14 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in art, exhibition, music, Performance, Photography, Theatre
Tags
Art, Artspace, Chicks on Speed, exhibition, iPhone, music, performance
I didn’t have my canon with me with me at the opening of the Chicks on Speed exhibition last night so I used my iPhone. It’s a bit tricky taking photos of movement with the phone as you have to anticipate where the movement is going to compensate for the shutter delay. And then there is always the soft images and the blurring… but their performance was so outrageously fun that I had to snap away.
13 Thursday Dec 2012
Posted in China, Photography, Theatre, Travel
Tags
blurred images, canon 5D, childhood, China, joyfull, memories, movement, photography, Play, Poppet, Tongli, travel
We arrived back in Australia yesterday and its hard to let go of China. I miss it already. I’ve been going through some of my photos in an attempt to hang on to the sensation of being there and I found these of Poppet in Tongli. He found the little lane way and used it as a playground. I thought it was a great opportunity to take a few photos of him that captured his free spirit and playfulness. As I was snapping away a small crowd gathered to watch. I think they might have thought it was a some sort of photo shoot. However, it was just a mother trying to freeze and contain a few precious moment of her darling son.
07 Friday Dec 2012
Posted in China, Photography, Theatre, Travel
Tags
China, cormorants, fishing, Oarsmen, Oarswomen, photography, Shanghai, Tongli, tourism, Venice, water towns
We were taken to the beautiful water town of Tongli last weekend. Apparently, unlike some of the other water towns around Shanghai, it is still all about the locals and local tourism. With houses backing right up to the canals and lovely old bridges it’s just charming. Like Venice the tourists take rides on long thin boats that are oared by a single ‘oarsman’. Unlike Venice though the oarsmen are mostly women.
While I was wandering around with my camera I noticed a small fishing boat with a passenger load of cormorants.
As I started taking photos a weathered but rather spritely old fisherman jumped on board and put on a show with the birds. He nudged a couple of them into the water with his pole. They ducked under a few times and when they popped up he guided them back onto the pole. Once on the boat, he slid open a floor plank and stroked their necks, at which point —accompanied by a few gasps from the crowd— the birds coughed up a fish. This was all done with great dramatic effect. He sure did know how to keep his audience in suspense. When he jumped back onto land he collected money from a satisfied audience. It would have to be the best street/water performance I’ve seen for a long time.
21 Wednesday Nov 2012
Posted in China, Photography, Theatre, Travel
Tags
China, Hangzhou, Impressions, photography, Westlakes, Zhang Yimou
‘Am I dreaming or is this for real?’ That’s what poppet asked me a couple of minutes into Zhang Yimou’s live show Impression West Lake. I wasn’t sure how to answer because I felt like I was hallucinating myself. The performance takes place on the West Lake of Hangzhou. And I mean actually on the lake. Performers emerge from the darkness and walk on the water. Sometimes a single figure or a couple glides past, at other times what seems to be 100 performers charge through the water so that it splashes around catching the light forming crystals and making patterns. In the background willow trees are gently illuminated by beams of coloured light. Structures, the size of a building, emerge from the water and then disappear underneath again. The costumes are traditional Chinese dress of deep red, emerald green, lively pinks, yellows and earthy browns and greys. A two storied house floats past with dancers and a bride. The music shifts from long swooning tones to loud dramatic drumming and back again. Everything is ghostly. And until today it still feels like a dream to me. I want to return to see if it’s real or just an impression.
We were on the lake ourselves. Sitting enclosed in glass on a Chinese barge that was moored on the edge of the lake. Watching the performance through the glass panels of the boat sometimes produced the effect of watching early cinema, except in colour.
Impression West Lake is the creation of Wang Chaoge, Fan Yue and Zhang Yimou. Zhang directed the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics. He’s also one of China’s most famous directors. His last few films like Hero and House of the Flying Daggers have also been hits in the West. I prefer his earlier films like Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern and Ju Dou because they’re more intimate. In any case they are all very visual and have a hypnotic quality. I have never experienced anything like Impression before and find it almost impossible to describe. Words and photos cannot even begin to capture the spectacular and yet dreamy quality of the event, however, that is all I have so I leave you with a few photos.
My Tiny Italian Garden 