Artsy Photographs From Xingcheng
I took a short trip this weekend and visited a small Chinese city called Xingcheng. It has only about 100,000 people — which is tiny compared to Beijing’s 13 million.
The feel of the city was very third-world so I decided to shoot some photos and make them black and white for your artsy-fartsy enjoyment. Remember, click on the image for a bigger version.
This guy was selling turtles on the street. I have no idea who would buy a turtle as a pet from this guy. Unless he’s selling them to be eaten, which makes me feel bad for the little guys. I wish they could find some ooze and become the heroes they were destined to be.
This was just a cute moment of a mother and daughter riding through the old area of town. The picture didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.
This was my second favorite photo. These three guys were on break from doing some kind of work, just chilling out and smoking cigs against one of the old city walls.
This was my favorite. This old lady was so old lady it was too much for words. So I took a picture. And now it’s art. Whee!
User Comments
bill nagwai
06/20/10
WOW,What great pictures. They are truly artistic.
Thanks for sharing.
Casey
06/20/10
These are gorgeous photos. I think the first and fourth are my favorites – the expressions are so candid and real.
Susan
06/20/10
Awesome photos! I like the turtle man photo best.
Anderson
06/20/10
Thanks for the comments.
Black and white is actually a much more subtle and complicated thing than I previously realized. I always thought it was simply removing the color from a photograph. It’s actually much more than that and I respect it far more than I did before.
For example, here is the color-removed photo of the Old Lady:
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1007/p1030238y.jpg
Here is my version:
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3669/p1030238.jpg
Nathan
06/20/10
They look fantastic to my untrained eyes. Great shots. I love the turtle one.