Ford Prefect's verdict on Mao

Another of my occasional visual puns - verbum sapienti sat est, and all that.

This picture is by Chinese photographer Kuang Huimin, part of a photo-essay on images of The Great Helmsman in China today, for which he won one of the prizes in World Press Photo's recent annual awards. 

[Brought to you via the excellent China news blog Ministry of Tofu, a relative newcomer on the scene, having only launched a bit over a year ago.]

Update:
The slogan I had in mind was:   Mostly Armless.
(Nobody seemed to get it.  See Comments below.)

More abstraction

No, it's not in fact the crappiest brickwork in the world - although Beijing does have a lot of that. The bendiness of this wall (actually just a brick effect facing) is an optical illusion created by the reflection in the - presumably rather warped or wobbly! - plate glass windows in the adjacent office block.

On yer bike

It’s amazing what people will make websites about, isn’t it?

The other day, I discovered a Copenhagen-based “fashion” photoblog called Cycle Chic, devoted to pictures of people on bicycles. Apparently, it’s the work of passionate cycling advocate Mikael Colville-Andersen, also founder of the urban planning consultancy Copenhagenize, which stresses the value of cycling and pedestrian facilities in cities (see also the Copenhagenize blog).

Many of the photographs are rather good.

And even the more mundane ones are often quite appealing because… well, Denmark boasts an above-average concentration of beautiful women.

A recent post, though, has made me glad to be avoiding the northern European winter. Beijing gets fiercely cold, but it’s mostly very dry. Those shots of the snow in Copenhagen look thoroughly miserable.

Cycle Chic has achieved quite a high profile - written up in The Guardian, and supposedly named one of The Times’s '100 Best Blogs Worldwide'.

Driven to abstraction (2)

Following on from Wednesday's post, here are some more representative examples of my recent photography. I excuse any technical shortcoming by pointing out that I am currently without PhotoShop or a proper digital SLR.  I finally gave up on my dire D50 a few months ago and and sold it; so, these are all taken with a happy snapper - a Casio Exilim - which allows me little or no direct control over lighting, focus, depth of field (I have, through much trial and error, developed a knack for occasionally tricking it into doing what I want, but the control options are utterly bloody useless).

With China's low concern for maintenance, I find the profusion of decay on doors and walls and windows to be a particularly fertile source of inspiration.

That, and the bizarre little stencilled or handwritten advertisements you see everywhere. Who knows what these people are touting? I think I'm happier not knowing.

Peeling paintwork is a particular favourite of mine.

And ragged fly posters.

Put them all together, and....

And then here's an inexplicable streetside 'sculpture' that many of my modern artist friends would be proud of (not a very good photo, but a fascinating object!).

Grime, too, has an irresistible allure for me.

And finally - mirrors. Mirrors above a doorway seem to be quite a common custom in certain parts of China. I don't know what the tradition or superstition behind that may be. Perhaps there's a feeling that catching a glimpse of your own face may revive the moral conscience, that prospective burglars and other malefactors may be deterred from their nefarious enterprise by looking into their own eyes for a second. Or maybe it's supposed to nurture the irrational notion "If you can see yourself, perhaps others can see you." Maybe that's a quirk of human psychology that could be exploited even before the advent of CCTV cameras; now it gains added force from the thought that this might be a one-way mirror concealing a security camera. [And yes, this is about as close as I ever get to a self-portrait.]

Driven to abstraction (1)

One of the reasons I don't post many of my own photographs on here is that I seldom take pictures anyone else finds all that interesting. I'm fascinated by geometry and texture and quirky light effects and bizarre found objects. And I tend to noodle around with extreme close-up views and odd camera angles, and deliberate fuzzy focus or movement blur. I'm into oddity. I  don't photograph people or buildings or views very much any more. In fact, it's become increasingly rare that I photograph anything that you'd recognise at first glance.

Hence this representative sample, from among the shots I took while on my hols a couple of months back.

This, for example, is a skewed view of the edge of the enquiries window at the entrance to the Yunnan Military Academy Museum in Kunming. I fancied there was a bit of an M.C. Escher thing going on with moulding of the corners here.

