Category Archives: travel

Day One in Chengdu, Continued…

Continuing the report on my first afternoon in Chengdu, China: after visiting the Jinli Ancient Street, it was time to see the modern side of the city. Chunxi Road offers an entirely different shopping experience with high-end brands and the most giant of all giant pandas, scaling one of the buildings:

Step into the shopping mall and ride a few escalators up to… maybe the fourth floor (?)… and you find yourself face-to-face with the panda:

Obviously a popular photo opp. Heading back down through the shopping center, I couldn’t help but check out the grocery store. Always one of my favorite things to see in any country, this one was extremely posh — but not so posh as to be too good to put everyone’s favorite stinky fruit, durian, on display front and center:

Hungry now, we were off for a “snack” at a local tea house. The “snack” was eventually deemed enough to suffice as dinner and it was time to head back to the hotel to prepare for the actual tourism festival events, which would start with a long bus ride first thing in the morning.

China’s Sichuan Province

Last month I was invited to attend the 2015 Sichuan International Cultural Tourism Festival held in Yibin, China. It was my second time in China, but my first in the province of Sichuan. With just enough time to send my passport off for a new 10-year visa, the next thing I knew I was packing up and heading off to explore a region I knew mostly the by the Americanized version of its cuisine.

I arrived on August 22nd after what I believe must have been very nearly 24 hours in the air, separated into three flights: KC to LA, LA to Beijing, and Beijing to Chengdu. It was about noon when I arrived at my hotel and, after a quick 20 minutes to shower and break out a little camera gear, I was back on the streets of Chengdu to do a little exploring.

The first stop was Wuhou Temple, the Memorial Temple of Marquis Wu (220 – 280).

In addition to cultural relics and historical artifacts, the temple complex includes beautiful gardens and a winding avenue through tall stands of bamboo.

Adjacent to the temple is Jinli Ancient Street, lined with shops, tea houses, restaurants and street food vendors:

Like a Chinese version of a State Fair, every food imaginable that could be put on a stick was being sold to lines of smiling visitors. Shops sold all kinds of local crafts and souvenirs including one stand specializing in shadow puppets:

This boy was demonstrating plastic toys that mimicked the famous mask-changing characters of Sichuan opera:

An eye-opening introduction to Chengdu and Sichuan Province, my first afternoon was just getting started. Next I’d check out some of the more modern architecture and high-end shopping options. Then an afternoon “snack” that turned out to be enough to count as dinner at a local tea house. All that, and more, in the posts to follow…

Kansas 10×5 book

For the past few years, an idea had been brewing. That idea is now a book called “Kansas 10×5” and it’s available from my Blurb bookstore.

I’ve always loved hanging out with other photographers and shooting alongside them. There is something fascinating about how we each see the same things so differently. For years there has been a fluctuating group of local photographers I know that have taken day-trips or long weekends together, just to make photos and have fun. Some of us are professional, others just enthusiasts, but we’re all just shooting for the enjoyment of it and to see how we each approach the same subjects. In the past we’ve had blogs where we would share images or we would just email them around to the group. We talked about doing more — other projects — but we’re a bunch of busy people and it’s hard to make the time for an extensive project and have it fit everyone’s schedules.

When my friend Bhaskar Krishnamurthy moved to Kansas City, he and I also began talking about ways we could work together and ways that he could meet other local photographers. Everything began to come together and the idea of this book evolved.

Initially we wanted to have photographers from all over the country descend on Kansas for 10 days to shoot a book. Our attempts to find funding were less than spectacularly successful so we eventually pulled back to the idea of using more local photographers. Doug Stremel and Ferry Keizer had already been on board from the local photographer’s group I mentioned, and Doug suggested adding Earl Richardson to replace a couple of out-of-state photographers that couldn’t make it. I’d known Earl only by his work but when I met him one morning with Doug for breakfast, it was easy to see that he was a great fit.

So we settled on the five of us and 10 days. The ratio of 10×5 made sense (2-1), as it is basically the same proportion as the state itself, which measures 400 miles by 200 miles. So the 10×5 name explained the 10 days + 5 photographers, the shape of the state, and even led to the development of the grid for the layout of the book. It’s a 12″ square hard-cover so, when opened, it is 24″ x 12″ — the same 2-1 ratio as the state.

But to get to the point, we ended up with what I think is a really fun book. Five guys’ impressions of a state that they either grew up in or found later in life and now call home. Each made their own path for the most part, but we all met on one night to photograph the Symphony in the Flint Hills event together.

