Photos from the first “Hutong Photography” Workshop w/ Jennifer, Prachit, William, Bruce and Myles

Sean giving advice to Prachit and William in the first editing session.
Sean giving advice to Prachit and William in the first editing session.

Tuesday saw the first of our new “Hutong Photography” Photo Workshops, held in the hutongs of Qianmen near Tiananmen Square. The workshop was a great success and we had five participants who spent the day exploring the hutongs and learning about the fundamentals of photography. Below is a selection of photos taken by Jessica Zheng, who also acted as our guide and translator throughout the day.

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The day started with a class introducing the basics of photography, covering topics such as ISO, using light, aperture, shutter speed and how to approach people to take pictures. Following on from that, we had a second short class on ‘photography chinese’, learning useful words and phrases that would assist us in speaking and connecting with the people we photographed. We then headed into the hutongs for the first shooting session, focusing on the points we had learnt from our first class.  Returning to the Far East International Youth Hostel for lunch, a 12-dish spread of traditional hutong food awaited us!

While we digested our feast, we entered into our first one-on-one editing session, looking at each student’s images from the first shooting session. Once we had reviewed each student’s images, we headed out for our second photographing session, aiming to improve on what we had learnt in our editing and earlier classes. Having navigated the hutongs for a second time, we returned to edit our images again, this time in a group setting, sharing our ideas and common experiences from the day in the hutongs.

As you can see from the above photos, a great day was had by all, exploring both the hutongs and our photography. Thanks to Jennifer, Bruce, Prachit, William and Myles for helping to make this a memorable first “Hutong Photography” Workshop!

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8 Comments

    • Hi Jon,

      We don’t have a definite date for the next workshop, but we’re looking at the beginning of November for the next “Hutong Photography” Workshop. I’d be happy to put you on our mailing list, so you’ll know as soon as the next one comes up! Please check back here on the blog as I’ll be announcing it here too.

      Thanks for stopping by and hope to meet you on one of our workshops in the near future!

      Best,
      Sean

    • Hi Marissa…Glad you liked the pics. This workshop for one-day was 499RMB, as you can see from our workshop page. The workshops vary in price depending on the length, location etc. If you need any more information, please feel free to drop me an email on [email protected]

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Sean

  1. Seems like great value! China is pretty expensive, with all these spontaneous tea ceremonies at thousands renminbi and such… Y499 for an exclusive hutong walk and a brief on portraiture is a steal!

  2. A steal? Ha. Well, we think it is good value too 😉 It’s a a fun day out. Are you in Beijing? Either fire me an email for updates on the next workshop or sign up to our newsletter using the widget on the right of the screen. Hope you can make an upcoming workshop!

    Best,
    Sean

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