Shanghai... tips???

[Scott Rosenberg]

hey guys,

i was just asked to head over to Shanghai for 10 days in early September. given a little more notice, i would have made arrangements to spend some time in Huangshan, however, due to the short notice, i'm going to be pretty much spending all my time around Shanghai.

any suggestions for interesting places to shoot over there?

thanks!
scott

[Steve Goldstein]

There's a small "water city" called Zhouzhuang (pronounce as joe-jwang) a bit over an hour away. It's touristy, and bills itself as the best of the best (it isn't, see Suzhou), but it's quite pretty. Access is by hired car or bus tour, we hired a car and driver for the day. Further away, each maybe 2 hours by bus from Shanghai and from each other, are Suzhou and Hangzhou. Both have been famous for their beauty for over a thousand years. The old part of Suzhou has a number of beautiful gardens of varying sizes, you can spend a lot of film here, and time waiting for the tourists to give you a clear shot. The main draw at Hangzhou is West Lake and the parks surrounding it. There's also a large and famous Buddhist temple complex there called Ling Yin Temple.

Shanghai itself is enormous and very modern - my first thought upon arriving was "Tokyo". Don't waste your money on the little tourist train under the harbor, unless you really like Disneyland. The National Art Museum there is a good take.

If you go to Suzhou, try to get to the Silk Museum. It's the only museum I've found in China with free admission, and is really quite interesting. Plus it has fabulous shops. Not much to photograph inside, but man does not live by camera alone!

I carry my Mamiya 7 and 3 lenses, plus a digital whatsis for color snaps, when I go to China (every year or two, most of my wife's family still live there). I just don't want to deal with LF amid the crush of people. On the other hand, I bought my 4x5 Shen-Hao from a dealer in Guangzhou (wife's home-town) for $400 and carried it back

And you're right about Huangshan, I hope you can get there sometime.

HTH

[Ron Marshall]

Another vote for Suzhou. But try to get there early to get the mist on the canals and to beat the tourist hordes.

Don't miss the National art museum. If you see anything you like they sell excellent reproductions for reasonable prices.

[Scott Rosenberg]

thanks for the suggestions, fellas. Suzhou sounds like a great side-trip!

[nicol_verheem]

tip #4 : stay in the Grand Hyatt. Worth every penny.

Tip #5 : Read up / brush up on the night time cityscapes technique. Pudong is one of a few areas I would consider nice to shoot at night.

nlv