From Left to Right: Jessica, Sean, Pip, Ross, Rita, Fredrik, Eva, Andrea, Alexia
Last Sunday saw the 4th in our series of Hutong Photography Workshops. We had nearly a full class with nine students attending; Jim, Pip, Ross, Andrea, Daphne, Eva, Rita, Alexia and Fredrik.
Andrea, Eva and Rita
Cadres | Beijing | China | 2007
This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ was a shot taken as part of the ‘One Night in Beijing’ shoot for the Immersion Guides to Beijing in 2007. Exactly one year before the beginning of the Olympic Games in Beijing, photographers all across the capital were commissioned to head out onto the streets to capture images that represented the city at night.
It was an interesting shoot and the result was a very nice book which showed off many of the eclectic pictures captured from that night. The above picture from a club in the city didn’t actually make the final edit but I always liked it due to the intense colours and the contrast between the Long March Cadres on the wall and the revellers dancing.
The Guardian Newspaper | UK
With today’s post, I wanted to give readers an insight into the day-today shooting of a pro-photographer. I’ll be talking about something that is a key skill for working photographers, especially those who work on-assignment usually to tight or restrictive deadlines. When you are working as a photographer, it is of paramount importance that when you are assigned to a job, you ‘get the shot’ that your client wants.
Most editors/clients have little patience for excuses such as ‘the light wasn’t good’, ‘i didn’t have the right lense’, ‘the atmosphere wasn’t right for a picture’ etc. These are poor excuses and a client hires you because they expect you to overcome these obstacles and get the picture, because it’s your job to deliver.
White Cloud Temple | Baiyun Guan
On Saturday night, the skies lit up with fireworks above most Chinese cities, signifying the start of China’s most special holiday of the year: Chinese New Year.
For the next week Chinese families will spent most of the time eating, drinking, visiting family members, catching up with old friends and heading to many of the temple fairs that are taking place. This week’s ‘Photo(s) of the Week’ come from the White Cloud Temple in Beijing. This Taoist temple is over a thousand years old and is one of the locations for Beijing’s most interesting celebrations during this special week.
The photo at the top is of people rubbing chinese characters, in order to gain luck, fortune, prosperity etc. from the character of corresponding meaning.
White Cloud Temple | Baiyun Guan
The second image is taken within the grounds of the temple and is of two young girls, dressed up in their finest new year clothes.
We’re very excited to be returning to this temple tomorrow for our special Chinese New Year Photography Workshop where students will have the chance to capture the unique celebrations at this special temple. I wish all readers of my blog a happy and prosperous new year of the Tiger! 虎年快乐！
St Mark's Square | Venice | Italy
This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ is one that I have dug out of my archive from possibly the most photographed city of all time…Venice, Italy.
I made the obligatory photographers/travellers pilgrimage to this city for a short weekend break and was overcome, mostly by the hordes of visitors there at the same time as me. Luckily, I had a good friend who was a local, who was able to steer me away from some of the more heavily visited areas.
When you visit a place like Venice, which is photographed constantly, it is sometimes hard to create something that is perceived as unique or different. You try to avoid visual cliches that have been reproduced by hundreds of other photographers before you.
Whilst I was happy with a lot of my photos, my favourite photo actually came from the most visited part of the city, St Mark’s Square. As anyone who has visited the square will know, it is normally inhabited by large numbers of pigeons all vying for the food which tourists happily feed them. This one girl donned in a cat’s mask, patiently waited in what almost seemed like a trap for the unsuspecting avian residents. Did she catch any? I can’t remember but it was fun to watch as she created this visual idiom before me.
Chinese New Year Special Workshop: White Cloud Temple Fair
February welcomes a very unique time of the Chinese calendar; Chinese New Year! To mark the most important holiday of the year, we are running a special workshop to coincide with the celebrations here in the nation’s capital. We continue in the vein of trying to introduce our workshop participants to less-visited and authentic locations, therefore will be holding this workshop at the White Cloud Temple, in XiCheng District on Tuesday 16th February from 11:00 a.m. to 16:00 p.m. This spectacular Taoist temple is over 1000 years old and is one of the city’s hidden cultural gems. It will be the perfect place for photographing the true, authentic and traditional new year celebrations. To find out more details about how to join us on this special workshop, please head to our workshop page here.
