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This farming island is not too far away from Shanghai. A fast ferry from Wusong Port in Baoshan will get you there in 1 hour and a bit. A full circumnavigation of the whole island will take more than a day along the coast, but highlights of it can be done in a day. I’ve about had it with long blog posts, so this time for once, only pictures, no words. Enjoy…
Please do not reproduce these pictures without permission. Thanks.
While out in Changxing Island outside of Shanghai, I shot 4 rolls of 120 film in one whole day with my Mamiya RZ67II and being my first time out with the ultra cheap Shanghai film (less than a buck each US) I didn’t know that the end tape doesn’t include any licking tackiness to it. There’s a piece of paper that says that the film is exposed, but what’s the point as it doesn’t stick to anything, wet or dry. So I jury rigged something out of the next roll and stuffed it into the phone pocket in my pants, and when I got to the ferry point, realised that the first roll unrolled itself. Definitely fogged to Hades, and I was hoping the black paper would save the day.
No it didn’t. Light did REALLY get to the film. Processing was via 1+100 Rodinal on stand development in 27C water for 1 Hour. To my surprise (seriously, there was no big surprise!), the base was all dark, no frame marking at all, and there were just a small trace of image on it. First frame was 90% destroyed, and other than uneven fogging, some Photoshopping might recover some details.
And it did. Actually, the result is less Holga, and more wet plate collodion with a little age induced fogging. Possibly making some nice artistically inclined shots. Here they are…
First picture of the frame. No, its not god rays, but a ship under repair on a floating dry dock. Being the first frame in the roll, this one took the full brunt of the fogging.
All these rural places in China are full of these crude minotaur of a vehicle. The fogging is apparent, but there's also a little texture in it. This frame is in the first half of the roll, so I'm guessing this is the texture of the black backing paper, that somehow managed to transfer itself to the film during the fogging.
This one I like. Looks like the result from a lost world war 2 negative of some Japanese port. No, its Changxing Island circa 2009. And the texture is also here. This one is actually frame no.2.
Stacks of bricks. The actual shot of this is less interesting as the background is visible. The yard is not THAT big, but due to the fogging, it suggests an infinite storage area. On the contrary, but a nice surprise. This one is towards the middle of the roll.
This is a small river that cuts through the middle of Changxing Island. The fogging sets back the scene 100 years to the past. Nice!
Tractors here are all caked in some white alabaster thingy. No I didn't stick my fingers into it to confirm, but up till now I still don't know what it is for sure. This is one of the last frames in the roll.
Surprise, surprise! Now I’ve added another processing trick into my darkroom arsenal!
Since I have a lot of projects lined up on documenting Shanghai on film, I will put some of them up on this website about ‘Life in Shanghai’ as it is. Deviating from my standard long post, I hope to write less and put more of the commentary in the photo caption itself. This should make it easier and a lot quicker to post as I don’t need to check for grammatical or spelling mistakes; not that I do in the past anyways.
First up, a day roaming around the Shanghai main Train Station. Stations make very good photo assignments. You get all types of people here, and in China you get people waiting outside the station for their train and all types of activity known to man.
Shanghai Railway Station Metro: Always busy with people coming from all over China.
How appropriate, a mega video screen, public toilet and phone booth in a compact space.
It was a hot day in summer. Whatever ways to cool down when out in the hot sun.
The railway station is also a place for Shanghainese to hang around. This boy was running all around while his grandmother chats with someone.
Continue reading 'Life in Shanghai: Shanghai Railway Station'»
Late night shoppers hanging around Nanjing Rd way after all shops have closed.
The standard tourist to Shanghai makes a pilgrimage to the perennially packed Nanjing Road. The picture of thousands of shoppers compressed through the use of telephoto lens is all over brochures of Shanghai. I could copy those, and maybe I would in the future for my project, but I was more interested in what Nanjing Rd looked like late at night, when most of the shops have already closed.
In every major city there is always that one place where you will find more out-of-towners than locals, and this is where touts, conmen, and the general unlicensed street traders hang around. So naturally, I had my iPod on with sound isolating Shure headphones so I can ignore most of them coming up to me. I’m sure I will have to spend some time waiting so I packed a book with me so I can find a bench and read it until the crowd thins down.
