Xinghai Square and Eastwards 1st December 2008

Weather today was good for shooting and I’m sure it will be one of the last during this trip to China so I went out and shot a load of film today all from Xinghai Square and Eastwards through the Shell Museum (a giant recreation of a fairy tale castle) and out along Binhai Xi Lu again.

Before I get too engrossed i should add that I have been shooting since the last post, just lost my internet last week and have yet to catch up with the missing posts.  That and book editing have been taking up all my time lately so expect a flurry of posts about the past couple of weeks over the next few days.

The plan was to go down to the zoo to re shoot a couple of images that were soft from my earlier inability to pull my thumb out of my arse and use a tripod, and after much deliberation decided on the decent end for the day with an early go at the bathtubs again with better light.  As is often the case with me this plan went to the wall almost as soon as I got off the tram to walk to the zoo the long way through Xinghai Square.  I’ve never really shot much in there so trees with fairy lights attached and the plugs hanging loose by the trunks was too much to pass up really…

After making a nuisance of myself sufficiently around the main bits of the Square including trampling through the flower beds with the tripod to get something interesting with the colour purple (photo will be here in about 2-3 days) and annoying a sleeping policeman enough was enough.  There should be quite a few interesting images from all of this and one of the things that I really found helpful in removing the distraction of having everyone stare at me like I’m from Mars (its really, really off-putting sometimes for those of us with no desire to join the stage) was having the iPod on.  Gogol Bordello to the rescue again!  Something about their music always puts me in a happy and inquisitive mood (and want to drink vodka for some reason..!) so I think it added to my work today.

Anyway, went up the Shell museum as well and made some interesting I hope images of electricity cables coming out of a window.  Doesn’t sound that great but the window is made to look like a fairytale castle and these were big think cables, so it should work.

Oh, and the other place I managed to get to today was the bathtubs again, and I think at pretty much the same time as last time so we shall see what the lighting was like.  Thinking tomorrow morning is the time to go and get the definitive shot -it looks like it will snow later in the week so this could work as well but would like a well lit non snowy shot to start with.  As has been my habit lately I went off wondering again in the little trails at the sides of the road today and I swear i spend as much time treading around people’s makeshift toilets as i do making images, but I think it is worth it.  I found a whole area covered in empty clam and oyster shells today in a bit of woodland so I think that tactic of exploration is worth it photographically.  Hell, I enjoy so even if the images are no good I’ll still keep exploring.

Bathtubs. Dalian. China. 2008.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Killing Time. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.