Great Wall of China

An opportunity to walk the Great Wall is not one to pass up. Last year while in China as part of an education project, I was asked to lead a photo walk on the Great Wall. Cool!!

The day was intermittently overcast and cloudy, which of course always makes for more interesting skies. The wall is a dull brownish grey, which unfortunately blended in all-too-well with the surrounding greenery. The original color photo is a bit m’eh, but a little black and white magic goes a long way.

If you’re a Silver Efex Pro II user, feel free to download the custom preset I made, called “Slovenian Mist”—named such because the first time I created and used it was for this photo from Slovenia (how very odd… I can’t find the photo I’m referring to, so I guess I never posted it! OK, that’s tomorrow’s post decided, then!).

Great Wall of China @ May 2010 | Canon EOS 5D Mk II & 50mm ƒ/1.2L @ ISO 1600, ƒ/14, 1/50

The Travel Junkie Travels Again

It’s almost shameful… it feels like it’s been ages since I’ve traveled at all, much less gotten a new stamp in my passport! Fortunately that dry run is about to end, and I can finally post something on the Travel Junkie blog that’s actually about travel! (And maybe even update those “feet” photos to the right.) Go figure…

As any regular readers know, I’m about to leave for a trip to Singapore, then Hong Kong. The Singapore trip has filled up amazingly well—other than the conference I’m speaking at, I’m leading two photowalks (one with over 40 people attending!), doing some Aperture 3 training, possibly speaking at a major corporation on small-flash lighting techniques, and shooting a group portrait of the entire conference attendees on the last day.

Hong Kong is a bit quieter though… one small photowalk in the works, plus a TWiP listener was kind enough to arrange a gathering of like-minded professionals for a casual meet-and-greet. Other than that I suppose I’ll have a suit made and stuff myself on the local street food!

The Things I’ll Eat…

In honor of this upcoming trip, I wanted to share a couple of old photos. The second you’ve seen before; it’s from the Beijing Olympics when I ate something… odd… at the Donghuamen market. The first is a photo my father scanned and sent me from an old photo album, dated 1985. I was 11 years old in this photo, taken in Gijon, Spain. Some things never change.

Pretending to eat a live crab (I hope I was pretending!) on July 19, 1985 in Gijon, Spain. I was 11 years old.Eating (actually eating this time) fried scorpion at the Donghuamen market in Beijing during the 2008 Summer Olympics

Singapore and Hong Kong

Here’s a shot from my last trip to Singapore. It was taken from my hotel room as a storm rolled in just before sunrise.

Early morning lightning Storm, view from Pan Pacific Hotel

And a couple from previous trips to Hong Kong.

A hotel view

Ahhh, you see, now THIS is why I travel!More will follow!

Olympic Village at Night

One slow night in the MPC, I took a Nikon D3 out for a little test-run. The camera performed admirably, although the meter is completely bonkers in low light. I had to shoot manual and under-expose (per the meter) every shot by 1–2 stops, and then tweak the heck out of the RAW files in Aperture. I've never chimped that much in my life. However it performed better in daylight; those images will get here soon(ish).

Anyway the Village at night is gorgeous. It's pretty clear that both landmark venues, the "Bird's Nest" and the "Water Cube", were designed to look amazing at night. I wasn't very impressed with either of them during the day, but to be fair they grew on me. However in total disclosure, when I first arrived in Beijing, I compared the National Stadium (the Bird's Nest) to the Brussels 1958 World Fair's Atomium and its surrounding structures (1958—2008; 50 year anniversary… coincidence? You be the judge!). Not because of it's shape, but because of its hideousness against the grey sky. In Belgium, you have a pretty much guaranteed grey sky most days. Same in Beijing. I'd think that if you were going to build something that large in a city that's mostly grey during the day, you'd find a way to make it stand out. The brushed steel nest against the grey sky does not a pretty picture make.

Site of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, taken in 1998 on a Kodak DC210 (!)

However again at night, this place really shines. And because of the heat, many events went well after dark, and most guests didn't leave the Village in a rush—there were thousands of people enjoying the warm night, the beautiful lights, the music and the water features late, late into the night.

Here are a few images; there are more in the gallery.

"One World, One Dream"… just not for YOU! (*ahem*)

Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium

As with any Summer Olympics, there are so many sports, and therefore so many venues, that it's impossible to have them all in one place if they're going to be hosted in an existing metropolis—especially one that's been around as long as Beijing! So as you might imagine, venues are spread far and wide around the city (and actually, the Equestrian Venue was all the way out in Hong Kong!). And as far as cities go, Beijing is huge. Fortunately the Olympics Committee had organized an extremely effective bus system (albeit not a 'green' bus system, which would have been very welcome considering the pollution problem that they already have), that could get you to any venue and most of the hotels, any time, any day.

Many of the venues were newly built for the Olympic Games, and the rest were newly renovated. I'm going to take a wild guess that the Basketball arena fell into the former category. It was gorgeous inside and out. You saw the inside in the previous post; here is the outside (front and back) of the 168,000 square meter, seven floor, 18,000 spectator capacity Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium.

Front of the Beijing Olympic Basketball Arena

The front and back are not different colors; the colors actually change over time. The "texture" of the surface are a series of uneven slats that give the building a dynamic, ever-changing look. It's very, very cool.

Back of the Beijing Olympic Basketball Arena

Women's Basketball, USA vs Korea

One of the two tickets I had to competitions at the Olympics was to a women's basketball quarter-finals match between USA and Korea. I had amazing seats; second row by the U.S. basket. It was easy to tell which team had more supporters in the audience… every point Korea scored elicited an absolute eruption in the crowd. However I'm very happy to say that even as the U.S. scored their way to victory, the Korean supporters cheered them on. It was heartening to hear — and feel — such universal support. I suppose that's part of what the Olympics are about. Sure we're all there competing for the same medals, but we're also all there to support the players and the love of the friendly — albeit aggressive! — competition.

I was warned against bringing a "big"
lens (i.e. a 400/2.8 on a monopod) into the audience, as I'd likely be
chased away by the media police, so I shot only with a 70~200. Still,
since I was so close I got a few decent shots. Nothing award winning,
but fun nonetheless. One of the advantages of working in the MPC was
having access to dozens of terminals with the entire database of
events, players, results, and venues. This also included some
photo-specific information, like the color temperature of the lights in
the stadium. Too bad they were off by about 1500ºK!