Photography in the Abstract: Parallel Lines

= and || and # and ” and B and E and F and H and N and U and Z. Parallel lines. (Strange that there are no numbers here, yes?)

Lines are one of the main photographic lenses. When viewing any photograph, we can ask, “How do the lines interact in this picture?“ Lines come in three main forms: curvy, perpendicular and parallel. We looked at strange, curvy lines in a previous post on silhouette photography. We’ll look at perpendicular lines next time. That leaves…parallel lines! Like all Photography in the Abstract posts, we’ll ask the question:

What ways can you use parallel lines to compose a great picture?

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Lines + Out-of-Focus

Strategy to take this kind of picture is: 1) Find close object with a straight side. 2) Align close object’s line with a line in the background. 3) Click.

It’s nice when in- and out-of-focus object have similar/related structures (5 rectangular blocks). It’s also nice when those blocks are not simply blocks of color but have their own little details (tile has semi-perpendicular lines for example). [Hong Kong, China]

I like it when the out-of-focus (oof) lines have different levels of depth. [Kaiping, China]

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Variation on a Theme

The above photos emphasize big differences between lines using blur level. The pictures below emphasize small differences using parallel lines to keep shape constant (and thus emphasize the other small differences).

Middle section is variation on railroad track theme. Top and bottom sections are variation on beige theme (w.r.t. middle section). [Suzhou Railroad Station, Suzhou, China]

Variations on texture and depth. I think this is playground equipment. [Fenyang, China]

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Parallelism Gone Awry

The lines in the photographs above are darn close to perfectly parallel. The lines in the pictures below are ones that “aren’t parallel, but should be”. This is different than “aren’t parallel and shouldn’t be”. i.e. There are lots of lines in pictures that aren’t parallel but the viewer doesn’t care. In the following pictures we do care (about non-parallelism).

Like a firecracker exploded and stopped the parallel lines. [Dongguan, China]

Same pile. Again, parallel lines are a tad off. Angled stick hurts. Sticks ending before leaving the frame also hurts. [Dongguan, China]

Far left lines start parallel. In the middle, bait/gravity combo and reflection turns fishing lines from = into x (parallel to chaos). [Dongguan, China]

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Shorter and More Dense Parallel Lines Create Perspective

Photographers will often use converging lines to create perspective. Less often we’ll use shorter and shorter parallel lines to achieve the same effect. Railroad tracks show both, so let’s look at that first then check out my pics.

EXAMPLE PHOTO: Converging lines are the vertical rails. Shorter and more dense horizontal lines are the perpendicular wooden slats. Both imply a vanishing point. [Internet, USA]

Top left: short, dense lines. Bottom right: long, infrequent lines. [Fenyang, China]

Same concept here with two differences. One, lines get longer and then shorter (longest line is Line #5, not Line #6). Two, lines aren’t perfectly parallel. I’m also capturing another convergence point somewhere in the distance away from bottom right. [Kaiping, China]

Imperfect parallelism creates tilty world vibe. [Fenyang, China]

Variation on railroad track picture. This picture emphasizes converging lines instead of parallel ones. The parallel lines are actually the red steps. Not a constant line, but dots. Note how dots get denser in both directions. [Fenyang High School Stadium bleachers, Fenyang, China]

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Nontraditional Lines Are Cool Too

‘Nuff said. Look for lines everywhere.

[Chengdu, China]

[Swingset, Fenyang, China]

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Until Next Time

It’s 2015! I published 17 posts in 2014 after returning from China. Not bad. I definitely enjoy this. Posts that I’m most excited for in 2015:

• Ducks
• Texture
• Reviewing photographer’s reviews (of my blog)
• Using post-production (which I’ve never done)
• B&W

Thanks to all of you who have been reading my posts! 20 followers is a non-zero number! K bye.

– Rhys

Understanding China: Pure People Part 2

People no story = people all story.

Part 1 is here.

