Nanjing, China

By Tom Paiva on

In continuing with the blog post from a couple of weeks ago on China, I’d like to share some images shot in Nanjing.

After two weeks in Shanghai, we wanted to move on to another location and initially, we had thought about Beijing, but the idea of another huge city sounded like too much for us both, since we only had 6 days left.  We made our decision the day before and chose Nanjing for several reasons; its history as the ancient capital of China; it’s the largest walled city in the world; it has a large system of canals and parks; and was less than two hours by high speed rail from Shanghai.  Another huge plus which we did not know at the time, was that it was 20 degrees cooler than in Shanghai–a welcome respite.

Nanjing is not small, by any means, as its population is nearly 8 million, comparable to New York City, the largest city in the US.  To get a handle on the population of China; the US has 9 cities with over a million while China has over 160 cities with over a million souls.  Like many things about China, these statistics are difficult to comprehend for Americans.

The tree lined city’s historical district were still teaming with people, as this city has visitors from all over the world, but mainly Chinese tourists.  We were told it was a popular getaway location for Shanghainese, especially on weekends.  We arrived on a Thursday, and by the weekend the hotel was full and so were the shopping districts and museums.  American ex-patriots living in Shanghai suggested we stay in a 5-star Chinese hotel for a third the price of a western chain.  The hotel was deluxe in a great location, but we had a hard time finding an English speaker.  We were the only Anglos at the hotel we saw the 6 days we stayed there.

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This twilight image was taken from a sidewalk cafe of one of the hundreds of canal boats.  I was concerned with the major problem of mosquitoes that is common in hot, humid canal areas like this, as I am typically the first to get bitten.  That is one of the common problems of being out at twilight.  There were definitely thousands of mosquitoes, but also hundreds of sparrows darting after them.  Within a few minutes the sparrows changed to bats and there were even more of them than the sparrows zooming within a few feet of us as they feasted on the mosquitoes.  I got only two bites during my entire stay in Nanjing thanks to this balance of the ecosystem.

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These next two images were taken from one of the dozens of bridges over the canals with the aid of a tiny fit-in-your-pocket tripod.  I did several, and these two came out the best with the light trails from the moving boats.

As you can see, the traffic on the canals is quite heavy!  These are 30 second exposures.

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Our hotel was right next to the gateway to the Confucius Temple, and we had a view from the front of the hotel.  The window opened about 6 inches, allowing a tripod and camera to be positioned without shooting through the dirty glass.  Here is a shot of the camera set up, shot from the other opening window.  It is followed by a time lapse I did that evening in the rain.

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It rained off an on during our stay in Nanjing which made for very humid conditions.  This vendor obviously had enough of being cooped up in his stall, and the rest of his family was put to work.  This man really shows how the heat and humidity made for shorter days out and about as it take so much out of you.  Living in Southern California, we are not used to this humidity.  I shot this while leaning against a pole to keep steady.  I had to shoot three to get one sharp enough.  His family was laughing as I shot this.

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One of the highlights of Nanjing was the City Wall, a nearly 16 mile wall around the city (originally 22 miles, built over 600 years ago).  This gives a great perspective of some of the most beautiful parts of the city and some of the poorest, too.  I left one afternoon while Lee was dealing with some “digestive issues” and climbed on to the wall near our hotel.  It is almost 50 foot wide on top and I wound up walking it for hours alone until I found an exit down.  I saw but one couple while walking the wall.  Again, my little tripod and Sony NEX-5 were with me, and afternoon became twilight into darkness.  I was lucky that it stopped raining once I was on the wall.

This shot was done from one of the wall crenelations, which is about 50-60 feet above the streets below.  This is at twilight on a heavy overcast evening overlooking an exclusive area of canals and bridges.  The orange light is from a sodium vapor lamp spilling up into the tree.

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From this twilight shot, you can see a temple and the skyscrapers of downtown in the distance.  In the center is one of many privately owned restaurants.  We stumbled on these when we went into one asking for directions.  There is such a wide range of income distribution in China that the very wealthy can afford to own their own restaurants for entertaining friends and clients that are not open to the public.  This was the first time I had heard of these.

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As you can see, the vantage point of the wall gives one the sense of being a voyeur.  Here a woman sits and watches TV in her simple apartment.  I found a vantage point between the trees and showing a pair of the many high rise apartment buildings in the background.   There is still a touch of light in the overcast twilight.

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Here is another back patio of an apartment lit by the flicker of the TV.  Note the solar hot water heaters on the rooftops.  These are seen most everywhere in China.

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Here is a section of the wall.  Nanjing, then known as Nanking, was brutally attacked by the Japanese in 1937.  They blew up sections of the wall to gain entry.  Over 700,000 were killed over a period of weeks as the army overtook the city.  Known as the “Rape of Nanking”, it was a foreshadowing of the brutality of WWII in the Pacific that was to come.  We visited a newly built museum to the Chinese “holocaust”, that was quite graphic by western standards and left little to the imagination of the horrors committed by the Japanese army.

It is now night time, but the ambient light of the city on the overcast night makes it look like twilight.  The glowing light at the end of the wall is a staircase down to street/canal level.  The exposure is about 15 seconds, shot with the mini tripod sitting on the wall.

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This shot is from the end of the wall where I climbed down to street level.  There is a bright light out of view blocked by a the wall and another light out of view behind the abutment on the lower left.  Finding the right vantage point was the most difficult task, as I had to lean the camera/tripod on the side of the wall.  I like the purple glow on the lower left structure from blue LED lighting.

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One of the niceties of this trip was my decision to upgrade using frequent flier mileage to first class on American Airlines’ new non-stop service from LA to Shanghai.  Other than the fine French champagne and made to order dinners (including “home-made” ice cream made on the aircraft with your choice of toppings!) the amount of space you have allows you to swivel and to fully recline.  The comforts of first class are many but one of the most important is that it makes a 12-13 hour flight seem like a trans-continental 5-6 hour flight in coach.  This is a 6 second exposure taken somewhere over the Pacific with the camera/tripod against the bulkhead at the toilet, while everyone slept.  It was almost totally dark to the naked eye.  My seat was the one in the middle, in row 2.  It was like traveling by jet in 1960, with all the amenities of that very different era.  I did wander back through business class to coach just to see the seating configuration on the Boeing 777 and it was packed back in “steerage” with not a single seat open, and noisy with crying babies–typical coach airline travel in 2011.  After almost three weeks, it felt good to come home.

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