I will post some images shortly but the biggest highlight was watching the zebra.  Think I may be loosing the plot a bit cos I was stood waiting for a groundskeeper to move so I could shoot the enclosure and daydreaming of midgets riding zebras in a cavalry charge.

Oh, and I came across what I believe was some Emu.  Never seen them up so close before and didn’t automatically recognise them without Rod Hull’s arm being elbow deep in one’s rear end…  Weird thing that caught my attention with them though was the sound they make, much like someone banging a bongo type drum!

Shot the rest of the viewing structures including the ones I did a few weeks ago that inspired this concept, despite having to make a dash through the gates to stop a suicidal emu following me into the hyena and wolf area. One of the Hyena’s was on heat as well and so they were all very boisterous today.  Made it round to the bear enclosure just as the light was disappearing and so the colours were all pastel hues but could only make some images because the main thoroughfare to the lions had been sealed off since my last visit.

Image wise I basically spent a couple of hours wandering around the north and west sides of the park that I have not really visited before and focused on the little hints of man and the efforts at hiding the controlling elements within the park.  Interestingly came across a make shift home presumably again for homeless immigrant workers built behind some bill boards but nobody was home so could not get any portraits.

Finished off by shooting a little in the now empty amusement park, specifically the rollercoaster and a tree in front of it.   If I get a chance to go back here and the guy who was either the supervisor/watchman or someone trying to rob the place blind (could have gone either way to be honest) is not about I will hop the fence and shoot some more interesting images of the rollercoaster not in use.

Turned out to be a wise move (isn’t being motivated to go and shoot always a good idea?) because I went to one space that had been occupied the past 2 trips and had one of the most interesting relationship between the trees and their adaption for use yet.

Made a point today to shoot images of the other parts of the park I found interesting as well including sie of the bank that supports the lake and the huge water pipes that are the output from the manholes I documented before here.

There is also an space here for an unknown game that is fenced off so managed a few frames of that although I have no idea what the game is at the moment.

Sadly I think my career as a celebrity in the park is over because bar a nod and Ni hao from the guys following me about last time as they passed me by I was left to my own devices for the afternoon.  I feel strangely D-list and washed up now… !

Dalian Botanical Gardens. Dalian, China. 3rd December 2008

Shahekou district, Dalian. China. 2nd December 2008.

The other interesting part of the day was on the way down the hill I found a small area set up presumably by an immigrant worker as a makeshift shelter.  The light was failing fast so shot a roll or so around the scene to add to a growing collection I have of these from around the parks so will see how they turn out.  Also should try to make time to go and hotograph the roads around the base of the hill because they are so very different than the more modern sanitised Dalian with overcrowding and power lines and pipes above the streets and generally looking more like most would assume China to look.

Dalian Botanical Gardens. Dalian. Liaoning. China. 26th November 2008

Amusingly I gathered quite a bit of interest while doing this and after an hur or so had a solid fan base of 5 spectators following me through the woodland.  I remember when I first started out in photography and being shy to the point of not even liking taking pictures in front of people let alone of people and now here I am, wondering through a random bit of woodland in China with 5 guys just following and staring in utter bemusement at what I am doing.  Wish I had shot some portraits of them now but oh well, my complete lack of language means it is difficult to achieve anything approaching intimacy in portraits here so I choose to avoid them, instead feeling that the landscape speaks far more intimately about my relationship with the Chinese and all of our relationships with the landscape.  I still feel that nagging voice in the back of my head that I should be making portraits though but I worry if that is genuine or if it is just me trying to do what I think I should do rather than continuing to just respond in my own vision to the questions in my head.

