Postcards from the Creative Journey

Mongolian Tequila on NewYear’s Eve

We checked out of the hotel at the Xang Sha Wan resort and headed to a nearby city and a new (and warmer!) hotel. I may not know much Chinese, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn. Justine, one of our photographers from New York is still without her luggage. One bag, New York to Beijing and it is still MIA two days after her arrival. She is putting up with it as best as possible, but it’s not any fun at all for her. Here she is before getting on our bus to leave to the new hotel. Her attire is not unusual for any of us here in Mongolia. There is nothing between XSW and the North Pole except Siberia and a few barb wire fences.

Justine the Ninja
(with pink ear muffs)

We had the most amazing luncheon at the Holiday Inn. It was the most spectacular in terms of presentation, variety of dishes and quality. I can now say that barbequed ostrich is really pretty good. Something this spectacular and I didn’t even think to pull out my camera. It was the last day before the Photographic Conference Opens and we had to go back to XSW and tend to the last minute chores to do at the Arts Palace. The only thing we had to do was apply labels to each picture. That’s about an hour’s worth of work once the labels have been cut. It took a while to cut all the labels for eleven photographers so we stood around in the dome waiting for the one guy with a box cutter and a T square to cut our labels. Once that was done, I was able to get out around the Arts Palace and take a little walk and photograph some sand because that’s just about all there is around here to photograph.

Classic Dune Grass Image

(It will be better in black and white)

Vertical Dunes

After finishing up the labeling and what not, we headed back to the banquet hall for the Erdos Wedding Feast. I will do my best to describe what happened. We had speeches. We had toasts. We had dinner theatre. It was a musical/dance/gymnastics/soap opera reenactment of a traditional Mongolian Wedding. There was traditional Chinese Music, Mongolian Throat Singing and a whole bunch of over the top dinner theatrics. I would have made some pictures, but the chaos on stage was over shadowed by the chaos in the audience. We were among three hundred or so Chinese Photographers and these folks were out there to get some photographs of the performance. They were jockeying for the best position, flashes were going off all over the place. The first four tables of dignitaries were schmoozing with one another, table hopping, drinking toasts and generally having a great time. All the time this was going on, we were being fed dinner. Lots of dinner. Chinese feasts are non stop. It was exotic, bizarre and delicious. This guy, while ferocious looking was not popular at our table.

In Mongolia if you don't eat the fish...

As the show wound down, the father of the bride carved a whole goat to simulate the actual cuisine of a Mongolian wedding. When you could eat no more, the waitresses delivered heaping platters of various goat parts for your table to eat.

No wedding would be complete without a toast to the bride and groom. So the bride and groom bring a plateful of metal cups and some Mongolian liquor and you must toast the newly wedded couple. It tasted like tequila. Then we had to toast the New Year. Then we had to toast the Conference. Again.

How can you refuse a toast to the bride?

I fell asleep on the bus back to the hotel. Happy New Year.

Apocalyptic Camels

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.

The Weather Inside Isn’t So Good, Either

MyBeijing hotel recorded wake up call roused me from a peaceful sleep at oh-dark-thirty this morning so we could catch our 7:10AM flight to Bautao. We then drove about an hour to Xian Sha Wan and settled into the hotel. After our fabulous lunch (I will not say “free lunch” because we all know there is no such thing.) we headed out to the Arts Palace. The six photographers that were there piled into the Red Army version of a Humvee and we took off for the Palace. We went down the hill, past the camel (two hump variety) corral, past the shaggy Mongolian ponies, across the frozen Yellow River and into what could only be described as a cross between Tatoonie and Degoba (Star Wars fans feel free to correct me). We were four wheelin’ in desert sand dunes on a trip to the Art Palace. To suggest the type of driver we had on this journey there was some talk the driver was a retired kamikaze pilot. The return trip in the dark was truly a religious experience. We did not follow the same route, because there are no roads in the desert.

Lan Yi told us the Arts Palace was the biggest yurt we would ever see. To be fair, it is a modern yurt, essentially , it is a domed structure made by a Canadian company. The floor is desert sand. The show will be hung with cords on a series of wooden posts that have been driven into the sand and connected with rope. It is a really big building, nestled in the middle of some sand dunes. Here’s what it looks like on the inside:

 

We then paid for our free lunch by matting and framing our thirty prints. We did have volunteers help us with this effort. The frames were in two sizes, 50 cm and 80 cm square. Our mats were pre-cut to a size specified by each photographer. All we had to do was assemble the prints, mats and frames. I started about one o’clock and finished up about 5:30 pm. I wound up having to tape my photographs to the masonite backing board of the frame. I will bet the exhibition didn’t buy the special low temperature masking tape.

 

 

I have no idea who these guys are. They spoke as many words of English as I speak Chinese. By the end of the day they were as tired as we were. Why were we tired? Did I mention the sand floor? It was sand. Walking on sand and standing on sand is not easy. Did I mention how cold a Mongolian winter is? How cold was it? It was so cold that my water bottle froze this afternoon. Now I can go back to the hotel room where it is a balmy 15 degrees C.

  
 Zing you water.

Special desert water from Mongolia

Tomorrow morning I am going to go back over to the Arts Palace and sequence the thirty images for my exhibition. Then, I am going to decide how to treat the sand in my exhibit area. I think that one of the exhibition areas will have a sign that says, “Rake trap after you exit.” For the other part of the exhibit area, I thought I might rake the sand smooth, bring in some big rocks and make a little Zen sand garden. Then we will probably try to do some photography around the dome. We could do our own Mongolian version of Star Wars.

Whatever happpens tomorrow won't probably compete with what we did today.

 

 

 

Transient Thoughts

I ducked the snow problems that plagued most of the East Coast on Sunday afternoon and made it to Seattle without a hitch. On Monday, David Best, Brooks Jensen and I left Seattle for Beijing. It was an OK flight. I made it through the movies Inception, Despicable Me and The Expendables, but fell asleep during Triple Tap, a Hong Kong gangster movie. I now appreciate Business Class much more than I did when the company was paying the air fare. As photographers are wont to do, we talked about gear. It's really amusing to me that when I started photography, everyone wanted gear that was bigger. Longer telephoto lenses, cameras that made 8" x 10" negatives, bigger had to be better. At the airport, Dave Best showed us his new Canon camera. It was smaller than my Lumix LX3 and made 14 megapixel files. We have come full circle. Smaller cameras, bigger image files. It's almost embarrassing to be a "serious" photographer and pull our such a small camera. But yet it is up to the most demanding of tasks. We stayed overnight near the airport and made it to Baotou this morning. We had about an hour ride with three other photographers and are going to get settled into our hotel today associated with the Xiang Sha Wan Singing Sands park. Here's what my room looks like

Yan Li, the organizer of the festival took us to lunch at the hotel banquet hall. Until you have eaten Chinese food in China, you do not know what great Chinese food is. Here are a few of the day’s offerings.
(That’s tofu. All I did was take a picture.)
Always a fish dish, mushrooms on the left and one of my favorites, Chinese broccoli on the right. After lunch, I decided to take a stroll out back of the restaurant and make a happy snap of the terrain to show you what the area looks like.
That’s the Yellow River in the foreground, or what’s left of it, I guess, except it’s totally frozen over. What you can't see is the thirty mile an hour wind and the temperature of about nine degrees F. It is really, really, really cold. We are going to the Arts Palace in a little bit to assemble our photographs into the pre-cut mats and frames and get ready for the show. Tonight, one of our hosts will be taking us to a local restaurant for dinner. That will be fun.

Oh, The Weather Outside is Frightful

I'm in a Seattle hotel this morning waiting for my flight to
Beijing. Last night when I came in, it was 40 degrees and rainy.
That's Seattle. The disappointing thing is that last night might be
the best weather I will see in the next two weeks. On
Christmas evening it started to snow in Cary. It kept on snowing
right up until the time I left for the airport about 11:30AM. Thanks
to my late Father In Law's "Cowboy Cadillac" 4WD pick 'em up truck
we were able to get out of the subdivision and to main roads. The
Town of Cary did a really good job of getting the main roads cleared
and it was very easy getting to the airport.