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[Place where many Chinese films are shot, Kaiping, China]

[Shenzhen River Delta, Shenzhen, China]

[Fenyang, China]

[Strawberry picker, Yangshuo, China]

[Batman, Shanghai, China]

[World’s first bank, Pingyao, China]

[Harbin, China]

[Teacher’s Day celebration, Fenyang, China]

[Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China]

[Pingyao, China]

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Until Next Time

6 of these pictures don’t have faces. Backs/posture can be cool too. Hope you enjoyed this post!

– Rhys

Traditionally and Untraditionally Cute Things

The following pictures contain:

1 Puppy

1 Cat

1 Stuffed Animal

1 Blow-up Penguin

3 Dogs

1 Wet Spot of Concrete and 3 Leaves

THEY ARE ALL CUTE.

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The owner had him trained to do this. [Harbin, China]

Kitty “in the wild”. [Fenyang, China]

Stuffed animal squished against a car windshield. Love this pic. [Taiyuan, China]

The Facebook of China, QQ, has a penguin mascot. (This one is 50 feet tall.) [Shenzhen, China]

Love this pic as well. The top two dogs are so shaggy. There are spots for 9 doggies here. I’m happy the middle dog is not one up (though it would be symmetrical). [Tilamuren Grasslands, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China]

I only take pictures like these when I’m really “in the mode” (i.e. taking pictures of everything). It is cute thought, right? (Right?) [Walking from Dongguan to Shenzhen, China]

I feel like I just played a sick Rick Roll on y’all. Sorry? [Behind my school’s cafeteria, Fenyang, China]

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 Until Next Time

Next time I go on a trip, I’d like to take more untraditionally cute pictures. I like personifying things. Hope you enjoyed this batch!

– Rhys

2 Pictures of a Cute Chinese Child

1st Picture of a Cute Chinese Child.

2nd Picture of the same Cute Chinese Child.

Understanding China: Pure People Part 1

People are the most powerful tool a photographer has.

Faces, more specifically. It’s a huge contributor to the power of DLSR’s and oof (out of focus). Blur the background + pop the face => great picture.

The pictures today are of people. And they’re of people in a vacuum. Save a small location caption, I haven’t written any text about them. In a way, there’s nothing to write. These pictures don’t fit into Photo Series 1: My Stories From China nor Photo Series 3: Photography in the Abstract. They are categorized in Photo Series 2: Understanding China simply because people combined are culture. They’re here, by themselves, together.

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[Classical Gardens of Suzhou, Suzhou, China]

[Shanghai Museum of Ancient Chinese Art, Shanghai, China]

[City Wall, Pinyao, China]

[Fenyang, China]

[Macao Musuem, Macao, China]

[Top of stadium bleachers, Fenyang, China]

[Xian, China]

[City wall, Xian, China]

[Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China]

[Gravestone painter, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China]

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Until Next Time

It’s nice to write posts like these when I don’t want to think too much. No story construction. No societal arguments. No photographic analyzations. Just pictures. Hope you enjoyed the post!

– Rhys

Silhouettes Part 2: Buildings Down and Sky Up

Welcome to Photo Series 3: Photography in the Abstract! Last week we looked at Silhouettes Part 1: Humans and Non-Buildings. Today we’re going to look at how buildings and the sky interact in silhouette photography. It might seem strange to talk about the sky (the non-silhouette) in an article about silhouette photography. But, unlike with human silhouettes, building silhouettes are always composed against the sky. Up. The sky is half of the picture.

And the building is the other half. Therefore, I have a small conundrum. I need to examine two independent parts of a photo: the building and the sky. I could judge which part is more important/prototypical for a given photo and then choose that bucket (building or sky) for that photo. 1 photo, 1 bucket. It’s what I’ve done in the past in classifying my photography. Or I could show each photo twice, once by building and then by again sky. Neither option is great. The first ignores a crucial part of each picture and the second is too repetitive. Instead, I’ll classify pictures by building during your scroll down. At the bottom, I’ll tell you a couple defining features of sky. Then you can scroll back up, looking for those features, scavenger hunt style. Sound good? Cool. Again, the question I ask is:

What are the ways you can use silhouettes to take great building photography?