For those of you leaving Beijing for the holidays and won’t have a chance to attend the Chinese New Year workshop, do not worry! The increasingly popular Hutong Photography Workshop is back again on Sunday 28th February from 10:00 a.m. to 18:00 p.m. and will again offer participating students the chance to explore the maze-like hutongs whilst improving their photography. We were delighted to learn that this month a former student from this workshop was featured in Beijing City Weekend Magazine talking about her experiences taking this class. Read a snippet of her interview here and then find out how to book your place here through our workshop page.
We look forward to seeing you!
IKEA Beijing
This week I posted a new gallery on my main portfolio site titled “A Modern Life”, which I’d like to invite you to view in the China gallery.
It’s a small set of photos which I did for a magazine earlier last year, which I have only just got around to featuring now. The feature is on the subject of IKEA, the Swedish furniture superstore, in Beijing. This is possibly an odd topic of choice for a feature you may think however IKEA has become a symbol for modern living in Beijing with hundreds of Chinese people streaming through its doors every day since it opened 10 years ago.
IKEA Beijing
Many visitors aren’t there just for the furniture. IKEA Beijing has become a day-trip destination for some people as they use the beds and couches to lounge around, sit and talk to friends and generally relax and take it easy. For a photographer, it’s a perfect location as people treat showrooms almost as their homes therefore giving you a strange perspective into the daily lives of people.
To view the gallery, please head to my portfolio site here and follow Index>China>A Modern Life
Hutong Photography Workshop | Beijing | China
The temperature plummeted in Beijing this month but that didn’t stop us from heading out into the chilly hutongs for another “Hutong Photography” Workshop this weekend. Luckily for myself, guide Jessica Zheng and our students Bonnie, Scott, Tina and Kirsten the thermometer crept up over the weekend, hovering around 1-2C making it a perfect winter day to explore the hutongs.
Along with our class in the morning introducing everybody to the key, fundamental technical aspects of photography we had two shooting sessions in the morning and afternoon. The hutongs are a constant inspiration and you never know what may be round the next corner. For this month’s workshops students encounters included photographing a 98-year old hutong resident, bicycles buried in snow, conversations with pipe-smoking locals, coal deliverers and many more unique characters.
Thanks again to our students Kirsten, Bonnie, Scott and Tina who braved the threatening cold to make it another memorable workshop!
I was asked recently by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to answer some questions with regards to my reporting on the subject of desertification in China. This is part of their initiative titled ‘Meet the Journalist”, offering viewers a chance to get ‘behind the scenes’ and find out some of the motivations and working practices that go into the reporting by the grantees. I was happy to answer a few questions on my reporting, all of which can be found now on the Pultizer Center’s YouTube channel, which is well worth checking out.
The first of the videos can be found below.
Question 1 “Why did you decide to report on this issue?”
Please head here to view answers to the following questions: What was your biggest hurdle reporting on this issue? How is this story related to issues in the US? How has climate change news coverage evolved since you started reporting on these issues, and what could be done better?
Weekend Workshops
I am delighted to announce two new workshops in January, to welcome in the New Year.
The first, is the next in line of our increasingly popular “Hutong Photography Workshops” which will be held on Sunday 17th January at the Far East Youth Hostel in Beijing. As ever, this will be a great opportunity to explore the maze-like hutongs in central Beijing.
The second workshop, will be in Harbin and will coincide with the famous Ice Festival. Our workshop will run all day on both Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st January. Sign up for either one or two days (get a discount for two days) and come and explore this amazing winter wonderland with us and your camera.
Also, as it is the New Year, we would like to extend a *Happy New Year Special Offer* to all former students, giving a 10% discount on any workshops (both group and one-on-one) taken in January.
For details on all of the above workshops, please go HERE to our workshop page.
We look forward to seeing you on one of our workshops soon!
