Portraits and travel photography
  • home
    • about
    • contact
    • blog
  • portraits
  • News photography
  • travel
  • food
  • interiors
  • Prints for sale

8/2/2016

Chinese New Year in Shanghai

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Happy New Year!
Welcome to the Year of the Monkey!

Ten years ago I went to Shanghai to take photographs of Chinese New Year. I loved being in Shanghai (though I found its sheer size quite alarming) and the atmosphere of people celebrating with their families. There were shops full of colourful decorations, there were beautiful lanterns all over the place, and I noticed that the default colour for a winter coat is red, not black as it is in Britain. ​

Some of the photos I took then are already on the Travel page of this website, so I won't repeat them here. On Chinese New Year's Day itself, I went out to the Longhua Temple and spent the day taking photos of the celebrations. People were lighting incense, burning paper money, saying prayers and so on. As the day wore on the piles of ash from bundles of burnt incense grew higher and higher.
​
Normally I'm very reticent about photographing people that I can't talk to about it, but people seemed to be very relaxed about my presence and sometimes sign language and smiling a lot was enough to get a portrait taken.

Picture
I am usually a person who works hard but with regular breaks for snacks and meals: I need to be fed and watered regularly! But that day I started taking photos at about 11am, after having taken 2 buses to get there. The first time I stopped and thought to myself, 'I need a drink and some food,' was about 5pm. I have never worked with such obliviousness to the passage of time.

Share

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

Details

    Author

    Anna Watson: photographer, parent, juggler

    Archives

    January 2019
    January 2018
    November 2016
    October 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    May 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Categories

    All
    Activists
    Celebrity
    Christiana Wyly
    Clapham Film Unit
    Demotix
    Fashion
    Heritage Lottery Fund
    Model
    Motherhood
    Mums
    Old Age
    Peace
    Skin
    Skunk Anansie
    Suffragettes
    WILPF
    Women In Arts
    Working Mothers
    Working Mums
    World War I
    WWI
    Yvette Cooper

    RSS Feed

All photographs copyright Anna Watson, not to be reproduced without permission.  For all enquiries please contact [email protected]
  • home
    • about
    • contact
    • blog
  • portraits
  • News photography
  • travel
  • food
  • interiors
  • Prints for sale