Well, I had some time in the schedule this morning because I was caught up with the matting and framing. Mo Burkhart, Brooks Jensen, David Grant and I went down the hill to the camel corral, or might be more appropriately called the camel lot. Say it out loud to understand what a special place it is. I have never been this close to the Bactrian camel before. Heck, I can’t even remember being close to any camel. There’s not much you can say about photographing camels, except one must watch their step around the yard. Anyway, we had a bunch of fun trying to photograph camels. At the end of our hour or so of photographing camels the head camel (driver? Herder? Jockey?) invited us into his office to get warm. It was the warmest we have been in three days. It was wonderful. Mo Burkhart asked him if he had a favorite camel. He said there were two he liked because they were the best looking camels in the herd. He dispatched two of his minions to find these beasts to photograph. Here is Brooks photographing the handsomest camel in the herd.
Brooks (left) andthe handsomest Camel in Xiang Sha Wan.
I spent some time photographing camels and here is one that I thought was pretty good. I am not a Nat Geo type of guy.
That camel is not smoking. It's breath is condensing in the morning air. Did I mention it was cold?
I got bored with the camels after a while and starting walking around. I went outside the camel lot and found a lovely scene by the edge of the river. I would like to visit that scene again, but with some more time.
Trees, Yellow River, Xiang Sha Wan
I had some down time until mid afternoon when we had to go back out to the Arts Palace to sequence the prints. When we piled into our Red Army surplus troop carrier Brooks sat in the front seat and made a video of the trip. I bet it will be on his blog in the not too distant future.
The staff framers installed the glass on the thirty prints we framed yesterday. I had to arrange the prints in the photographic corrals. Our incentive to complete that task quickly was free time to photograph. By the time we quickly arranged the prints, the late afternoon directional light with long shadows on the sand dunes surrounding the Arts Palace. Even better we were told we could take our time coming back to the hotel. We stopped once along the way back to the hotel.
Here’s one of the photos I made out behind the Arts Palace.
Dunes, Xiang Sha Wan
Here’s a picture of the Arts Palace. This whole area has that Star Wars feel to it.
Arts Palace, Tatoonie
On the way back we stopped at the top of a hill and photographed a post apocalyptic picnic area.
Post-Apocolyptic Picnic Area
This will be our last night in Xiang Sha Wan resort. We have finished setting up the show and the only thing left are the labels for the photographs. I wonder if they will be in Chinese and English. We will be moving to a hotel that is about a half hour away from the resort. We have been told it is much better than the current accommodations. The hotel we are staying in was not meant to be occupied in the winter. My room has never been warmer than 16C any time I have been here. This place would be a really great place to photograph if it the temperature ever made it into double digits and the wind was not constantly blowing at 20 mph.
Photographing in these extreme conditions is definitely a special type of photography that has its own set of tools. Due to the weather conditions, I took the Lumix Noisy Cricket camera with me to the Arts Palace. I had the battery completely charged when I started out, yet after about forty minutes out in the cold, the battery signal indicated the battery was almost exhausted. Once I got the battery warm in the hotel room, the battery strength came back.
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