Full Building

Some buildings outlines are just cool.

I like the bonus outline on the pagoda. [Fenyang, China]

Front wall of an old Portuguese church. [Macao, China]

Intense. Chinese Tower of London. [Taiyuan, China]

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Towards a Vanishing Point

Classic perspective technique. Big to small. Nice angles.

This old city wall surrounds the world’s first bank. We can see the vanishing point. [Pinyao, China]

Between 1 and 2, lots of space. Between 2 and 3, top circle touches but space still holds. Space between 3 and 4 doesn’t exist. [Guilin, China]

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Symmetrical

Buildings are built by humans and we love symmetry.

An abandoned yurt in the grasslands. [Xilamuren Grasslands, Inner Mongolia, China]

Again, the bonus outline is key here. [Chengdu, China]

A flip of the classic building symmetry. The lighting on the building keeps it from true symmetry but I actually like the effect. Side note: Once you get in the groove, it’s amazing how quickly you can take pictures that hit the geometry you’re trying to achieve. See top corners. [Pinyao, China]

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Geometric Shapes Combined

Besides skyscrapers, buildings are rarely just a box. Instead, they are the combination of multiple geometric shapes (like tangrams).

Far right is tangram-y (triangle popping up is key). Stairs are stegosaurus-y. Low left is rocky. Many shapes here. [Macao, China]

Two rectangles intersect in bottom left. Duct forms triangle and loop. [Chengdu, China]

Teacher’s Day. Bottom left has top right corner of an octagon. Triangle flag. Humans break the exacting nature. (See last week for more of this.) [Fenyang, China]

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Building Adornment Pop

Cool buildings have cool adornments on their corners. Think gargoyles.

Abstract animal? [Pinyao, China]

Ah, I love the bonus outline. [Pinyao, China]

Stadium lights are technically not an adornment but it’s the same general idea. i.e. There’s an object that is interestingly shaped and is therefore the object of the viewer’s attention. Bird is the perfect balancer. [Fenyang, China]

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Wireframe

Building silhouettes are usually solid swaths of black (see all categories above). This category contains buildings (or parts of buildings) where this is not the case, where there’s sky inside.

Construction, abandoned. [Harbin, China]

That chain mail fence is up. [Pinyao, China]

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The Sky Is Up

Now that we’re done with classifying building silhouettes, it’s time to scroll back up, looking at the sky rather than the silhouette. But before we do that, I want to say that I especially enjoyed writing today’s article. Structuring the two-featured pictures was probably my most difficult problem thus far in my writing. I think my solution (scroll down, scroll up) is fine, but not great. Wish I had the time to code the webpage such that text appeared different on the way down than on the way up. Alas. Let me know if you liked this system! (Though you will need to scroll back down to do so.)

On your way up, look for varying degrees of sun in the sky. At the most extreme, you can see the full disc of the sun. In pictures with less intense sky, the sun is hidden by some object, making its glow the defining feature of the sky. In the least extreme case, the sun is off camera providing a light-to-dark gradient across the sky. In essence, look for: sun disc, sun glow, sun gradient. Enjoy!

The World’s Largest Mall is Abandoned

Welcome to the second post in Photo Series 2: Understanding China. Ghost malls are cool. Let’s check ’em out.

Why I Went To This Mall

The summer of 2013, I spent 6 weeks to walk the 500-mile Colorado Trail. I wanted to do something similar in China but instead of walking constant nature, I wanted to walk through constant city. My 100-mile trip looked like this: http://goo.gl/maps/igrrm. Guangdong to Dongguan to Shenzhen to Hong Kong; 4 of the world’s 30 most populous cities (according to this metric). Unfortunately, I got quite sick at the beginning of the route and was only able to walk about 40 miles. Nevertheless, this trip allowed me to see strange attractions that I wouldn’t have seen “on-the -beaten-path”. One of my favorites was the New South China Mall — the world’s largest mall, mostly abandoned.

