The Fried Crab

The Fried Crab

Peddlers set up stores near the exit of the Huang Long Dong. 
Giving people a chance to grab some snacks after walking and climbing for hours. This snack is fried crabs. Almost wrote it as "fried crap". I smiled at the seller and grab this shot. Are we suppose to eat this as a whole like a soft shelled one with its yellow eyes staring at you!

Needles On Ground

Needles On Ground



Another decent shot that I could get in the Huang Long Dong. This one shows more clearly of the stalagtites growing all around the ground.

Huang Long Dong

Huang Long Dong

This was one of the place that we visited that got me very excited. The air is humid and warm inside (my lens had watervapour formed on it for about half an hour). The whole caves is so huge. We had to take boats inside as there are lakes in the caves. The hundreds of steps going up and down in the cave and the echo that our group made when we all shouted.

One of the waterfalls is breathtaking 50 meters high, the biggest chamber has a floor of 4,000m². And there is a stalagmite called the Holy Needle, which is 19.2m high but only 10cm in diameter. Legend tells, it protects the Dragon King who resides in the dark depths. Because of its value for tourism it was insured in 1998 for 100 million yuan (US$12.1 million). The cave is visited by boats on the cave river.

(courtesy of showcaves.com)

Cave In

Cave In

This was at the famous Huang Long Dong in China. All these stalactites are natural and are formed through hundreds of years. The caves are lit by colourful spotlights placed strategically around the caves. This photo showed the entrance to the even deeper caves where there were even lakes and waterfall in there.

Huanglong Dong (Yellow Dragon Cave) is located in the Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area. This area has spectacular ravines and gorges. The rocks are a mixture of 2/3 quartzite and 1/3 limestone, and while the quartzites form strage rock formations and gorges, the limestone is heavily karstified. The caves are concentrated in the Suoxi River area, where about 40 caves are known. Others are found at the south-east side of Tianzi Mountain.

Huanglong Dong is one of the ten longest caves in China, 11km of passages in four levels. The Chinese are rather acribic in counting the features, so cave contains 13 chambers, 96 passages, 3 waterfalls, 2 underground rivers, 3 pools, and 1 underground lake. Although this list seems a little strange to western eyes, it is still impressive.

(courtesy of showcaves.com)

Pom Pom

Pom Pom

The previous post on feathery plants looks like pom pom when they are shot seperately. The blue had been made more saturated in this picture so as not to let the sky looks too white.



A pom-pon is, at its most basic level, a decorative ball of fluff. Pom-pons may come in many colors, sizes and varieties and are made from a wide array of materials, including fabric, paper, plastic, or occasionally feathers. While not necessarily the most common usage of a pom-pon, the most noticeable and widely-recognized use is generally in Cheerleading and often by fans during other spectator sports.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Feathers in The Sun

Feathers in The Sun

Looks like feathers. White and soft. Back lit from the back giving an overexposed feathers, sunbathing it in the heat. The photo was post processed with an increase in contrast.

The Gorgeous

The Gorgeous

A panorama of the Zhang Jia Jie range. Two photo was pieced in photoshop which was not the best idea to do (PTgui is much more versatile just that the software wasn't on hand). The fog initially gave me trouble with the strong sun in the afternoon but it prove otherwise as the sun sinks lower.



Panoramic photography soon came to displace painting as the most common method for creating wide views. Not long after the introduction of the Daguerreotype in 1839, photographers began assembling multiple images of a view into a single wide image. In the late 19th century, panoramic cameras using curved film holders employed clockwork drives to scan a line image in an arc to create an image over almost 180 degrees. Digital photography of the late twentieth century greatly simplified this assembly process, which is now known as image stitching. Such stitched images may even be fashioned into crude virtual reality movies, using one of many technologies such as Apple Computer's QuickTime VR or Java. A rotating line camera such as the Panoscan allows the capture of very high resolution panoramic images and eliminates the need for image stitching.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Pagoda In Heaven

Pagoda In Heaven

Over looking the ranges, there was this japanese looking pagoda again. I do not consider that it looks more like a chinese one due to its minimalist design. With a mist hanging over the ranges and the heavy grow of plants in the foreground, the pagoda really knows how to make itself stand out.


