Beautiful images Douglas. Quite a difference coming from a country that you can just walk/swim into and you have instant benefits and transportation. Our adversaries have said it for years, our freedoms will be what takes us down from within, a conundrum for sure.
I was checking out the cleanliness compared to our country. We openly litter our streets where in most other countries you don't see that. When I mow my 1/2 mile of right-of-way on the highway I have to carry a trash bag to put the litter in. A large bag is usually half full by the time I am done. Apparently my roadside is one beer can away from the place they buy the beverage and chips; however the empty sex lube bottle leaves me perplexed.
You take care of yourself Buddy, the heat this summer has been nothing to mess with and you are just getting back to normal after your bout with COVID. I don't know if it's post COVID or the fact that I'm 74, but I found myself on the ragged edge a few times this summer, it sneaks up on you.
Hope that you are enjoying your time off, I've been thinking of you often and wish we could meet up.
All the best my friend! JW
J-A and Jim...It has been a BRUTAL summer here. Record temps and no rain for months in my area. I step outside and can't take a breath without gasping.
As Jim states...just STOP find some shade and stay hydrated.
Both of you, and all on MA2A...stay safe.
Fall came last week. That is the way it is in Mary-land. No transition from 1 season to another...you wake up the next day after110F temps and it is Fall at 70F and no humidity!
Dan
Ray Swindle wrote:
I was checking out the cleanliness compared to our country. We openly litter our streets where in most other countries you don't see that. When I mow my 1/2 mile of right-of-way on the highway I have to carry a trash bag to put the litter in. A large bag is usually half full by the time I am done. Apparently my roadside is one beer can away from the place they buy the beverage and chips; however the empty sex lube bottle leaves me perplexed.
I know what you mean Ray, few things get me more ticked than seeing some trash fly out of a car window. I take it as, "here, you can pick up my crap, I'm far too important to be bothered with it." Can't shed any light on the sex lube, but there may be more for you to shoot out there than you imagined..........
Had an assignment on Saturday to shoot a building that previously was a Harley Davidson dealership. The project is now the corporate offices of a steel design and fabrication company and it has been radically renovated using large steel components. We captured numerous angles in ever changing light and it all turned out very nicely. When I got home and began post processing the work, I noticed that a couple of swivel chairs in one of the conference rooms must have gotten bumped as we rearranged the room and cleaned it up. My client probably never would have noticed, but I immediately caught it and it wasn't going to fly as far as I was concerned. I went back this morning and re-styled the room so that I could shoot it properly. Don't like re-shoots, don't have very many, but when it's needed, it's needed.
These folks supply steel and design services to construction companies all over the US, turns out they might just be my newest client.
Over the past year I have been blessed with several clients in the construction trades who do niche work. These assignments aren't typically full day, some half, some less. These shoots are lower pressure, mostly local and each of the clients keep booking me for dozens of projects, kind of wonderful.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Beautiful images Douglas. Quite a difference coming from a country that you can just walk/swim into and you have instant benefits and transportation. Our adversaries have said it for years, our freedoms will be what takes us down from within, a conundrum for sure.
Thank you Jim!
More from the same ancient city, I was walking around those deserted streets at 5:00AM all by myself with $20,000 worth of camera gear, not for a moment I felt unsafe. You guys know I am no fan of the CCP but try that in some of our cities here.
Douglas
ILCE-1FE 70-200mm F4 Macro G OSS II lens154mmf/9.01/50s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 70-200mm F4 Macro G OSS II lens73mmf/9.01/160s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 70-200mm F4 Macro G OSS II lens98mmf/9.04s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5Voigtlander NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical lens35mmf/9.015s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5Voigtlander NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical lens35mmf/1.21/2s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lens39mmf/9.030s200 ISO0.0 EV
And before I post the shots from Oceana, here is the last installment from my China trip, this is Zhangjiajie National Park, the first national park in the country, this is where the movie "Avatar" was filmed.
ILCE-1Voigtlander NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical lens35mmf/13.01/20s100 ISO+1.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lens24mmf/13.01/30s100 ISO-1.5 EV
ILCE-1FE 70-200mm F4 Macro G OSS II lens109mmf/9.01/50s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lens49mmf/11.01/15s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lens50mmf/10.01/30s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 70-200mm F4 Macro G OSS II lens154mmf/9.01/40s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lens41mmf/13.01/20s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lens41mmf/13.01/20s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lens38mmf/13.01/6s100 ISO0.0 EV
More from the same ancient city, I was walking around those deserted streets at 5:00AM all by myself with $20,000 worth of camera gear, not for a moment I felt unsafe. You guys know I am no fan of the CCP but try that in some of our cities here.
