After an interesting and productive first day, the weather conditions stared making life
challenging. A day of hiking didn’t yield any interesting images, just exhausting in really hot and humid conditions hiking in difficult terrain. We took a break in the afternoon, then had arrange with our tour guide to shoot a cormorant fisherman, a cultural icon of the area. This didn’t quite work out as planned. We knew things were not quite right when the fisherman turned up on a plastic boat! The chap we got did a demo for president Clinton years ago, but a motorized punt wasn’t quite what we were looking for. My best shot is right, but we were hoping more for something like this.
More after the jump…….
The evening wasn’t a complete bust. As we got back to the boat landing, we were rewarded by a lovely moonrise over Guilin. Never mind the water rats scurrying over our shoes……
Next day was more cultural stuff. I really wanted an image of a water buffalo in a rice paddy, and was obliged by several opportunities. Seeing these really brings home how rural China really is. This is one step above subsistence farming, pretty, but backbreaking labour and inefficient when you have 1.4 Billion people to feed.
A morning spent in an agricultural market was entertaining, seeing the dog meat being prepared in an open restaurant…interesting
The next stop was a traditional Fan and Scroll workshop. These products are hand made and beautifully constructed, by a family business. The best artist is the grandfather, and his work now populates several walls in our house.
The final morning arrived and with a late flight we went looking for fill in opportunities. After a lotus flower farm, we went into the countryside and our taxi promptly broke down in a little village! This was rather fortuitous, as there was this lovely scene right there. This is beautiful landscape, very old and I’ve tried to convey a sense of that here.
While we were wandering around, after I took this shot, a little old man walked down this path! I wasn’t quick enough to get him in the frame, but we found another chap and asked him to take a walk down the path…..
This was a lovely man, who kindly posed for a portrait…..
That’s it for China. We left this area, back to Beijing, where I took the opportunity to take this shot as the closer to our trip. I have lots of material, it was a wonderful experience. We’re exhausted and, as with any trip to China, wiser.
More to come…….
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