From Beijing, we flew west to Lanzhou, capital of northwest China’s Gansu province. We were only in Lanzhou for one night before beginning the second portion of our three-part press tour. It all began with a few days getting our land legs in Beijing and now we were heading into the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. In a few days, we’d be back in Lanzhou for part three, to take a high-speed train further west to follow the historic Silk Road.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
This photo gallery is from the first morning in Lanzhou. Before heading out of town, we made a stop at a Lanzhou food market. Markets are one of my favorite things to photograph and I don’t think I’m alone in that. Food is a special element of any culture and seeing where and how it is sold is a unique window into the soul of a place. Plus they are full of activity and color. What more could you want.
But enough words. Here are some photos from that market in Lanzhou, China:
PHOTOGRAPHER’S NOTES:
I went pretty minimal as far as gear goes on this morning at the Lanzhou market. I took only my Nikon D850 with the 17-35mm zoom. That’s kind of my comfort zone when shooting in tight spaces like this. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a mid or short telephoto with me to make some tighter portraits. In market situations I’m so in awe of everything around me that I tend to want to include too much. It’s generally better to edit your composition and not try and include all the eye can see. Luckily, with the big files from the D850 I can crop a little and not lose much information. Some of these tighter shots are probably closer to 50mm in angle of view, after some light cropping. I was always taught to crop in camera, but rules are meant to be broken, right?
Checking my metadata I can see that we were only at the market for 35 minutes so it really was a situation of moving fast and not over-thinking things. In the end, it was probably the right thing to do to take just the one lens.
