Daily Photo – Boats in Ancient China

This is the spot where I cracked a rib. I’ll tell that story in a moment… This is the ancient village of Feng Huang in distant southern China. I hired a local driver to get me there, and the ride was longer than most plane trips! And a lot less comfortable… Anyway, after arriving, I had a wonderful time exploring. One morning, the old town was covered with thick fog. And it’s that still, wet, timeless fog of China. When you are looking at it, you become convinced it will just never go away. I worked my way down one of the banks to an area where the local rivermen keep the boats to grab this shot. The morning was wet, obviously, and that was the downfall of my mishap. I stepped down onto what looked like damp, dirty concrete. I’ve done this a thousand times. I was carrying my D3X with 14-24mm lens on a tripod on my left hand and holding my D3S with 50mm 1.4 prime in my right hand. It turned out that I was stepping onto that super-slick wet clay. It was razor-thin and slicker than ice. I didn’t stand a chance. I fell right down, both cameras slamming into the ground. The D3X hit extra hard because the tripod gave it some painful torque. I landed on the D3S, it’s body caving in one of ribs… right in the middle of the man-nipple area. It was too bad because I’ve always treasured that area. I made reference to the injury when I was still unsure about it in this Part 2 China Interview.