Personally, I would like to talk about something besides QingMing for a change, but it just would not be right to talk about the preparation for a photo shoot for several days then not show any of the results. As I said in the last entry, it was much less of a shoot than I had thought, so I do not have much to show, but here are some of my favorites.
And remember, I was not necessarily out there to take the most beautiful or the most stereotypical shots of a cultural holiday. I wanted to tell the story of the day (which ended up being a short story), and more than that, to capture some of the spiritual reality behind the obvious.
The first photo says exactly what I hoped it would. If you look at my post from a few days ago, I was wondering how some of these activities and beliefs were passed on to the next generation. And there it is.
I wanted to throw in a couple more to show more of what is done in a typical QingMing Festival: offering incense, “gold”, money, and much much more.
Actually, this last one brings up a new topic I was thinking of talking about. I was using my 35mm lens, which acts like a 50mm on a full frame (or 35mm film) camera. It is not that wide of a lens, but by playing with your angle to the subject and getting close to part of it, the wider angle feel comes out. Now, this is no 20mm lens or anything, and I am not even very close (it was fire, after all), but it gives an idea of how to add depth and “closeness” in the photo. Of course, the effect and feel would be greater with a wide angle lens.
WOW! Those are awesome. Interesting, colorful…certainly tell a story. Thanks for sharing!!!
The colors are just different, aren’t they? There is something about the colors of different countries that really strikes me.