Pagodas attract lightning strikes because of their height. This tendency may have played a role in their perception as spiritually charged places. Many pagodas have a decorated finial at the top of the structure. The finial is designed in such a way as to have symbolic meaning within Buddhism; for example, it may include designs representing a lotus. The finial also functions as a lightning rod, and thus helps to both attract lightning and protect the pagoda from lightning damage.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Tangled Nest

Tangled Nest

While walking back from the mountain, there was tangled object hanging from a tree looking like a nest. I think that it was tied by someone with an itchy hand. Framed the composition, checked exposure and aperture, take a photo, notice that it had great contrast and walked away. This photo was processed with a Velvia look. More saturated colours and vignette at the corners.

A nest is place of refuge built to hold an animal's eggs and/or provide a place to raise their offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building. Sometimes available human made materials such as string, plastic, cloth, hair, paper, etc. may be used as well.

Generally each species has a distinctive style of nest. Nests can be found in many different habitats.

Nests are built primarily by birds, but also by mammals, fish, insects and reptiles.

They may have some or all of the following zones: attachment; outer decorative layer; structural layer; lining.

Some birds will build nests in trees, some (such as vultures, eagles, and many seabirds like Kittiwakes) will build them on rocky ledges, and others nest on the ground or in burrows.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

As If I Want To

As If I Want To

Taken at the Mt Zhang Jia Jie, there is this weird plague fixed to a rocky edge. It is not the translation. The translation are perfectly correct. Putting such a notice at the highly visited attraction place made the place seems less majestic.

Presentation

Presentation

Like a graceful arm showing the viewer what is there to see, the plant stretched from the cliff and expanding as it gets further away.

Topple Me Not

Topple Me Not


This photo had been processed into black and white with an effort to try to reproduce the green colour of the leaves as white as possible as achieved in infrared photography. The title was credited to the small stack at the foreground which had a rather thin base due to erosion as said in my geography class.

Wind erosion is the result of material movement by the wind. There are two main effects. First, wind causes small particles to be lifted and therefore moved to another region. This is called deflation. Second, these suspended particles may impact on solid objects causing erosion by abrasion.

Wind erosion generally occurs in areas with little or no vegetation, often in areas where there is insufficient rainfall to support vegetation. An example is the formation of sand dunes, on a beach or in a desert. Windbreaks are often planted by farmers to reduce wind erosion. This includes the planting of trees, shrubs, or other vegetation, usually perpendicular or nearly so to the principal wind direction.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Log Raiser

Log Raiser

This phenomena puzzles me. Why do they put wood logs below all these growing trees? Won't it make the trees less stable? Well, not to care about why is it, but caring on how had I processed this photo. A Velvia preset was applied for this picture which makes the saturation to be deeper and a bias towards the green and the blues. A vignette is also prominent in the picture.

Velvia was introduced in 1990 and quickly replaced Kodachrome 25 as the industry standard in high-definition color film. It had brighter and generally more accurate color reproduction, finer grain, twice the speed, and a more convenient process (E-6). Kodachrome 25 fell out of popularity a few years after Velvia was introduced, and Kodachrome 64 and 200 have followed more slowly. Many photographers credit Velvia with ending the Kodachrome era.

Velvia has the highest resolving power of any slide film. When shot with an excellent lens, a 35 mm Velvia slide will hold detail equivalent to 22 or more megapixels of image data.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Chang Jie Jie

Chang Jie Jie


This is the typical shot that many people would have seen when the place Chang Jia Jie comes to the mind. Many large pointed mountains with misty or foggy ambience



Zhang Jia Jie Mountain, one of the most fantastic place in China, lies in the west of Hunan province. This marvelous natural phenomenon is more than 500 square miles around and dominated by more than 3,000 narrow sandstone pillars and peaks, many over 200 m high. Between the peaks lie ravines and gorges with streams, pools and waterfalls, some 40 caves, and two large natural bridges. In addition to the striking beauty of the landscape, the region is also noted for the fact that it is home to a number of endangered plant and animal species.

(courtesy of damo-qigong.net)

Wood Over Stone

Wood Over Stone

Another series of shots from the Chang Jia Jie shots. This time the photo was applied with a warm filter. The dry plants grow around the path getting lighter or denser on some parts.