Paradox

It seems weird, right? The whole point of this walk was to be surrounded by dense urbanity, by people. And here was a massive abandoned mall? Those two don’t quite compute. Another strange aspect of this mall is that it has never been occupied: it’s been 99% vacant since 2005. The ramen noodle billionaire who funded it should’ve kept to noodles.

I arrived at the mall, ate some Pizza Hut until sunset, then went inside. I shouldn’t have explored at dusk. Hot damn it was creepy.

Essentially the first thing I saw when I walked in. Happiness graffitied out. Note beginning expanse of mall in the background.

When the lights were still on, they made for this space-like yellow-blue combination. All the escalators had tarps over them, possibly to protect against dirt?

It wasn’t working. I wonder who (if anyone) was in charge of maintenance.

The dirt/dust combo was everywhere. These flowers were beautiful once, before they were covered with a centimeter of minuscule debris.

Piles made. Piles forgotten.

Organized chaos.

I hadn’t seen a soul for the last 30 minutes. This car scared the living hell out of me when it drove up. It marks the transition of my time in the mall. A transition from dusk to night, from dusty to the terror of unintentionally uninhabited space.

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Paradise? Disagree.

Aw hell naw.

A small fraction of the never used food court tables.

I don’t like not knowing when this trash was left here.

New anomalies I’d encounter around every turn in the pseudo-darkness. 

Always random. Always creepy.

Things Have Changed: This Mall is Indicative of China’s Growth

The situation that I have conveyed above is not entirely true, but rather what I had been told was true: Here exists the world’s largest mall, completely abandoned. My information primarily came from a New South China Mall Wikipedia article. Its most recent citation was from more than three years ago. In the last three years, there has been incredible residential growth in the area surrounding the mall, driving retail growth within the mall itself. When I arrived outside the mall, I saw thousands of people: families playing, security guards monitoring the parking lot, hostesses at the information desk. This wasn’t the post-apocalyptic wasteland I had wanted. Asking around, I learned that nearly 50% of the mall’s spaces were filled! I actually had to search to find the abandoned part. And when I took the elevator from a desolate ground floor up to the top floor, I found a karaoke bar! I asked the bartender why this high-class establishment was located on top of a creepy retail expanse. He responded, “Rent’s cheap.”

The transition of massive Chinese developments from “ghost” to occupied is a theme throughout China. 400 million Chinese have moved into cities in the last 30 years with another 400 million moving into urban areas the next 15. You can’t build houses, retail and public transport once they get there, you need to build it before. That’s why stupid projects like New South China Mall are only stupid on the surface. Before I went to China, I may have argued that the developer should’ve waited three years before beginning construction. But if he would have, who knows how much property and labor costs would’ve risen or whether another developer was eyeing the same opportunity. All that the developer knows is that people will come soon. In China, the classic Field of Dreams quote is reversed. It’s not: “If you build it, they will come.” Instead, “They will come regardless. Build it.”

Until Next Time

As always, hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed writing it. What a surreal experience, exploring a massive abandoned mall with only my camera flash. Similar to that scene from Saw actually.

Finally, the argument presented here is but one of the reasons for “ghost buildings” in China. Economics are confusing, especially in China where their state-sponsored system is unfamiliar to Americans like myself. One of the most interesting driving factors for mass construction is that investing in property is a great way for the rising middle-class to invest their money. When other outlets like the stock market are too volatile, buying a bunch of apartments around China and letting their value rise (see above) is a good way to beat inflation.

See you next week when I tell my next personal Chinese story.

RL

Exploring the Architecture of Density

This is my first post in my Photo Series 2: Understanding China as explained in my hook post.

