As they say, practice makes perfect (though this should be practice improves things, lots and lots of practice might make perfect).

Here is another time lapse with better stabilisation and refined settings.

I was lucky enough to have a weekend in NYC between the conference and coming to Toronto.

Somewhat by accident I managed this photo, which I quite like.

I had been working on making an HDR shot with three photographs of the same subject differently exposed, but included a out of series photo by mistake. The effect though is quite nice.

I had better luck with the Apple Store on 5th Avenue.

I’m in Toronto for work but have managed to experiment properly with time lapse photography for the first time.

The first one I didn’t stabilise the tripod properly and there are some wobbles when we move on to the balcony to check all is going well.

The second one is technically better I think, but a little less interesting, and I got impatient at the end so it seems rushed.

For both time lapse series, the camera was set to f18 in aperture priority mode and I moved the ISO up during the sunset (from 100 to 800 in steps).

The first one was taking using a 24-70mm lens, the second one using a 14mm wide angle.

Hopefully, I’ll have more time another evening.

I’m a little behind posting updates (as I write the students are not long on the plane and I still have 4 or so days to write up).

Our Wednesday in Xian was spent at Xian International Studies University (XISU), which is one of four specialist institutions that teach and examine in foreign languages.

Our day at XISU was a treat, the highlight of which was a play performed by the XISU students. The day started with a warm welcome from the head of the business school (Professor Pan) and some remarks on our time in China from me. Then the students performed an adaptation by Yuan Yizhou of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (with Chinese characteristics). In the play Shylock is reappraised as a Chinese merchant and the adaption explores issues of cross cultural adaptation and communications.

I have a recording of the play and video footage of most of it, but no photographs. Hopefully, I can edit the audio and post it in due course.

After the play, students enjoyed lunch together and discussed issues arising from the play as well as the usual subjects of mutual interest.

After lunch we headed to the station for the last of the overnight train trips.

Tuesday we spent visiting the Huxia painting village with students from Xian International Studies University.

The village is home to three prominent painters in the peasant painter tradition.

Here is one of the painters holding one of his paintings.

The day’s activities provided an excellent opportunity for a number of new experiences. First, Nottingham and XISU students had the chance to interact with each other for a full day. Second, their interactions were nicely structured by the visit to the painting village, where the painters paint agriculture scenes anchored in socialist collectivisation. Third, we got to examine the painting and have a lesson from a prominent painter of the tradition. Fourth, we had meals in family homes, to understand different culinary traditions. Finally, we got to examine another model of cultural industry development.

In the photos below we see the artist Pan Xiaoling demonstrating paper cuts, students working together on their papercuts and paintings and some of the outputs of their outcomes.

You can see an interview we conducted with Artist Pan Xiaoling on an early trip here

Monday our exploration of history and the commercialisation of culture continued, with a visit to the Terracotta Warriors. The scale and scope of the endevour (the army intended to protect the emperor in the afterlife).

The presentation of them and the commercial environment around them though could do with a little more gravitas.

After our tour of Kangbashi we when to Ordos University, the second time Overseas Project students have visited.

After a warm welcome, the first activity was some group discussions, where students from Nottingham and Ordos Universities shared views and asked questions of each other. Here we see Ordos students asking questions of one of the Nottingham students.

We were then treated to a performance by the Ordos University students, which included calligraphy demonstration (and required participation by our students) and traditional dancing (as well as individual and group singing.

The calligraphy demonstration was excellent, with the Ordos students producing a touching friendship message. The Ordos students were also great teachers, taking two Nottingham students and showing them how to write ‘China’ and ‘England’.

The traditional dancing was a treat, the highlight of which was the Ordos students balancing bowls on their heads while performing the danse.

The day concluded with a group photograph, campus tour and dinner in the student canteen.

As with last year we were treated wonderfully during an afternoon organised by Kate, one of the English teachers at the University. She’s seen in this photo watching the students’ performance.

After one of our few relaxed mornings we headed to Kangbash, a new district in Ordos about 30km from the centre of Dongsheng.

Kangbashi has been built as a city housing about 1 million people, though as yet almost nobody lives there. We all noticed how quiet and peaceful the place was, with almost no cars and very few people.

At the heart of the city are government offices which overlook a magnificent statue of Genghis Khan and his advisors. Genghis Khan is the most famous Mongol, having created the largest empire in human history and setting the foundation for the Yuan dynasty.

The central part of Kangbashi is host to a number of impressive civic buildings, including a new library and museum.

Like Las Vagas, the city rises from land that for much of the year looks like desert, though in summer is grassland.

Less than a week ago I brought myself a new camera. The rational was that I wanted something that I could keep in my pocket and would have low ethnographic impact. The new Panasonic GF1 with 20mm lens does the trick.

The camera has some of the advantages of an SLR, quick shutter (no lag), quick auto focus and interchangeable lenses, but is relatively small. Its not that great in low light and the digital viewfinder is a bit small (but functional).

Unemployed and Shopping

This is a sample photo, taken a night. I could have spent hours trying to get the composition right, its a plaque to unemployed protestors in front of billboards, the one on the left for a shopping mall, the one on the right, out of frame, for Moet champaign.

The most annoying thing so far is that the RAW format is not supported by Apple Aperture (my photo catalogue and editor of choice). The upside this that it forced me to play with Adobe Lightroom (free beta test of version three), which has some editing features that Aperture misses.

Manchester City Centre

This photo was converted to black and white, given a blue tint, a graduated filter and some vignetting.

I have finally finished two hectic weeks of travel through India for work and having worked every weekday and two weekends, a day off was in order.

Given my interest in China, I had a wonder through China Town. It was quite different to the last one I visited (in Liverpool) and seemed to reflect clearly both the length of time since the first Chinese settlers in the 17th century and integration with the local context.

[nggallery id=16]

I didn’t, for example, notice the traditional gateway.

I did notice hints of Chinese culture about it (restaurants, some Chinese characters on signs and carved into buildings), but without these it might have been almost indistinguishable from neighbouring parts of Kolkata (it did, really have the feel of an immigrant community).

What was noticeable was the support for the local communist party, the signs and posters being a legacy, I presume, of the recent elections. West Bengal, though, I as communist state, so this is not necessarily different to other relatively poor neighbourhoods.

Saturday tomorrow and museums.