Tiananmen Square

Remember this picture? You can read about it here. Tiananmen Square is across the street from the Forbidden City.

On the south side of the square is the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. He was the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from 1945 to his death in 1976. Facinating information about it here. 

Click here to see a picture of his body on display. 

_Vince

Forbidden City

This is where 24 of China's Emperors lived several hundred years ago. It was constructed in the early 1400's. This place is huge!! I walked through 3 main gates and still wasn't even close to the museum. It took 15 years and more than 1 million people to build it. It houses thousands of ancient artifacts, sculptures, paintings, gold, jewelry and more. It is named the Forbidden City because the common man back in the day could not get inside. Only the Emperors workers were allowed inside. Even as workers they were only allowed so far into the palace. Here's a picture of what it looks like from the North. Click here. (That is not my picture and yes that is pollution in the air). Just about every rooftop you can see in that picture was part of his palace. It is said to have more than 8,000 rooms. You can read more about the Forbidden City here.

_Vince

Village

Here are some photos of the village I stayed in the past 5 days. This is the swap meet we went to. People here really don't see many foreigners if at all. Everyone was staring at me. Felt weird and funny at the same time. I had a few people even ask to take a picture with me. Imagine that.

This guy was so excited to see me. Before he invited me into his store to sit down, I could see that he was video taping me on his cell phone. After he invited me in, he asked me if he could take a picture with me. I had no idea he was going to do what he did in this picture. I realized this was probably the first time he'd ever seen a foreigner. I bought a few bags of food that he had in his store and he offered me a free jar of spices. Then he gave me his email address so I can stay in touch with him. Not sure how that is going to work considering I don't speak or write in Chinese.

The same guy who raises the Tibetan Mastiffs gave us a ride to a local burial site. Here is what a burial site looks like in the village. The dead are buried north and south with a mound of dirt. The yellow ribbons are laid on top periodically out of respect and remembrance of the dead.

More pictures of the village I stayed in

Took a picture of the little red car driving through the intersection. The look on the guys face is what I get all the time.

Here's a guy lighting yellow paper on fire in the street to remember the dead.

_Vince

Tibetan Mastiff

I had a chance to visit someone who raises Tibetan Mastiffs here in China. These dogs are by far the largest I've ever seen. They can weigh as much as 200 lbs. As I walked through the kennel, all of the dogs were barking like crazy and wanted to get at me. Good thing they were chained up and their master was there because I would have absolutely no chance defending myself if they got loose. These dogs can sell for as much as $5000.

_Vince

Fireworks in China

These types of fireworks are going off all the time here to celebrate the new year. Even louder ones going off in the streets constantly. 

_Vince

Chinese New Year

On the first day of the Chinese New Year, I went to see a 3000 year old tree. It's tradition for the locals to visit this tree on New Years day. The red ribbons tied to the tree are for good luck and wishing the tree many more years of life. That tall skinny tree in front is fake. Its there just to support the old tree at one of its branches. There were so many people taking pictures and walking around. Of course it was another cold day at 20 degrees.

Here's a video shot on my iPhone. Those are firecrackers going off in the background. Calling them firecrackers doesn't sound right. They sound more like rifle shots.




On the way back down the hill, there were many people selling food, playing games and just hanging out. Here's a couple of pictures of the food they were selling. 

Squid on a skewer and baby chicks on the grill!

_Vince

Apple Store in Beijing

The Apple reps showed me that I don't need a special plug to charge my MBP and iPhone in Beijing. Figured that out after almost frying my D700 charger last night.

Here's a picture of the Apple store in Beijing. Looks just like the ones in the US except for all of the Chinese writing.

South Korea

I'm in Korea now. Waiting on my connecting flight to China. The flight was long but it went by fast if that makes any sense. I didn't even get out of my seat once. I slept a few times. Not only is there a time change but the time of the year is different too. When we landed at 6:30 am Wednesday morning the sun wasn't out yet. It was still pitch black. Getting on my next flight. 

_Vince

On my way to Beijing

I'm on the plane. It's going to be a long flight but worth it. I'll

try to post when I can. The data rates are crazy high in China but I
still plan on writing.

Allison's Baby

Kids are so fun to photograph yet it's so hard to get their attention. They don't have an attention span at all. You pretty much have to get lucky that the'll look at you. I had many great shots but this was the one that Allison picked as her favorite.

Allison asked me to post one of her son crying so here it is.

_Vince

China bound

One week from tonight I'll be getting on an airplane to China. I'm finally taking a vacation. I use to travel a lot for work. This is the first time I'm leaving the country again in over 7 years. Can't believe how much time has passed. I plan on visiting a different country every year. From now on, I'm going to travel as much as I can. Staying home is boring.

I have so much to do before I leave. I plan on taking my laptop and cameras of course. I'm just not sure how much of an internet connection I'll have. Hopefully I can post images and update my blog everyday.