A Phenomenon That I Wanted To Take Pictures Of

China has many people. Nearly 95% of them are located in the southeast on 45% of the land mass. However, population density is not unique to China. There are megacities on every continent with higher population densities. It’s the vastness of high population density that sets China apart. During my travels, there were few times that I couldn’t see a clump of high-rise apartments if I turned my head 360 degrees, Exorcist style. I wanted to capture this phenomenon with my camera.

The Most Famous High Population Density Photography

Clearly, high population density photography has been done before, most famously by a man named Michael Wolf in an exhibition named Architecture of Density.

It’s one of my favorite collections of photography. Each picture is essentially the same as the one above, just with a different set of apartment buildings in Hong Kong. Definitely check out the link above.

Alternate Ways To Capture This Phenomenon

If you know how I operate, you know that I don’t like to do things that have been done before (what’s the point?). I could’ve taken pictures like Michael Wolf’s (albeit less good I assume), but I didn’t want to. Instead, I was excited by the puzzle: Take pictures that enforce Architecture of Density‘s thesis without copying Michael Wolf’s style.

My solutions were: Capture Z Depth, Use Glass Reflection, Emphasize The Hypotenuse, Concentrate on Negative Space.

Z Depth

Wolf’s photography tells us, “Look! x and y are huge!” But he tells us nothing about z, that these skyscrapers are nearly touching others in front and behind them. For “z-Depth” pictures, I tried to show buildings at as many z positions as possible. They are most effective when the contrast between buildings is high.

This picture captures some z depth and also repeating y depth. The roofs of lower buildings are at the same height as the entrance to higher buildings. (This city, Chongqing, is quite hilly.)

 

Glass Reflection

Another way to capture z is to use a building’s reflection of another building. The pictures below say, “Not only is this tall building here, but there is also another building directly across from it (behind the cameraman).”

Hypotenusing

In Wolf’s pictures of width x and height y, we are amazed by how dense x is and how dense y is. Instead of bringing attention to x or y, the hypotenuse method brings attention to the hypotenuse of the picture, a longer line that can therefore have more in it (than just x or y in isolation).

Negative Space

When there are a bunch of tall buildings in tight proximity, the view of the sky becomes a strange geometric shape. I tried to capture this by concentrating on the negative space the buildings create, not the structures themselves.

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Until Next Time

Wolf didn’t leave too much room (zing!) for other angles on the density thesis. Three of my solutions involve the z-axis: Z Depth, Glass Reflection, and Hypotenusing. One of my solutions contradictorily involves the absence of building (Negative Space). I’m honestly not sure how much other photography design space exists here. I’d probably need to live in Hong Kong (like Wolf) to find it.

Hope you enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. Drop comments and questions here or on various social media. Do you see other solutions to this puzzle? What’s your favorite picture?

Halloween

This is the first post in Photo Series 1: Stories From China, as explained in my hook post.

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It’s the week of Halloween. I need to teach fourteen 60-student classes (14*60 = 840!) about the holiday. Time to get dressed up. Scour my room for random items and create characters from their amalgamations. Construct a “tourist” costume and give them my camera to take the pictures you’ll see below (brilliant Rhys, just brilliant). Bring it all to class and…GO! Here are the costumes:

Gotta have a witch. She reps it well.

This is what a witch hat looks like after 800 students have a go at it.

I’m two Chinese celebrities at once: Jay Chou (guitar) and Fan Bing Bing (sparkle dress on my left shoulder).

Boxer.

Crazy goggle monster.

Stylish ghost.

Ghost, chinese-dragon style.

Miner.

Lebron James. (The jersey, that is.)

Some of the costumes were a bit weird. This costume is just me. I wore that gray hoodie nearly every day. My students were a bit grossed out, but got peer pressured into wearing it. Hooray!

Another weird one. The kid on the right is Food Man!, a fruit-carrying, hot-dog-wrapped-in-paper wielding superhero/chef.

Oh soup monster. Why are you so sad?

Using all the costume accessories they can find to create a mega-costume. Boy version.