My Rows of Teeth

My Rows of Teeth

This sharply pointed mountain had several other smaller section beside it. What it seems that from the picture was that it reminded me of the teeth that Chandra had been trying to memorise in the library. The premolar and etc...


Humans are diphyodont, meaning that they develop two sets of teeth. The first set (the "baby," "milk," "primary" or "deciduous" set) normally starts to appear at about six months of age, although some babies are born with one or more visible teeth, known as neonatal teeth. Normal tooth eruption at about six months is known as teething and can be quite painful for an infant.

Enamel is the hardest and most highly mineralized substance of the body and is one of the four major tissues which make up the tooth, along with dentin, cementum, and dental pulp.^[7] It is normally visible and must be supported by underlying dentin. Ninety-six percent of enamel consists of mineral, with water and organic material composing the rest.^[8] The normal color of enamel varies from light yellow to grayish white.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Shrine On Foot

Shrine On Foot


Taken at the foot of Chang Jia Jie mountain, this little Japanese looking Shrine stand proudly on raised stilts. So, the little Japaneses looking Shrine standing on its feet on the foot of the mountain. The Shrine had been dodged in photoshop to bring up its brightness. I realised that most people will not call this a shrine but a small temple.



As distinguished from a temple, a shrine usually houses a particular relic or cult image, which is the object of worship or veneration, or is constructed on a site which is thought to be particularly holy, as opposed to being placed for the convenience of worshippers.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

The Formidable

The Formidable

That was part of the mountain Chang Jia Jie. The title of the picture goes to show the three different "strength" in the picture. From the measly weakling grasses to the rocky always standing mountain at the back.

Nice Stare

Nice Stare

Oh, you have got an ace, 2 kings, a 7 and ... Not sure if Michelle (the one who's holding the cards) knows that Jing Jing was behind her. But this scene looks rather hilarious.

A playing card is a typically hand-sized piece of heavy paper or thin plastic. A complete set of cards is a pack or deck. A deck of cards is used for playing one of many card games, some of which constitute gambling. Because they are both standard and commonly available, playing cards are often adapted for other uses, such as magic tricks, cartomancy, encryption, boardgames, or building a house of cards.

The front (or "face") of each card carries markings that distinguish it from the other cards and determine its use under the rules of the game being played. The back of each card is identical for all cards in any particular deck, and usually of a plain color or abstract design. The back of playing cards is often used for advertising. For most games, the cards are assembled into a deck, and their order is randomized by shuffling.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Drum Beater

Drum Beater

Taken near a restaurant where we ate, the "real" drum beater will play a welcome beat. After eating, it was my time to try out the drum out of itchy hands. The little boy soon followed and I took pictures of him.



A drum is a musical instrument in the percussion group that can be large, technically classified as a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with parts of a player's body, or with some sort of implement such as a drumstick, to produce sound. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years. Most drums are called "untuned instruments" because they have no definite pitch, with the exception of a few such as timpani. Drums, however, are being tuned to lower or uppen the pitch of the drum, though this can be highly difficult and requires a lot of knowledge on the sound production of a drum. Often, several drums are arranged together to create a drum set that can be played by a single musician.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Little Smiling Buddha

Little Smiling Buddha

Looks like a small Buddha to me. Always smiling and looks so ever forgiving. I had taken with a very shallow depth of field but a very high shutter speed so that the image will not be blur when he moves around. The lighting was also quite soft due to the pollution outside and the soon to set sun.

Nine characteristics

Some Buddhists meditate on (or contemplate) the Buddha as having nine characteristics:

1. a worthy one (Skt: arhat)
2. perfectly self-enlightened (Skt: samyak-saṃbuddha)
3. perfected in knowledge and conduct (Skt: vidyā-caraṇa-saṃpanna )
4. well gone (Skt: sugata)
5. unsurpassed knower of the world (Skt: anuttara-loka-vid)
6. unsurpassed leader of persons to be tamed (Skt: anuttara-puruṣa-damya-sārathi)
7. teacher of the gods and humans (Skt: śāstṛ deva-manuṣyāṇaṃ)
8. the Enlightened One (Skt: buddha)
9. the Blessed One or fortunate one (Skt: bhagavat)

These characteristics are frequently mentioned in the Pali Canon, and are chanted daily in many Buddhist monasteries.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Perspective

Perspective


From the "kampoeng" people sitting at the road blockage at the Hunan Normal University. This shot was of the other hand shot with a small aperture which had caused a deeper depth of field. Its interesting to see what each of them are holding on their lap. Erica was holding her bag, Michelle was holder her water bottle and spectacles which she always take out when taking picture and a camera in Lilyan's hand.

