No. 1

Last week saw the visit of Chinese President, Hu Jintao, to the United States. The visit sparked an online flurry of activity around everything Chinese. As the world wakes up to the looming, unavoidable realisation that China is here and here to stay, more and more people are focusing their attention on the Middle Kingdom and are striving to learn more about it.

One of my stated aims with my photography and this blog is try and assist people in their understanding of China and act as a window into this deeply mysterious and fascinating country. This week, I thought I would be fun to focus on those that I have photographed, in particular a number of Chinese celebrities that I have had the opportunity to meet and take pictures of, since I have been in China. The question is: How well do you know your Chinese celebrities?

No. 2

All you need to do is take a look at the 5 pictures in this post and correctly identify who they are. They all come from quite diverse areas of Chinese culture including politics, education, sport etc but they all have the same thing in common in that they are very very well known here in China. Once you think you know who they are, write a list of their names in the comment section below. The first person to answer all 5 correctly (or closest to 5) will win a signed 9″x6″ print of this image. Easy as that!

To assist you, I advise you to peruse my blog archives, portfolio site and YouTube channel as all of these individuals appear at some point online on my sites. Good luck!

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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.”

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NPR

Quite a shocking piece of news fell into my inbox this morning, via the Mangrove Action Project newsletter which I receive every month. The news is a couple of weeks old but it seems that on November 15th, there was an explosion in a hotel in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen that tragically killed seven people. The cause, it has been speculated is most likely, is not a bomb but mangroves!

As many readers of this blog will know, I recently spent some time in the mangroves of the Southern Chinese city of Leizhou, as part of my reporting on China’s disappearing wetlands for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The clearing of mangroves in this region has been severe, mainly because of coastal developments and conversion of many mangroves into shrimp ponds. During my research however, I had never heard of anything like mangroves causing explosions.

The following snippet from the NPR article hints at the cause:

The oxygen-deprived muck underlying mangrove swamps is known to produce methane gas, said Roberto Iglesias, a biologist with the Ocean Sciences Institute of Mexico’s National Autonomous University who works on coral reefs and coastal environments in Puerto Morelos, not far from the resort of Playa del Carmen.

“We used to take students around outside … and all you had to do was move the sediment a little, bubbles would come up and you could start flames when you lit them with a lighter,” Iglesias said, adding that builders frequently cover swampy areas with a layer of crushed rock and concrete, which acts as a stopper that accumulates gas.

The consequences of clearing mangroves are far-reaching and diverse. This is an ecosystem which demands our respect and protection. If you missed it the first time round and you’d like to learn more about mangroves, here’s a link to my short-video on the remaining pockets in Southern China and what is being done to protect them.

[vimeo width="580" height="330"]http://vimeo.com/16018786[/vimeo]

If you’re in China (and don’t have a VPN) you can view it here via Tudou.com

Recently, I’ve read with interest a couple of lists that have emerged about the best photography blogs out there. It seems we’re all blogging now and it’s hard to find ones that consistently deliver great content. It’s a tough job. Blogging takes a lot of effort in both time and resources which makes it impressive when material is regularly updated, especially from individuals working alone.

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So, I decided to spread some photographic love/respect/links and point you in the direction of what I believe are ‘Probably the Best Photography Blogs in the World’ – please insert tongue in cheek here.

In absolutely no discernible order, and without any official criteria, these are my favourite photo-related blogs that I visit on a pretty regular basis. Why do I visit them? Because they consistently deliver useful, fun, stimulating and interesteing information that enriches my life.

Once you have visited the blogs below, please do remember to come back to mine though

1. Burn - Curated by Magnum and National Geographic Photographer, David Alan Harvey, Burn is one of the best of the best. Showcasing new photo essays every few days, it introduces readers to an eclectic mix of photography. Comments regularly run into the 1000′s and are often insightful, entertaining and emotional.

2. Duckrabbit – I love Duckrabbit’s tagline, “We produce beautifully crafted multimedia”. They do exactly what they say on the tin and also throw in a daily updated blog full of witty and sometimes acerbic viewpoints and comments on the world of photography and multimedia. This UK based team’s fresh approach pulls no punches.

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