I was crossing a bridge in a little town not too far from Yangshuo and trying to stay out of the rain. It was coming down pretty hard, but there was a sunset happening too. So, at great risk to camera and limb, I set up to take this shot. All these little bamboo rafts that would take people to and fro were coming in to hunker down for the big storm…
I had to send away my poor sweet Macbook Pro because my D and E keys weren’t really working very well… like only 80% of the time. I thought I could live with it but turns out that after trying to live with it for just one hour, YOU GO ABSOLUTELY INSANE.
So I’ve sent it off to Christchurch to Service Plus — take good care of it Y’all..
I was in a small town near Yangshuo when I heard all these fireworks going off by the water. Chinese people are always celebrating one thing or another and shooting off all kinds of stuff! It sounded like a party, so I darted through some alleys and homes to get down there… I missed the party, but I saw this incredibly cute kid standing on a pile of red used fireworks. He still looked a bit shell-shocked!
I find myself using Tripadvisor more and more on trips to find hotels and places to stay. It’s a very handy resource, I must say… and it gets stronger every day with all the community feedbac
There’s a little town beside Yangshuo and I can’t quite remember the name right now! But it was full of these tiny little alleyways and tunnels that darted this way and that. Here’s a quick scene I captured while there…
This is one of my favorite presets from Trey’s Lightroom Presets. This one was included with the 2014 pack
It’s really fun to walk around in these places that are a bit out of the way and see what everyone is wearing. I find the Chinese seem to be all over the place with fashion. I can’t make heads or tails of it. I’d say that maybe 5% of the people I see have a decent, inborn fashion sense. The others just seem to throw together any sort of mismatched stuff. This is the complete opposite of Japan, where I’d say that 95% of people are always dressed quite sharp. It’s usually easy to identify Japanese travelers overseas too, because they typically are some of the best-dressed!
It’s always great to go out and shoot in the rain, except for the me-getting-wet part! I wish I had a little friend with me all the time that would hold an umbrella over both of us… that would be so awesome. I know it’s a strange thing to want, but you gotta admit, it would be mega aweso
I was crossing a bridge in a little town not too far from Yangshuo and trying to stay out of the rain. It was coming down pretty hard, but there was a sunset happening too. So, at great risk to camera and limb, I set up to take this shot. All these little bamboo rafts that would take people to and fro were coming in to hunker down for the big storm…
It’s very hard to shoot on the street when things are moving at f/1.4 if you are doing manual focus. So, one thing I try to do is stay up at f/2 or f/2.8 because you have a bit more margin for error on the focus. But, if you are a fixed distance away from your subject (like when I was following the gentleman below), you can go ahead and open it up as high as it wide as it will go and take your time. Not all street photography has to be rushed.
I was mostly down in this area to try to find good vantage points on the river. But when you go along the river, you pass through tiny town after tiny town. I was on foot most of the time, so I would just try to feel my way from one side of the town over to the other side. I felt like a rat going through a maze trying to find some cheese! Anyway, while getting all turned around and going through the tiny streets, I got behind this old-timer here… I set my focus manually and just walked behind him at f/1.4.
I think most awesome lightning photos are fake or very lucky. I guess I don’t know what I mean by fake. I guess if you combine a bunch of lightning over a 30 minute storm into one photo, then that crosses the line a little for me. Trying to get it all at once is a bit more sporting, but, honestly, that’s a bit more lucky too! The best system I have found (and I am not an expert) is to go into manual mode and get your shutter to about 5 seconds. Get all your other settings so the photo looks good! Then just keep taking photos and keep your fingers crossed!
The 5 second span is good because you probably have a half-second gap between photos… it means that if there is lightning, you have about a 94% chance of catching it!
That’s Yangshuo splayed out down below under the evening sky. Tom and I went up here to shoot and then a very nice lightning storm rolled in! That was pretty awesome, but a little bit wet and scary. So we got under the pagoda for a while to stay out of the elements… but we kept doing our best to get lightning shots. Taking photos of lightning is always challenging, but I think we got a few!
First, The Arcanum hit #8 of the Top 51 Websites for Learning Online. Amazing! That’s a great tribute the the team, the Masters, and the Apprentices! Thanks everyone!
And here are two wonderful Apprentices who made some lovely posts about their thoughts and experiences! The first is from Rose Fredriksen and the second is from Marjorie McDonald.
One night I went out in the rain to take photos while staying in the little town of Yangshao. It was great fun! I was using my Sony A7r and my Leica 35mm f/1.4 which requires manual focus. Naturally, this means I need both hands to take photos. Luckily I had my guide Andy with me to help hold the umbrella!
We just announced the Lightroom Tutorial! It’s the latest thing I’ve released, and I think you’re really gonna love it. It’s for beginners and beyond. We get into some pretty advanced stuff in the end, but don’t let that scare you if you’re a beginner… I take you through everything step-by-step. You’re going to be surprised all the fun cool stuff you learn in Lightroom!
LIVE Photo Editing and Q&A event on August 7th at 6PM PDT
If you purchase Trey’s Lightroom Tutorial before August 8th you’ll get an extra 20% off (use the coupon code LIGHTROOMWEB) and you’ll be invited to Trey’s exclusive LIVE Photo Edit and Q&A session. Can’t make it? No worries, we’ll record the whole thing for you!
Now, let’s me show you some before/after action! 🙂 These are all just single images and only edited with Lightroom.
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It’s hard to say which of the photos I edit in the Lightroom Tutorial are my favorite, but this is certainly one of them. You can see the original above, and it’s not all that different, but there is something very nice and magical that is transformed when the colors are moved about a little bit… Maybe you can see what I mean! 🙂
This girl was walking around in the wet streets of Yangshao, China
Did any of you see 47 Ronin? Some of the scenes in that movie are just unbelievable… in fact, I think that scene when they go to the slaver ships is one of the coolest backgrounds I’ve ever seen in a movie! Here’s a still from it. It didn’t turn out to be the greatest movie ever made or anything… but some of the scenes in there are really beautiful!
There are thousands of little rivers that flow through these huge karst mountains. Fisherman have been around here forever, and I like this idea that this scene could have happened almost any time in history. There are fewer fishermen nowadays, but they can still be seen. We were with some locals that knew some of the fisherman, so we were able to go out on another boat to find them… He looked so cool from a distance as we were approaching, so I tried to grab the photo in that style.