Perspective, in the context of vision and visual perception, is the way in which objects appear to the eye based on their spatial attributes, or their dimensions and the position of the eye relative to the objects.

As objects become more distant, they appear smaller, because their angular diameter (visual angle) decreases. Your view on the world could be thought as an onion where each little layer represents a distance from the eye. As the distance gets larger, the surface area of that layer of onion becomes larger and larger. Because you see things in angles, the angle seen of an object would decrease because the object would take up a smaller amount of surface area at the larger distance. Subsequently, objects that are farther away would seem smaller.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Red Claws

Red Claws


Taken at the Hunan Normal University Arts faculty, the use of the shallow depth of field again had focused on the front few leaves instead of the entire plant. This red leaves in the shape of a claw had start to get dry as the weather gets colder.

Repulsion

Repulsion

This time my model won't be acting as a monkey (She complained about it). But what shall I say, this picture looks quite good even when she had changed from her previous career. Taken when most of us had already walked back to the bus, both of us found a large yellow dried leaves on the ground and as a usual "kampoeng" (village) people, we picked it up and took a photo with it.

Sun Baked

Sun Baked

This picture was taken at a very shallow depth of field to bring out the leaves from the cluttered background. It was then post processed in photoshop with an extreme curve adjustment just o leave the colour of the leaves. This was because the leaves was also illuminated from behind.



The back light is sometimes called hair or shoulder light, because when lighting an actor or an actress, backlighting will cause the edges of his or her hair to glow if he or she has fuzzy hair. This gives an angelic halo type affect around the head. This is often used in order to show that the actor or actress so lit is "good" or "pure". In television this effect is often used in soap operas and has become something of a cliché of the genre. It is also sometimes called the kicker.

The back light is sometimes called hair or shoulder light, because when lighting an actor or an actress, backlighting will cause the edges of his or her hair to glow if he or she has fuzzy hair. This gives an angelic halo type affect around the head. This is often used in order to show that the actor or actress so lit is "good" or "pure". In television this effect is often used in soap operas and has become something of a cliché of the genre. It is also sometimes called the kicker.

(courtesy of wikipedia.c0m)

Season Transition

Season Transition

Leaves turning yellow with blotches of brown. But isn't it winter? Taken with an aperture of 5.0 to gain enough depth of field to faintly show the building in the background

In temperate and polar regions generally four seasons are recognized: spring, summer, autumn (fall), and winter.

In some tropical and subtropical regions it is more common to speak of the rainy (or wet, or monsoon) season versus the dry season, as the amount of precipitation may vary more dramatically than the average temperature.

In other tropical areas a three-way division into hot, rainy and cool season is used. In some parts of the world, special "seasons" are loosely defined based upon important events such as a hurricane season, tornado season or a wildfire season

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Recycle & Reuse

Recycle & Reuse

Who says that China citizens do not know how about the 3Rs. In this picture alone, they had recycle the old woven chair to become a rubbish dump and reuse the fruits skin as the rubbish.
Someone living here must be loving banana and oranges until there is not enough space in their rubbish

Recyclable materials, also called "recyclables" or "recyclates", may originate from a wide range of sources including the home and industry. They include glass, paper, aluminium, asphalt, iron, textiles and plastics. Biodegradable waste, such as food waste or garden waste, is also recyclable with the assistance of micro-organisms through composting or anaerobic digestion.

Recyclates need to be sorted and separated into material types. Contamination of the recylates with other materials must be prevented to increase the recyclates value and facilitate easier reprocessing for the ultimate recycling facility. This sorting can be performed either by the producer of the waste or within semi- or fully-automated materials recovery facilities.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Ventilate

Ventilate

"It's so humid! Let's on the aircon". Opps, no aircon available. Taken in a university complex, the old wooden style window which had been fitted on the brick house complete with hung clothing made such a nice classic scene.