And this is a wrinkled napkin. I was hoping the ultra close-up, and the soft focus, and the natural lighting would completely conceal the texture of the fabric to render something really abstract - and perhaps evocative of a Martian landscape. I've achieved much better results with this kind of thing on other occasions, but this is the only one I seem to have in this particular batch of photos.

And this is the air intake of a jet fighter plane which is on display in the grounds of Kunming Zoo. 

These canopy roofs with large circular or oval cutouts seem to be quite a common architectural trope in China. This one's on the waterfront in Hankou. I snapped it mainly for the dazzling blue sky above.

The after-scent of a sunny day

Walking home on Saturday evening, I was struck by an uncommonly heavy aroma hanging on the breeze - sweet, very pleasant in fact (not at all the typical hutong smells of public toilets, fouled drains, and questionably 'delicious' local foods), and oh-so-familiar, yet I couldn't quite place it at first.

Of course - pineapple. 

Quartered, freshly peeled pineapples, stored in buckets of weak syrup to keep them moist and served on a stick, are a popular summertime street snack in Beijing.  And last Saturday - one of the first really sunny days to fall on a weekend this year - was obviously a bumper day for the pineapple vendors. On that short walk home, I must have passed dozens of sanlunche (the flatbed tricycles which are still the primary means of delivering produce here) parked up on the side of the street, piled with shavings of pineapple skin - like the found collage below.

One of the better things about the Beijing summer - although I don't think I've ever encountered quite such an intensely pineappley smell on the night air before. This was a somewhat freakish occurrence, but a very pleasant one.

Another exhibition for Amy

My photographer friend Amy Johansson has a new exhibition coming up, this time a joint show with a painter friend of hers, Granada Arias.

It's on at the Nordic Club in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It opens this Friday (April 29th), and will run throughout May. (Well, that's what she tells me. I can't find anything about it on the Club's website yet.)

Well worth a visit, if you happen to be in Bangladesh.

[I'll try to post some pictures from it later on. For now, you can find examples of her work on her website, and here on the Kontinent site (a Swedish photographers' group of which she is a member).]

Waking to a new world

Many years ago, I developed the habit of taking a photograph out of my bedroom window whenever I woke for the first time in a new place. Since one so often arrives in darkness, with little or no idea of one's surroundings or orientation, a delicious sense of shock attends the moment of revelation on the first morning. I have particularly fond memories of a striking shot I took on a school trip twenty-odd years ago - pure reflex rather than conscious craft, still fumbling half-asleep - in a little family hotel in the Peloponnese, of the clay-tiled rooftop opposite and the fierce blue Mediterranean sky above.

This was what greeted me a fortnight ago in Kuala Lumpur: a ramshackle backpacker hostel behind my hotel (not much less grungy), and half a mile to the north, the city's enormous TV Tower.  (I'm not sure what the pink, classical-looking building that looks as if it's hovering in mid-air is. The Telekom Museum perhaps?)

News updates

Belgian photographer/film-maker Vanessa De Smet and her two Mongolian artist friends, Dorjderem Davaa and Enkhjargal Ganbat, were successful in the online funding appeal they launched last month on the Kickstarter arts website.  They had stalled badly in the middle of the 30-day appeal period, after a strong start, but picked up momentum again in the last few days, and just squeaked home to their $9,000 target (the pledges they'd received would have been void if they had fallen short of this minimum).  Congratulations to all three of them.  I look forward to hearing more news of the completion of the projects they're working on and of their experiences on the planned European tour.  Many thanks to everyone who contributed, or passed on details of the appeal, or just checked out their video and wished them well.

Another photographer friend of mine, Amy Johansson, had this rather stunning picture of hers in contention in a National Geographic competition back in November.  Alas, she didn't win it - but it seems she did make the final, final shortlist of three, which is quite a result.  (Many thanks again to all of you who helped by giving her picture a high rating on the magazine's website.  Several of you told me that you thought it was the standout of that selection.)  She was up for a prize in a competition run by the fashion magazine Elle around the same time; she missed out on the top award there as well, but it's major kudos even to make the prize shortlist in such select company.  She currently has a solo exhibition of her Bangladesh pictures (including the National Geographic one) at the Arbetets Museum in Norrköping, Sweden - on until the end of the month.  This year, Amy is taking a photography course at the well-regarded Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus.  After that... she might just possibly look into making photography her new full-time profession.  She's a very talented young lady, and I'm sure she'll be enjoying many more such successes in the future.

