David Brown Photography

Xiao Long Bao in the steamer

David Brown — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:44:26 +0000

Xiao Long Bao in the steamer

Little Dragon Dumplings. More like a little gift from heaven, these things: pork and some soup stock which is chilled until it gets to a kind of jelly consistency, and then wrapped into a dumpling.

When it’s heated, the soup stock obviously gets liquified, and a taste explosion ensues. Just make sure you work out how hot that stuff inside really is, though: my first Xiao Long burned the hell out of my mouth, and eveyone at the table was watching my reaction to eating this Chinese delicacy, so there was no unobtrusive way for me to help myself out of the fire.

I just said my eyes were watering because of the deliciousness. Not sure they believed me, though.

This shot was taken near Tian Dzhe Fun in Shanghai, of a street Xiao Long Bao seller’s stall. I was excited at the find, bought 3 of them, took a bite, and found to my surprise that there was fish in them. Or crab. Or something vaguely piscine.

And to have that taste hit you when you’re expecting pork isn’t a happy sensation.

I like the shot, though. Looks better than it tastes, that’s for sure.

This shot hit #61 on Flickr’s Explore page on the 18th of May 2009. Nice one, guys, thanks a lot for your support.

Zhezhiang fairytale

David Brown — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:59:00 +0000

Walking through the narrow lanes that make up Zhezhiang, you get to see alot of traditional crafts being put on for the tourists. Most make you feel like you’re wandering through a kind of low-budget Disneyland, and the crafts are totally put on show for you. But one area had people who were spinning silk from silkworm cocoons the traditional way, and making shoes, clothes and quilts out of it.

The stuff they were making was pretty high quality, and the methid employed were certainly unmechanized. But the most striking thing about the scene was the atmosphere: felt like I had slipped down the rabbit hole and ended up in a fairy tale, something like Sleeping Beauty or Rumpelstiltzkin.

The work of a few seconds to lift out my Nikon D300 and grab a few frames. I’m not even sure they knew I was there.

The view down the alley

David Brown — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:42:00 +0000

Walking down a lane in the Tian Dze Fan artists area of Shanghai. Saw this scene, and something struck me about it. Didn’t last for a long time, but since I was surgically bonded to my NIkon D300 on this trip, it didn’t take a moment for me to get set and roll.

Not sure what caught my eye here, but I think it was the fact that each house in the little lane here had a washing bar stuck out over the lane, and that gives a nice set of lines at the top of the picture which disappear into the distance, and contrast to the two sets of parralels which run down the corners of the shot. Whatever it is, I came back from a trip with at least one pic that both looks and feels like you’re there.

Sticky situation

David Brown — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:44:00 +0000

This is a string of sugar that allegedly came from wheat, if my translation serves. It was being worked into a VERY sticky candy in a traditional Chinese method at a candy store in Zhezhiang, near Shanghai.

The man who was working with this mess kept grabbing that stick, pulling the sugar out into a long line rather like you stretch a piece of gum, and then winding it back together. I bought some of the end result, but didn’t enjoy it: way too sugary and so sticky I couldn’t talk for at least 15 minutes. Toffee has nothing on this stuff.

It's Friday! Time to break out my happy shoes!

David Brown — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:43:00 +0000

And here they are:

This was shot in a craft store area in Zhezhiang, a Ming-dynasty era town near Shanghai. Filled with canals, crafts and ancient houses and structures, it’s well worth the visit.

As I was walking down one of the narrow lanes between the buildings, I noticed these traditional Chinese children’s shoes in a store. Irresistible image.

On the back of the Bund

David Brown — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:50:00 +0000

Spent a lot of time walking round the streets of Shanghai. Since I resisted the urge to pack all the gear I thought I could use, and restricted myself to my Nikon D300 and a 50mm 1.4 slung over my shoulder, and an Sb-800 flash (which I strapped to my belt, embarrassingly) I was travelling light and had everything ready all the time.

Using this rig, I also got to know the variations of that Nikkor 50mm pretty damn well in all the F-stops: where the sharpness was a little lacking, where it was so damn sharp you could cut yourself, how it reacted to bright light at midday, and when it struggled to focus in the dark. No changing to a lens that would be more suited to the conditions: if I wanted the shot I had to work to make it happen. Realised that sometimes limitations are really liberations. Plus it’s really small and light, and although it’s a little tight on a crop sensor, it’s great for people and for isolating parts of the image. I stuck a circular polarizer

on the front of it to enhance in the usual way, but also to act as a neutral density filter and give me 2-3 stops of grace in the midday sun, and it worked like a charm.

One thing that struck me about Shanghai was the juxtapositions: drab grey concrete pavements with the colour explosion of a Tai Chi class going through their movesin front of it. Young beggars on the old glory of the Bund. It’s often all mixed up there, and I’d find myself decoding a completely different story to the one my wife was looking at, although we were looking at the same scene. And amid the feeling of new prosperity, there was the constant reminder that life is still really tough for many people there, and for many their next meal is in no way guaranteed.

Just behind the post office on the Bund, in an area filled with monuments to money – the old money of the original Bund buildings, all granite marble and brass, and the new buildings that call out to them from Pudong, across the Yellow River – I stumbled on a lean-to with a tiny kitchen, a bed, and some clothes. Nobody was around, but someone calls that place home. I didn’t intrude, just grabbed some shots from the pavement, and went on my way.

