So I’ve already posted a little about a kind of project I’ve been doing shooting panoramic street photography on a Hasselblad Xpan with a 45mm and Fujifilm Provia 100F slide film. I’ve kind of been doing this as a break from commercial and editorial photography and also to explore different parts of Shanghai.
Apart from keeping to the same kind of film, focal length and format, I’ve been shooting in the same kind of light when it’s available and I’m free or inclined to shoot in it. Although that is giving some stylistic consistency, I’ve been trying to freshen things up a little over the last couple of hot months by heading to places like Changning District and Xujiahui. I had started to feel I was often treading over the same ground and seeing the same things whenever I walked out my door to shoot in the Former French Concession.
Another way I’ve also been making things a little different is by getting up super early to catch the morning light. As I mentioned before, it’s been great to see the familiar places (literally) in a different light, but it’s a pity that hardly anyone is up at first light, which currently appears not long after 5:30 AM. Although there is a certain novelty in seeing Shanghai’s streets deserted, it’s not really an accurate representation of the bustle of this city of 24 million or so people (part from during Chinese New Year when millions head to their families in other provinces). Regardless, photographing empty streets isn’t what I’m out to do, although sometimes that’s what I’ll end up doing
In China, everyone in the entire country lives on Beijing time, wherever they are. One thing I do miss of being out of Shanghai, is the long summer and autumn nights. Although I’ve been travelling a bit in China on assignment over the last couple of years, mainly for commercial photography, I do miss being able to easily travel abroad. Seeing a new part of Shanghai, or even a part of I haven’t spent much time in gives me a hint of the same kind of feeling of being stimulated by seeing something with fresh eyes.
Apart from looking to shoot a few shots as vertical panorama, another thing that I plan to do with this series of Shanghai daily life is shoot a little more dusk and night-scapes. One photographer who work I really love is Greg Girard (IG gregforaday). The guy has been shooting longer than I’ve been alive and has an incredibly body of work from cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai. One stylistic hallmark of his work is shooting slide film at night in mixed light temperatures. Mixed light temperatures is also something the cinematographer Christopher Doyle became known for while he was working with Wong Kar Wai. Anyway, Girard has wonderful knack for shooting streetscapes at night as well as an eye for details that build a narrative. I think his book Phantom Shanghai is one of the best things anyone has shot in this city for the last couple of decades.
Of course as we are living in a city that in some ways is disappearing around us, many photographers in Shanghai find themselves documenting this. However, if we do we’re all in Girard’s shadow.
Anyway, here are some new panoramas from the other week:
