The Freeman View » What I’m doing now…

27/08/2010

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:45:57 +0000

What I’m doing now

…is looking at websites on photography. Not an easy task, because there’s no filter I can think of that discriminates between interesting and worthwhile… and the rest. Gareth and I have been talking about the vocational aspects of the courses, now even more important since the BA (Hons) in Photography was validated earlier this year, and this has stimulated me to begin to put together a select list of sites that you may find useful. A very select list at the moment, and I’m more than happy to take recommendations so that we can expand it carefully.

10/04/10

admin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 07:53:41 +0000

Back in China, and increasingly fascinated with the contrast between modern and old, and the way that they fit together. I just left the town of Leshan in Sichuan, a couple of hours drive south of the capital Chengdu. It’s famous for having the world’s largest Buddha, 71 metres tall, built between 713 CE and 803, carved out of the red sandstone cliffs on the Minjiang River.

28/2/2010

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:39:28 +0000

I’m now in Colombia, and for the last two weeks in Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast. This is South America’s second oldest colonial city (the slightly older one is Santa Marta, a two-to-three hour drive up the coast) and its best preserved. One of my walks is around the old city on top of the old walls, and I can do most of it without a break.

13/01/2010

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:12:10 +0000

Oh… I only just realised that I’ve ignored this part of the site for a long time. Maybe this is why I find Twitter impossible (quite apart from never being able to say anything in just a couple of lines)

26/9/09

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:21:26 +0000

This trip now drawing to a close, as well it should after seven weeks on the road. Today I just returned from a twelve-day drive through Tibet east of Lhasa, ending at Qamdo, which brings the total mileage for the month up to a little short of 4,000 kilometres, all in 4WDs, a little of it on surprisingly good roads but much of it on predictably bad ones. The worst of all are the roads under construction, as is a large part of the national highway between Sichuan and Tibet. Endless delays as vehicles have to give way along muddy detours (and no drivers like doing that). Many of the passes are over 5,000 metres, and when the weather turns….. But what am I complaining about? Toyota Land Cruiser is luxury – you could always do it the hard way…

14/09/2009

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:33:05 +0000

After Yunnan, on to western Sichuan and its high grasslands, Tibetan culture. A 12-day drive along various parts of the tea road towards Tibet. For Tibet proper (meaning the T.A.R.), we need four permits to drive around, and that takes time, so I’m first doing the Sichuan side and then, after a couple of days in the capital, Chengdu, flying to Lhasa to pick up another 4WD vehicle. In fact, flying tomorrow, as the first of our permits has just arrived by courier at the hotel (can’t fly without).

31/08/09

admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:17:53 +0000

Back in Yunnan, following the tea road. After a couple of days in the capital, Kunming, I drive to Dali, which is well-established on the tourist map. So much so that, despite having been an important stop on the Tea-Horse Road from the tea mountains in the south of Yunnan up towards Tibet, it’s not at all an easy place to photograph. Comfortable enough in a Lonely Planet sort of way, and architecturally still intact, but awash with tourists, mainly Chinese, and an abundance of trinket shops. Still, I worked at it and came up with some good and useful shots. This below has nothing to do with tea, but one morning at the market yielded the pork trading, lively, messy and good-natured. One pig per iron basket, as you can see here….

24/08/2009

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:41:12 +0000

This several-week trip began in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago. A week there photographing contemporary interiors for a new book, and attending Hong Kong’s first tea fair, as part of my current book project on tea. Then to near the city of Chongqing in central China, with my Chinese clients who are two years into building a new luxury hot spring resort – the Brilliant at BeiBei. August probably isn’t the ideal time to visit what the Chinese call one of their four ‘stove cities’, an apt description for somewhere that reaches 40 degrees, married to high humidity, but that’s the way the trip worked out. Half of it ‚ the hot spring half, is finished; the rest is a construction site. So just a few days of shooting right now, trying to work up shots that can be used in pre-publicity, with the main shoot scheduled for when the construction is finished, maybe April or May next year. Of course, the bizarre quality of shooting a hot spring in August is that there’s precious little difference in temperature between the water and the air, so you can basically choose between a hot bath or a sauna.

11/08/2009

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:12:07 +0000

After last month’s filming in Singapore for Sony, I just returned from Rome, where I joined the Magidson Films crew at the Vatican.

Nostalgia for the old days of film? Try this — A/C Alex Falk loading 70mm film. And lifting one of the two O’Connor cameras would definitely make you think twice before complaining about the weight of a DSLR.

Sunlight streaming through the windows of the dome moves rapidly across the walls and floor in the early morning and late afternoon, revealing special moments for just minutes at a time.

24/07/09

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:15:21 +0000

I’ve been doing very little shooting in this last month for the entirely necessary reason of developing this website – as well as making the picture selection for a new book, to be called The Art of Photography, and as well as working on the sequel to The Photographer’s Eye. In fact, the only serious assignment I’ve had time to do was a two-day shoot in Singapore for Sony. And when I say shoot, I mean that I spent most of the time on the other side of the camera, as we were filming a promotional video for the new Sony A900 (well, newish).