News - of a sort - finally in the Wu Yuren case: his lawyer, Li Fangping, was summoned to the courthouse on Monday to "view" the police videotapes from the Jiuxianqiao Police Station which were supposedly the key piece of evidence in the case, but which had not been brought to court by the prosecution on the first trial date back in November.  The presiding judge adjourned the trial - indefinitely - on Li's motion to produce the tapes, and... two full months later we are told that (surprise, surprise) the original surveillance camera tapes have long since been lost or erased; and the - obviously heavily edited - tape from a handheld video camera which was produced in court (and shows nothing to incriminate Wu) is claimed to be the sole (original, unedited) version.  So, after this long and painful delay, there is no new evidence.  In fact, there is no evidence at all - apart from the not terribly convincing testimony of the police officers.  In just about any other country in the world, the case would now be dismissed.  Here in China, there is a depressing inevitability that it will proceed anyway, and that a guilty verdict - which was effectively decided in advance - will be handed down, and that a sentence will be imposed that is out of all proportion to the trivial assault alleged (one year, if we're lucky; two or three, if we're not).  Now, we're just anxious for the trial (and sentencing) to be concluded as soon as possible.  It's starting to seem dangerously likely that they'll try to do this during the upcoming Chinese Spring Festival holiday, when it will escape too much media attention or public notice (and when Wu's family - and his lawyer - are likely to be unavailable to attend the hearings!).  Sigh.

But finally, some really good news....

'Ashleigh Burrows', a cyber-friend who was injured in the Tucson shooting on January 8th, is back blogging again - barely a week later.  She's still in hospital, but is recovering well and seems to be in good spirits.  Welcome back, a/b; get well soon.

Boosting Amy

["Unsafe Journey" -  Copyright Amy Johansson 2009]

I've mentioned before my very talented photographer friend, Amy Johansson, when she launched her photo-essay on the tanning industry in Dhaka six months ago.  Now, another of the photographs she took while living in Bangladesh - the rather stunning one above of a young girl hitching a hazardous ride on the coupling between two railway carriages - has been selected for the final stage of a National Geographic competition.  Online voting counts toward the final result, so - if you like this shot - please follow this link and rate it out of 10 (the higher number, the better).

The poll closes on 30th November.  (I'm not sure exactly when.  Midnight, EST, I presume - but don't let things go down to the wire.  Head over there right now!  Or, as we used to say in my days as a student politico, "Vote early, vote often!")

It seems as though, as well as being a hazardous situation to photograph, it was quite a hazardous shot for Amy to get.  She tells me that she'd been photographing passengers riding on the roof of the train when she noticed this girl down between the carriages - and asked two guys to hold her legs while she lay down and leant over the edge of the roof to take the picture.

I believe there's only a modest cash prize - but Amy is a 'poor student' this year, so it would be a very welcome boost to her funds and help her with some other photo projects she's got ongoing.  And getting your name associated with National Geographic is a nice enhancement to your CV!  So I hope you'll all trot on over to this webpage and give her a high score.

Amy has some more pictures on her own website, and on a photoblog she started a few months ago to document the projects she's doing for the photography course she's currently taking in Denmark (but she's been too busy lately to keep it updated).  She was also a finalist in a competition in Elle magazine this month.

Good luck, Amy!  I hope you win both prizes.

The tanning industry in Bangladesh (a Website of the Month recommendation)

My friend Amy Johansson is an extremely talented young lady. She started out as a fashion designer, but has lately moved into more of a management role as a 'product developer' with the Swedish clothing chain H&M. For the past few years, she's been based with one of their subsidiary companies in Bangladesh, where they source a lot of their fabrics. During this time, she has been applying her visual flair more and more to her passion for photography - a hobby that has evolved into a second career. She has some marvellous pictures on her website.