I'm going to be busy the rest of the week preparing and packing. For those of you who want to see me before I leave, now is your chance. Otherwise, I won't be back until March.

Just so everyone knows, my plan is to have no plans when I get to China. I'm going to get off the plane and start walking. I want to experience China as if I am lost. Kind of like the Chinese do when they are here driving around the city. I'm excited to try all the different foods and ways of life. If anyone has any suggestions on where I should go, let me know.

_Vince

Sunset

iPad

It's here. I don't think Apple will ever make anything that I wouldn't buy. Best believe when it comes out late March, I'll be buying this. The iPad is the perfect size to take with me everywhere I go. Might even be able to get it in the compartment on my bike. I love my laptop but I hate having to open and close the lid every time I use it.

Thanks Apple. You've extended the life of the hinges on my laptop.

_Vince

6th Street Bridge

I wish the fence wasn't in the way but that's how it looks. What I should do is get a really tall latter or rent a box truck to get a high viewpoint shot. Oh well, I'm a realist and that is what it really looks like from that angle.

Click on the picture for a bigger view.

_Vince

Making Friends

This past Sunday was fun. Shot pictures downtown in the Arts District with my brother. We took a break at a coffee shop and ran into 3 interesting people. One is the brother posing with my brother above. That is Drevon Cooks for those of you not knowing. He is an up and coming actor/comedian who stars in several online mini horror clips called Blood Zoo. He was totally cool! He even did part of his comedy act for us. I think he's going to be big because he's funny and he can act. Definitely going to keep in touch with him.

The next guy we ran into was Crazy Gideon. Click here to see his videos. He yells loud during his commercials and throws TV's around. I remember watching him when I was a kid staying up late nights. Looks like he's done selling electronics. Good for him. He made it from nothing 35 years ago to now being a successful business man. He is very interesting and a lot of fun to talk to.

The last person we ran into was Luther Gerlach. He is a photographer who shoots a camera that he hand made. Instead of film he uses glass plates which are 20" x 30" in dimension. Before he actually shoots the glass plates, he coats them with different chemicals and then sets the glass in the camera and takes a picture. Its a very intricate process and takes a lot of mental thought and experience to get the shot right. Below is what the picture looks like on the glass. Amazing look. I love it.

Here's a picture of his camera.

It was really cool meeting all three of them on Sunday. They spent time telling us about their lives and what they do and they asked the same of Dave and I. Hopefully I can meet more interesting people like this in the future because it made my day.

_Vince

I wanna talk!

Just a quick post from my iPhone this afternoon while out shooting with my brother Dave. This is what we are shooting today. Two Hasselblad 500's. We figured out our exposure with a Sekonic light meter. These cameras don't shoot in automatic, don't have batteries and they use larger film than 35mm.

_Vince

City View

Here is the shot from this morning at 6am. I was at the top of Signal Hill looking down at Long Beach and San Pedro. I really didn't want to show this image because Google's blogging software degrades the quality of the picture so that the page loads quicker. This doesn't help me show off the high resolution file. This shot was created from 8 shots merged into one.

Should look great when I print it.


_Vince

Insomnia

It's 3:40am and I can't sleep. I'm off to shoot a sunrise somewhere.

_Vince

Fabian Breuvart

For those of you who don't understand the French language like I do, I will explain. This escapade was lead by photographer Fabian Breuvart at the 2009 International Art show in Paris. As art collectors waited to enter the gallery, a group of pranksters dumped out thousands of antique photos on the floor free for the taking. Onlookers were allowed to take any of the photos that may have been of interests to them. The same people that were willing to pay thousands of dollars for the photos in the gallery were now on the floor sifting through free photos.

This was such a cool idea and it worked. Merci Bien Fabien.

_Vince

Happy New Year_2010

Happy New Year everyone! I'm not one to use the new year to better myself or come up with resolutions. I heard if you don't have resolutions there's no chance of failure! ;) That sounds good to me. Although it is a good time to set some goals and plan out a few projects. I've been off for the last week and a half and its given me plenty of time to make some notes and get organized. Definitely excited to get back to work next week.

I shot several rolls of film over the past few days which I'm excited to see. I usually just drop them off at Walgreens to get them developed. If I want more DPI, I can scan them myself. I'll post the shots later.

Ok big news here. I have purchased my plane ticket to China! I am finally going on a vacation! I'm going to visit a couple of friends I met at the Miami Art show in 2007. I'm really excited because I'm not going with a tourist group. I'm going to get off the plane and walk around. I want to meet strangers, try to speak a little Chinese and eat a lot of food. To be honest, I've been doing research on Beijing and the surrounding cities. I will have some sort of plan by the time I get there but nothing will be set in stone. The only thing I want to bring back from there are some great photos and the memories of meeting new people.

_Vince