In my small bag, 2 cameras. A Leica M6 fitted with a Summilux 50mm f1.4 ASPH, my favourite lens for night time shooting, and a second Leica M2 with Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f1.2 ASPH with Tom Abrahamsson’s Rapidwinder IXMOO. Both cameras are loaded with Fujifilm’s Neopan 1600. There are no meter on the Leica M2 so I was expecting quite a number of rejected shots.
And here are the results…
The standard shot of Nanjing Road, but this one close to 11pm. There are noticeably quite a number of people still wandering around, along with touts selling underwater goods.
This is a large tidbit shop. With the shutter closed, it is still possible to see the workers cleaning up and getting ready to return home.
This private proprietor is clearly a late night worker. He is the only person in the shop, perhaps indicating that the workers have already gone home long ago.
My Felt F1X at Jinqiao, Pudong
Woke up today to a great day, and for Shanghai this means cloudless day (there’s almost always some kind of haze over the city) and at least being able to see a shadow. My usual tennis session has been cancelled, and how can I waste such a nice day. First thing that sprung to mind is to attempt what I wanted to do since I arrived here, to reach the Yangzi River, or at least close, by cycling.
Reaching destination, almost time to turn back...
Google maps showed that the best and safest way is to get over to Pudong and then cycling on Yang Gao Rd as there is a bicycle lane on each side of the road. There are normally some slow bicycles, but as motorcycles also use the same lane, there’s always a way to bypass the slow pokes especially when you cruise at 25kmph to 30kmph.
Continue reading 'Cycling to Port of Shanghai at Waigaoqiao (58km)'»
Pavillion at Guyi Garden, Nanxiang
Shanghai is famous for this little dumpling with thin skin and soup inside. Bite it and if still hot off the steamer, it guarantees a scalding where it hurts.
The most famous restaurant in shanghai that sells them by the bucketloads, figuratively speaking, is Nanxiang Restaurant over by that tourist hole, Yuyuan Garden right in the middle of the city. Its not too far from where I stay and on weekends, I sometimes take the walk over, and stand in the half and hour queue (if I’m lucky). Its not the best in Shanghai though and its quite obvious it’s famous because it’s famous, no more. Nanxiang Restaurant also starts to expand with branches overseas.
Shanghai Bus, encountered on the way looking for that bus that will take me to Nanxiang
So not to dwell too much in stories, I found out during a chat with a colleague that the xiao loong bao, what this tasty dumpling is called, was first invented in a town called Nanxiang. Just tens of kilometre from downtown Shanghai so close that a public bus (actually many from all points) runs there from the Shanghai railway station, so we found out after browsing the chinese languaged internet. So quickly this became my mission for the coming weekend.
View from Sheshan (Nikon D300, 12-24mm f4)
Was planning to go to hangzhou this weekend but its impossible to get a train ticket nor hotel room next to the lake so sod it, this saturday will be a shanghai trip. And I went through my mind thinking where in shanghai I always wanted to hike to but never had the time,and Sheshan comes up.
Sheshan Basilica (Nikon D300, 12-24mm f4)
Sheshan is a place where it seems only people on company team building trip goes to and stay in one of the 5 star resorts. In fact that was the only time I went there and I did notice there is a metro line that goes there, not too bad. Did see a cathedral object top of a hill as well and a little wikipedia research tells me this is the only real hill in shanghai.
Sheshan Basilica on top of the hill (Leica M3, 50mm f1.5 Summarit, Lucky SHD100)
Ok I confess. The reason for the trek today is to test out my new configurations before my holiday in November. For one, updated my blogging phone from Nokia E61 to the new and very nice E71. The phone is a lot smaller and easier to carry but nothing is free, the keyboard is very small now. But the predictive text seems to be making up for it. My pack is also heavy as I have packed a D300 and Mamiya RZ67 and a new hiking tripod, the 1541T from gitzo. Plenty of heavy gears I can assure you!
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