Her most recent project, in collaboration with a journalist friend, Gabrielle Jönsson, has been a photo-essay called 'Lethal Leather - A Journey Through The Leather Industry In Bangladesh'. She has made it available as a slideshow on her site.

As Amy and Gabrielle say in their press notice about this:

The leather industry is one of the world’s most harmful, posing great risks to human health and the environment. Leather is treated with a number of dangerous chemicals to prevent it from decomposing. In Bangladesh, leather production takes place in the heart of the capital Dhaka, home to 12 million people. Nearly two hundred tanneries across the city manufacture products to sell to international fashion labels. It is rare for workers to wear protective clothing at these highly toxic production plants, which are dotted between residential housing. 150 tonnes of industrial waste are produced here every day, much of which is channelled into the city’s rivers.

That is certainly a disturbing thought. China's record on environmental pollution is pretty atrocious too, but at least they don't usually site hazardous industries like this right in the heart of cities.

A soothing picture

Gosh, I surely need some soothing in my life just at the moment.

More snapshots from the countryside

I am much given to still life and abstraction....

Sunday in the country

A couple of pictures from my weekend away in Huairou.

Unfortunately, the air quality was almost as bad as it has been in Beijing over the past few days (a shroud of humidity trapping tons of dust in the air, at times cutting visibility down to only a few hundred yards); and the hillsides were so crowded with blossom that it was difficult to get a clear view of anything as I hiked up this gorge - other than a formless sea of white and pink flowers. Stunning to experience live; but it doesn't make for good photographs.

In the neighbourhood (2)

The garish red wood and plaster of the Drum Tower, I find, is not quite so beguilingly attractive as the grey-green stone of its partner, the Bell Tower. Nevertheless, it is still rather an imposing sight. (This is one of my favourite shots of it, currently set as the desktop wallpaper on my computer.)

And, with that, I bring to an end my 'photo gallery' week. 20 posts and 45 pictures in all, I think. I hope you've enjoyed them.

Back to writing, now; back to spleen and bile and snarky humour, and so on and so on.

In the neighbourhood (1)

The ancient Bell Tower, just a short walk from my apartment, is perhaps Beijing's most beautiful building, and is at the heart of one of its quaintest areas of old-style hutong low-rise alleyways - a favourite spot for strolling and hanging out. Here are three shots taken from the roof terrace of the adjacent Drum & Bell Bar: one by day,one by night,and one on the cusp between the two, at dusk, when the local pigeon-fanciers let their flocks out for an hour or so's exercise - my favourite time of the day!

Street abstracts

Pretty pink clouds

We very, very, very rarely get clouds like this in Beijing. And you usually have to be up very early in the morning to catch them when they do show up. This is the moat around the Forbidden City, taken shortly after dawn (on my way back from the Tiananmen Square flag-raising on the October 1st National Day a few years ago).

Ghostly figures

I posted this one over on The Barstool a couple of weeks or so ago - two lads on a bicycle unconcernedly thwarting my attempt to take a picture of the quaint little bar over the road.

This is a rather similar 'happy accident' - from a demonstration by the Beijing Tango Society several years ago.

Chop

A 'chop' - the traditional Chinese signature-seal - makes a beautiful memento of China. I have several myself. The ones I had made for my two young nieces were a great success (at least, initially; I don't know if they've survived), and were used to stamp their names all over the house. They've all been made for me by a Chinese artist friend, Wu Yuren, who loves to do it as a hobby. He might not be the best chop-carver in the world, but he invests an awful lot of love into it, and that personal connection imbues an unquantifiable extra value. (Plus, of course, he might get really famous one day, and then they might be worth a lot of money! Although I'd be loath to part with mine, even if that did happen.)

During his 'starving artist' years, I tried to direct a little extra income his way by soliciting chop commissions from several of my friends for their children and so on. It was in fact very difficult to get him to accept much money at all, and the postage to the US and the UK ended up costing a lot more than the labour and materials. He really does do it just because he loves to do it. It's rather inspiring to find such simple and direct passion for something.

(Do take a look at his website [Warning: Some of it is not for the squeamish!]. I particularly like his 'Imperial Criminals' photo series.)