Back from Shanghai.

David Brown — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:26:00 +0000

You may have noticed the lack of posts recently. Took a great Easter weekend out in Shanghai. Back at work today, and feeling lot like this:

This is a shot of a fast food vendor in the old section of Shanghai, the Yu Gardens (or to give its Chinese name, Yu Yuen) area. Crazy place, Shanghai, and surprisingly old world: much of it remains the same as it was in the Ming Dynasty. Anywhere else that I’ve been in China seems to be about 20 years old, tops. The Cultural Revolution did a great job of erasing the past, and rampant industrialization and economic development have finished the job off.

But not in Shanghai and the surrounding countryside, and the city gains a lot for it. Travelling around Shenzhen and Guangzhou can be a depressing experience: miles of industrial compounds and heavy industry, which has changed the landscape from green to grey. Shanghai and the area around it was refreshingly beautiful (well, parts of Shanghai, anyway: some parts are quite depressing as well).

Speaking of the pic above, I’m not sure if that makes anyone hungry. Seemed to be a popular snack, though: beef balls in noodle soup. I think the reason they put the skull in there was to infuse essence of beef into the soup stock. Maybe it was just a neat way of advertising: I wasn’t having any, but then I went to Shanghai looking for Xiao Long Bao, which they had in abundance. Just that most of them were made of hairy crabs, not pork, and that’s a nasty surprise to get sprung on you: expecting pork and you get a fishy-tasting hairy crab ball.

Got lots of food shots of Shanghai, too, which are going to go up here soon. More posts, many many more posts, to follow. I made a lot of images out there, and now I’m slowly going through post. Which is another reason I feel as if my skull is immersed in a vat of boiling water.

David Brown — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:41:00 +0000

Took out the trash yesterday. The communal bin and the recycle bins are out on the landing of the fire escape. I’ve lived in this building for nearly two years, all told, and taken the trash out plenty of times. I’ve never looked out of the window in there.

Not sure I did, yesterday. Glad I did, though, ‘cos there is something about the view out ther that grabbed me. Went inside, grabbed my Nikon D300 and the Nikkor 50mm 1.4 that’always on it these days, and took a few frames.

Liked the result.

Busy, and busy planning for Shanghai!

David Brown — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:32:00 +0000

Madness right now. I’m just trying to finish my first chapter of my M. Phil. thesis on Joseph Conrad. So my desk looks something like this again, although this is an older photo from when I was doing a proposal for a different academic project (and, surprisingly, it’s my second most popular photo on flickr. Messy desks seem to resonate with people…). But work like this really eats into the photo time, you know? I’ve got to get it done this week, though, especially because I’ve decided that next week, during Easter, I deserve a break, and I’m heading off to Shanghai.

Never been there before, although I’ve been living in Asia for ages, and in China for between 5 and 8 years (depending on your definition of China: I lived in Taiwan for three years before moving to Hongkers). So I’m totally excited at the prospect.

This means I get to play my favourite Flickr game: plan-your-trip-by-using-our-search! (I outlined it in yesterday’s post). And there are some crazy photogs in Shanghai. I’ve stumbled across these folks already: lifemage, theshanghaieye and tommyOshima.

Still working out the details, obviously want to take in the Bund and the view of Pudong, but not 100% sure about what’s available in Shanghai, so I’ll be doing more research on this during breaks from my other research. If you have any ideas or recommendations of what to do in Shanghai, give me a shout out in the comments section.

Gear wise, I’ll have to travel quite light, and I’m toying with the idea of just hooking up my Nikon D300, a 50mm 1.4 and a 20mm. Only. No zoom, no macro. Not even a flash, maybe. Just want to unencumber and focus on getting great people and street shots with these to tack-sharp, creamy-buttery-bokeh nikkor lenses.

Shibuya Crossing at Night: /\ltus's Tokyo.

David Brown — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:52:00 +0000

This image taken by /\ltus, check him out on Flickr.

Before I went to Tokyo, I did a Flickr search of the places I would be going to, to see what other people had done there, and which areas had the most picturesque appeal for me. I always do this, I find it helps me plan my trip much more effectively than reading a guide book: Lonely Planet doesn’t have much in the way of photo-specific info.

So I’ll check around Flickr, trying to see what a certain place looks like at night, at sunrise, at dusk etc. I’ll also check to see what a given location will look like in the season I will be there: no sense in arriving prepped for cherry blossoms, only to find that you’re two weeks late for that. And I always browse for ” Most interesting” rather than ” Most relevant”: it’s nice to see how far you should be pushing your shots.

While I was looking round Flickr, I found a name that kept topping the list of the “most interesting…” of almost anywhere I checked out: /\ltus. When I checked out his stream, he had a phenomenal amount of high-quality shots of Toyko: adjectives fail me a little, especially since he’s an HDR-shooter most of the time, but I can say his photostream is interesting and, to a prospective phototourist looking to go the same area, exciting. I found myself thinking “Wow, is Japan going to give me shots that look like that ?”

It didn’t, obviously, ‘cos his photos are highly idiosyncratic, and the colours are quite something. HDR isn’t an area that I’ve found myself working in, either. But in the right hands… Have a look at his most interesting shots to get an idea of what I mean.

This shot also shows my favourite Starbucks for shooting pics in Tokyo: click through to the image and look at the notes. My blog post about this is here.