Douglas L wrote:
And before I post the shots from Oceana, here is the last installment from my China trip, this is Zhangjiajie National Park, the first national park in the country, this is where the movie "Avatar" was filmed.
I must ask Douglas...were you "hassled" in any way on your trip?
The Chinese must have you as "who you are"..no problems?
On 1 recon mission my team stumbled into a "anomaly" within a triple canopied forest outside Vietnam boundries. A small but very distinct area of of your last few images. Then it was gone back into jungle. It was breathtaking and then it was gone! A moment of repose then back to business.
Breathtaking!
Dan
Danpbphoto wrote:
I must ask Douglas...were you "hassled" in any way on your trip?
The Chinese must have you as "who you are"..no problems?
On 1 recon mission my team stumbled into a "anomaly" within a triple canopied forest outside Vietnam boundries. A small but very distinct area of of your last few images. Then it was gone back into jungle. It was breathtaking and then it was gone! A moment of repose then back to business.
Breathtaking!
Dan
Hi Dan, the #1 requirement on their immigration/customs form is that if you are not staying at hotels that are approved to accommodate foreign nationals, then you or your host will need to register at the local police station within 24 hours of your arrival. We read that the enforcement varies and some folks got fined when they left the country if they checked and found out they didn't register. The requirement was in effect in the 70's and early 80's but now it's back again. Not to take any chance, we went to the local police station to register but the police there had no idea what we were trying to do, they said we only need to register with them if we decide to reside there for a long period of time, but not for short term visits. Apparently they didn't get the memo from higher up. We took a selfie at the police station just to have a record to prove that we tried if we got asked when we were leaving the country. One of the other two guys in the photography workshop at the national park told me when his 6-year old American born granddaughter went to Beijing to stay them for a few weeks, he didn't register her with the police, they found out so he was forced to write a letter to admit his guilt and paid a fine. So apparently the enforcement is all over the place.
When I bought entrance ticket for the national park, they took a picture of me and scanned my passport, when I went in and out of the park I didn't need to show them the ticket, I just looked at the screen, their facial recognition would match my face with the face they had when I bought the ticket, so the system knew I had purchased a ticket and opened the gate automatically for me. For trains because I reserved the tickets online using my passport, when I passed the gate I put my passport on a scanner, the system matched my passport with the name/passport information on the reservation, and the gate opens automatically to let me in. Now this applies to Chinese citizens too but they use their ID cards instead of passport.
They bring the meaning of big brother to a whole new level! A lot of places display CCP slogans, which looked out of place to me because that kind of propaganda was relatively rare from the 80's until Xi wanted to become the new emperor.
So to answer your question, we were not harassed, but I am sure they knew a lot more about us than we realized. I took a picture of these surveillance cameras over one of the old streets in the ancient city. They are everywhere, like every 50'. They have them on all streets, highways, so if they want to find somebody, with their vast facial data base, it's pretty easy.
Ref. to the last part of your post, some areas in Yunan and Guangxi provinces bordering Vietnam do have rock formations like the ones I posted, but the park I went to is in the northwest part of Hunan province, not near Vietnam.
I have long seen beautiful photographs of that area of China, it's mesmerizing! What lives in those areas? The terrain is too rough for people to inhabit it , isn't it?
Dan, your little Buddy has double pneumonia, he's on antibiotics but he's having a rough time. I spent part of the afternoon with him, probably shouldn't have, but I couldn't not comfort him. He's pretty fragile, just wanted to snuggle. When he doesn't want to dig into some project, you know he is not feeling well.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
I have long seen beautiful photographs of that area of China, it's mesmerizing! What lives in those areas? The terrain is too rough for people to inhabit it , isn't it?
Jim, China does have some incredible landscape. While few people live up in those mountains, there are plenty of people living at the foot of the mountains, they are mostly peasants and people owning businesses catering tourists. I was surprised the roads in those rural areas are very well paved, much better than some of the roads I see in our cities, sadly. Even the winding roads going up and down the mountains are well paved, wide, with guard rails.
If you look carefully in the picture below, you can see an sightseeing elevator, it's 326 m (1,070 ft) high, takes 90 seconds to travel up or down the mountain.
ILCE-7RM5FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lens45mmf/11.01/15s100 ISO0.0 EV
Shooting at these shutter speeds remains a huge challenge for me. 1 out of every 20 or 25 came out just OK to be edited and they aren't even that sharp after some sharpening.
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens474mmf/6.31/80s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/9.01/50s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/9.01/50s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens379mmf/6.31/100s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens463mmf/7.11/100s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/6.31/100s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/6.31/100s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/6.31/100s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/6.31/100s100 ISO0.0 EV