The female equivalent. Less loco, more stylish.

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After giving out all the items, I’d bring a table of students outside. We’d go through the pile of costume accessories and create characters for each person.  Then, Jay Chou and Fan Bing Bing would go inside and greet the series of strange characters that came into the room. It looked like this (note all the laughter):

Getting ready outside, pre-costume.

Laughing at someone offscreen. Love the girl’s laugh.

Laughing at someone onscreen.

Rawr. Where’s the costume?

Smiles.

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When my kids started to feel that freedom and craziness of the day, they just got goofy:

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Finally, a group of pictures that just make me smile.

Probably my favorite picture of all. That confidence.

Damn cute.

Costume?

Obligatory peace sign.

Trying to do homework! Not on Halloween ya ain’t.

Just perfect.

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Until Next Time

There were two main things that made this week awesome (for me and my students). First, anticipation. Starting Monday at 8:00am, I was lurching around the schoolyard with a hammer, a witch’s hat, a guitar, a pile of food and a tower of clothes (among other things). When kids see me on Monday and then hear rumors about the crazy class on Tuesday, they can’t help but feel that hype for our Wednesday class. Second, comfort. I tried to create a safe space in which my students felt little hesitation just letting go. I made it clear from the start that this is Halloween goddamnit and ain’t no one gonna be judgmental.

Constructing this post has definitely made me nostalgic. I miss my students. How could I not miss these awesome memories we created together?

Hope this article gave you a fun first glimpse into my teaching life in China. Sound off in the comments or on social media with questions or your own Halloween-in-a-strange-place experience.

The Time Has Come!

Welcome to my blog. It’s mostly a photo blog, but I’ll transition to add music and straight ideas over time. A true photo blog like this has been long time coming. I have concentrated on photography three times in my life: Nepal, The Colorado Trail, and now, China. For Nepal and The Colorado Trail, I used Facebook as my medium to show pictures and convey my thoughts. As I put more thought into my photography, I found that there was an incongruity between how I was displaying my work and what I was displaying. In essence, I found that Facebook was too casual for what I wanted to express. I want to express first-class ideas through the lens of photography. I want make art, I guess. And this blog feels like a much better place to do that than Facebook.

Photo Series 1: My Stories From China

This photo blog will be split into three separate series. Photo Series 1: My Stories From China is the most personal, the most relatable, the most fun. Posts in this category will mostly be told in a linear, story-like fashion. Here are some stories I’m excited to tell:

[Fenyang, China]

[Dongguan, China]

[Nanjing, China]

[Macao, China]

[Chengdu, China]

Photo Series 2: Understanding China

In Photo Series 2: Understanding China, I’ll present some of the ideas to help us understand the unique way in which China operates. I’ll take us from the personal (My Stories From China) to the societal. Here are a few choice pictures from this series:

[Suzhou, China]

[Chongqing, China]

[Mt. Old Grandfather, China]

 

[Dongguan, China]

[Hong Kong, China]

 

Photo Series 3: Photography in the Abstract

My final series is by far the most “highbrow”. In Photography in the Abstract, I zoom out one more level, from societal to cerebral. I would classify these theses under “Photography Theory”; the pictures found here are unconnected to a specific time or place.

I define abstract pictures as ones that are: not interesting for my personal story AND don’t reflect a truth about China/life.

Abstract pictures are difficult to differentiate because:

1. I have defined them as the not of two other concepts, and therefore there are lots of pictures, none of which have inherent similarities.

2. They are the closest to art. There is no story/thesis behind them except for my arbitrary groupings.

What’s in store:

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Until Next Time

I am still low-budget/low-time in many ways: I use a point-and-shoot camera, I don’t do any post-production, and I don’t pay for this site. Nevertheless, I’m excited to explore this more serious approach to photography. Hope you enjoy my posts as much as I do. And please, do leave comments/questions here or on various social media. I’m open to feedback or just let me know if you simply enjoy it. Thanks!