The word Window originates from the Old Norse vindauga, from vindr "wind" and auga "eye." "Vindauga" is still used in Icelandic, as well as some Norwegian dialects to mean exactly the same thing: window. It is first recorded in the early 13th century, and originally referred to an unglazed hole in a roof. Window replaced the Old English eagþyrl, which literally means "eye-hole," and eagduru, "eye-door". Most Germanic languages however adopted the Latin word fenestra to describe a window with glass, such as Swedish fönster, or German Fenster. Notable exceptions to this, apart from English, are Danish and Norwegian, with the English word window closely resembling the words vindue and vindu respectively. This is probably due to the Scandinavian influence on the English language by means of loanwords during the Viking Age. In English the word fenester was used as a parallel until the mid-1700s and fenestration is still used to describe the arrangement of windows within a facade.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Squat for Knowledge

Squat for Knowledge


I watched a youtube video which says, "They (China) have more first class honors than we (America) have children." Of course I can't verify where the actual source is from, but you can see an example of how hardworking are these people. Squatting on the grass during the winter December. Why don't they sit down? Maybe because the ground is too cold.

In most universities, First-Class Honours is the highest honours which can be achieved, with about 10% of candidates achieving a First nationally.

A minority of universities award First-Class Honours with Distinction, informally known as a "Starred First" (Cambridge) or a "Congratulatory First" (Oxford). These are seldom awarded. In Oxford, the Congratulatory First involves a ceremony where examiners give a standing ovation.

A "Double First" can refer to First-Class Honours in two separate subjects, e.g., Classics and Mathematics, or alternatively to First-Class Honours in the same subject in subsequent examinations, such as subsequent Parts of the Tripos at the University of Cambridge. At Oxford, this term normally refers to a First in both Honour Moderations and the Final Honour School.

A Cambridge "Double First" originally referred to a first in two different Triposes. The phrase "Double First" originally referred to people who got firsts in both the classical and mathematical Triposes ("double men"). The two-Tripos criterion for a "double first", even in vaguely related subjects as English and History, constitutes a far higher hurdle than simply repeating the same performance in competition with the same students in a Part II of the same Tripos; it is harder because the subject matter is different, and the candidate has to reach a mark of excellence in competition with people who would have been studying the subject for longer at university level.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Beheaded

Beheaded

Broken lamp by the roadside with no one ever taking a second look. I find that the position of the head, the body and the body's shadow fell nicely. The photo was post processed to give an antique, overly warm sepia look.



In countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, UK and the northern part of the US, street lamps are burning an average of 4000 hours per year. Considering that the average wattage of a lamp is around 150 watts, considering that a 100,000 inhabitant city contains about 18,000 lamps, such a city spend around 11 giga watt hours (11 billion watt hours). Considering that producing 1 kWh implies the emission of 340 grams of CO₂ (average in Europe), the streetlights of such a city are responsible for the emission of 3700 tons of CO₂ in the atmosphere per year.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Enthusiastic Growth

Enthusiastic Growth

Overlooking from the Lu Shan Mountain, trees sprout on every possible place. Unlike the barren Melbourne which almost looks like a desert if rainfall doesn't get heavier. The title was given due to the slanted tree branch which was overly exaggerated by my angle and wide focal length.

The New Monkey

The New Monkey

Yes, this is the new modern monkey. Complete with scarf and warm coat to protect from the cold and also, it comes in pink! My cousin, Erica, was on the winter root camp to Changsha with me and another hundred plus of kids. This photo was taken at the Lu Shan Mountain which all of us scaled on the third day.



The imposing and magnificent peaks, unique waterfalls, luxuriant woods, changing sea of clouds and pleasant climate make it a most famous summer resort in China and the perfect place for patients to recuperate. Roaring through the land, the precipitous and gorgeous Lushan wins itself the honorable title of the most beautiful mountain under heaven. With both natural scenic spots and historical and cultural Sites, Mt. Lushan is listed as one of the 40 best tourist attractions in China. The UNESCO listed it as one of the World Natural Heritages in 1996.

(courtesy of shanghaifinance.com)