I received the following email this morning from our host, Yan Li.

"Hello, everyone,
I will be on my way to Xiang Sha Wan today, and will meet you ar
Baotou airport. The tempreture is pretty cold there, 10 below 0
(Fahrenheit), so please pack warm clothes."

I can do that, Yan Li. Santa brought me a bunch of warm clothes and
I have packed them.

The festival in Xiang Sha Wan is about landscape photography and
there is time in our schedule to photograph the landscape. It has
not escaped me that the only thing separating Inner Mongolia from
the North Pole is Siberia. Well, that, and a few barb wire fences.
So, I have all the requisite cold weather gear I need to keep warm,
until I need to actually operate the camera. Sometime along the way,
a finger is going to have to push a button to make an exposure. The
answer of course, is mittens. My oldest daughter is very good at
knitting, so she knitted me a pair of mittens to wear when I go out
to make photographs. They are special mittens. Check these out.





Now... For the rest of the story





Yes, indeed, nice, warm, flop top mittens. I can keep my hands nice
and warm right up until I need to make that photograph and then I
can flop the top of mittens to get to those tiny little buttons on
my camera. If I need more warmth, my wife gave me a set of very
warm, very thin gloves that will allow me to use my gloved hands on
the camera.

In a few hours, we will be heading over to the airport to meet my
fellow travelers, Brooks Jensen and David Best for our 11 hour
marathon flight to Beijing. We should arrive in Beijing on Tuesday
afternoon.

The Importance of Technology

 

I’m leaving today! I hope the snow predicted for Raleigh stays east of I-95 so I can start the trek to Xiang Sha Wan without a problem. We rely on technology so much in our lives. Technology is important, especially in photography. The images made for the Xiang Sha Wan show were made in 2006 with a 6 megapixel Fuji S7000 camera. Software advances and skill improvements aside, there is a definite limitation to the size of the image you can make from a six megapixel file. The images for this show are in the 10” x 13” range, about the biggest print one could ask from a six megapixel image.

I am looking forward to using typepad to continue the weekly photo blog. It will be much easier than using the Lightroom web gallery that has served well for the last year. It will take a little bit of time to get all last year’s photographs and comments on the new blog and will take some more time to explore and exploit the advantages offered by the new blog. I hope you will come along for the journey.

A Change of Title

In going over the work to be exhibited in Xiang Sha Wan, I wondered about the title of the body of work, “Hell’s Half Acre.” To me, the concept of hell is distinctly a Christian concept. How would it translate into a culture that is decidedly non Christian? After some brainstorming the problem I decided the show will be exhibited as “Ancient Desert: Etched in Time.” I figured the title of the show more closely relates to the landscape shown in each photograph. The individual pictures will still be enumerated with the Hell’s Half Acre name as a tribute to the location.

 

Starting Over

 

When I finally found the source files I had to start the project over because the current files were created for web viewing, not printing. In the four years since the web project, I have more experience both in editing individual images and creating small ebooks of photographs. Four years ago, I could not create a thirty print show in less than one month. With the advances in software and four years of experience with this software, the show is ready to print. As an artist, I am amazed that work progresses this fast. On the other hand, a photojournalist might look at the same set of circumstances and be thrilled with the generous amount of time to complete this work

"Web only" Projects

I was happy to find all my source files but disappointed to find out that I had no files suitable for printing. The Hell’s Half Acre and Wide Wyoming Projects were web only projects. The final product for both folios was to be viewed on the internet, or downloaded to a computer. I had finished two complete projects, but there was no physical evidence of my work. This seems like a decidedly twenty first century phenomenon for a photographer. Work is done, but you can’t hold it in your hand and give it to someone. The tough part was going backwards from the final documents to find the source files used to create the original projects. That was complicated by the requirement that I needed additional photographs over the number selected for the original two projects. Once I found the old files and decided which ones to use to make the project complete I could begin working on the new project.