I want to thank Bhaskar, Ferry, Doug and Earl for their participation and cooperation on this book. It was a project that was great fun for me, and I hope you check out the preview on Blurb and enjoy it as well. Over the coming days, I’ll post a some out-takes of mine from the book, and maybe a few behind the scenes stories. Stay tuned…

Stock photography report: Germany

I do my best to keep on top of all of my stock photography sales, but every agency reports a little differently. I recently received a quarterly report from one agency covering the period of November 2014 through January 2015. As I entered the images into my tracking report, I noticed a larger number than usual were shot in Germany. That same day, I spotted two sales of Germany images on my Alamy account — which I can check online daily.

You never know how much to read into these reports, but I do like to look for trends of which country’s images seem to be most in demand at any given time. These past few months have been the best for my Germany images by far. I look forward to seeing if the trend continues.

The images I’m featuring here are not necessarily the ones that were on this report, but it seemed like a good excuse to dig back into my files from Germany and share a few favorites. Above are two from Leipzig, and here are some teacups on display in the Grassi Museum — also in Leipzig:

And a couple from beautiful Dresden:

Biking and Hiking in Phoenix

One more series from last month’s shoot in Phoenix, Arizona. Here are a few hiking/biking shots. Special thanks to good folks at Arizona Outback Adventures and Visit Phoenix for pulling everything together and being such great travel companions. You all are the best!

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The Grand Canyon

I consider myself to be fairly well-traveled — especially within the United States — but, even so, there are a few top-tier destinations that have eluded me for no good reason. The Grand Canyon has been one of those until last month. It had become almost embarrassing to admit that I had never seen it but now I can put those days behind me.

Statistics show that the average visitor spends very little time in the park — like as little as an hour, with maybe only a few minutes at an actual overlook. While I didn’t spend a huge amount of time there either, I did beat the average and actually got to see the canyon from the air, from the perspective a trail, and I photographed both a sunset and sunrise from the rim. Not bad for a first visit, but I’d happily return for much, much more. I feel I barely scratched the surface, and that is probably an overstatement.

Sunset:

Sunrise:

Mondrian Bike

I’ve been woefully neglect in my posting here on the ol’ blog, but it’s not for lack of shooting. I’ve accumulated plenty of images over the last few weeks that will provide all kinds of fodder for the blog, I just need to kick myself back into the habit of posting. Sorry! There really is more on the way — and soon. Until then, here’s a colorful bike I saw at the uber-cool Graduate Hotel in Tempe, AZ a couple of weeks ago. Am I the only one it reminds of Mondrian?

California State Capitol

I’m just getting settled back in from a trip to Sacramento, California, where I attended a board meeting of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). In between rain showers and meetings, I did manage to get out and shoot a little. This shot came from a short afternoon outing where I just walked the few blocks around my hotel, limiting myself to just my 85mm Rokinon lens. It was threatening rain, I wanted to travel light, and I sometimes enjoy that limitation of one focal length to force myself to see a bit differently.

But for this shot, I really needed a wide angle. The capitol grounds are filled with trees so there was no “zooming with my feet” for this one. If I stepped back further, my view became obstructed. Instead, I shot a grid of about eight or nine images and stitched them all together later in Photoshop. A nice side benefit is that it resulted in a really large file, should anyone ever want to order a reeeeeeeally large print.

On this day in 2011

Every now and again I get curious about where I’ve been on this day one, two, ten years ago. Thanks to Lightroom and digital metadata it’s now easy to figure out where I was — at least it is if I managed to take a photo on that day. Four years ago today, I was in San Diego and made this image at sunset. Wouldn’t mind being back there right now.

New Spain book just arrived

There was a package waiting for me at the Post Office today that contained sample copies of my two new Spain books. One is a Spanish-language version of the book I previously made on the Extremadura region (blogged about here last May) and the other is a brand new title in the Journals of a Travel Photographer Series — Spain2: Five Days Exploring the Province of Granada. Both are now available on my Blurb bookstore.

Here’s the cover of the Spanish version of the first book on Extremadura:

and this is the cover of the new book on Granada:

If you’re a follower of this blog, you’ve probably seen a few images from this book already, but here are some sample spreads from Spain2:

There are 80 pages in Spain2 and over 90 photos from Granada, Lanjaron, Almunecar, Guadix and other locations in the province of Granada. Here are a few more of the images featured:

More information on both of these titles — and others in the Journals of a Travel Photographer Series — is available at the Blurb store and my own website. Thanks to everyone who helped with, or was a part of, these trips to Spain. I hope to see you all again soon.

More to come in 2015!

Michael C. Snell photography blog

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