Dalian Botanical Gardens. Dalian. Liaoning. China. 26th November 2008

Came across the deserted amusements from the summer that looked much like I remember the ones back home when I visit Weston during the off season.  I always found these places so much more interesting visually when they are abandoned, something slightly eerie and melancholy about them.  I could go on about ideas of how these things remind me of childhood dreams and the like that didn’t quite pan out as expected but you get the idea.  I find the aspects of how an area thrives during the on season and then becomes so desolate during the winter months more in tune with my experience.  Anyone from around small season areas would be able to relate to this concept

Anyway, I have added one image to this post that I feel sums up the ideas I am talking about well.  The closed down confectionery stand with the fake rock behind that would appear to now be home to someone from the look of the makeshift curtain doorway.  The flat lighting helps as well add to the general feeling of a loss of innocence felt by the kids who would have been buying ice-cream here only 2 months ago.  The large fake rock is built as well to make people feel that the large park this is in that has been transformed for tourism is really still a natural environment, with the explanation mark sprayed on just to remind people that the natural is far to dangerous and they should remain in areas where their money can be procured.  In reality all that was once natural has been laid waste in the the urban sprawl.  Dalian serves as an interesting example of this with the Mayor in the ate 1980s adding many green parks for people to relax in.  The only problem is most of these have given way to commercial ventures and remain only as a weak facsimile of the natural environment, the remnants of which are only seen in the steep surrounding hills that are inaccessible but still littered with power stations, quarries and pylons.

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.

One thing that has become clear over the past few weeks of shooting and looking at work for my paper on contemporary practice, I am becoming more and more interested in the periphery of spaces.  This idea has been addressed before in Mark Power’s 26 Different Endings and Steffi Klenz’s (of Nonsuch fame, a series that heavily influenced my Thames Town work) A Scape.  Both if these bodies of work concern the edge of the city of London, Power in regards to how we artificially create borders and Klenz in an examination of the nature of a space in flux.

What I am interested in with this periphery concept within leisure spaces is how we have a more fluid relationship with the landscape.  These spaces are less about the commoditisation of the land and present more of a balance between man and the land.  However when we dig deeper we see that this is still a highly managed landscape and our relationship is still one of dominance over all.

Shooting wise I have also been revisiting spaces now that it is November and officially the off-season.  Ever sonce first picking up a camera I have been obsessed with the notion of a landscape virtually abandoned during the winter months with only the remnants of a vibrant summer industry left behind.  Never sure that the images I capture of this are not overly cliched but if nothing else there is something both calming and poignant about photographing something so familiar when so far from home.

This leads me onto another point about my work that has become more focused and resolute in my mind.  By attempting to a China so different than the manufacturing giant depicted in the western news, or the mystical historically rich ideal of the travel books, my work is attempting to comment on globalisation and homogenisation of culture, how in the 21st century the global culture means that the land is shaped in much the same way no matter where you are based and it is only in the small details that we can see references to individual cultures coming through.  Those spaces that are altered by groups of people and not by industry are the spaces where we will be able to truly observe some level of individual culture.

On a technical note it has been difficult to add images lately because I blew a harddrive and as such have to redo all corrections on my film based work.  I knew I should have burnt the back up disks last week…  It also meant I lost 95% of the digital work I shot in China but I am strangely calm about this and find if anything it actually to be a freeing experience.  The only images I truly rated I have A3 sized copies available of and the rest to be honest were in two modes -a form of diary of my initial time here, annoying to lose but lets be honest, I would have never even converted the RAW files anyway (I am not and never have been one to shoot in this way before or after my first 2 months in China -I just have no interest in photography outside of using it as a method to explore my ideas.  I guess this is a family thing because there are relatively few snapshots of us from my childhood when compared to the horrendous experience most we are subjected to when other families pull out the photo album).  The other lost pictures were just my initial explorations, all of which have led to the work I am doing now but form only the basis of the initial ideas.  That they represent the desire for me to leave behind the more reportage style for the time being would have been interesting to look at again but overall their loss feels almost like a weight has been lifted -the sum of my work in China will rest in that which is on the physical artefact that is film.

Anyway, here are a few random selects from the shoot that have caught my eye initially.