you might ask. It was Alex Majoli of Magnum who started me thinking about this many years ago when he said “We should think of a photographer as a Samurai who makes rituals, moves and gestures in order to develop his techniques and his instinct.” Now, Bruce Lee was not Samurai, however bear with me as I take you through some of his writings and thoughts and think how they can be easily related to our practice as photographers.

Bruce Lee 'the photographer?'

I discovered Bruce Lee, as did most my age, as a teenager watching movies such as ‘Enter the Dragon’. I was inspired to take up martial arts and practiced them throughout my teenage years. Whilst acquiring a certain discipline that comes from studying martial arts, it also planted the seeds of interest in Asia for me. Bruce Lee was from Hong Kong, which obviously drew my attention to China. I now find myself having lived in China for 4 years and am sure those early seeds of interest were planted in my teenage years.

So, what can photographers learn from Bruce Lee? Well, as well as a widely popular movie star, Bruce Lee was also an extensive writer and philosophizer on martial arts, notably culminating in his book ‘the Tao of Jeet Kune Do’. This book was a cronicle of physical and mental methods in practicing the style of Wing Chun Kung Fu which he developed himself. Below, I have jotted down ten of my favourite quotes from this book and other sources. I don’t think it’s too difficult to relate these to photography. Try to think how they might relate to you and your approach to photography.

1. “When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow – you are not understanding yourself.”

Continue Reading »