Shanghai Tan

I saw Xiapu the 1st time in a photography magazine back at 2008, it was very special graphically and seems so remote a place that I don’t envision going there one day. Then during 2009, I keep seeing photos of Xiapu in almost every issue of any photography magazine. Apparently many professional photographers went there and posted their works in various magazines and art galleries. At that point it became clear to me that I’ve got to go see that place. Not just me, many of my colleagues were also stunt and attracted by the unusual, painting-like look and feel of that paradise of the fishers.

After some missed shots for Xinjiang and Xi’an, the team finally decided to go to Xiapu during November. We were lucky, the fast train from Shanghai to Xiapu (2 stops before Fuzhou) was opened at then end of September, it is just a convenient 5-hours train to get there directly. Xiapu is located at the North East of Fujian province, somewhere in between Wenzhou and Fuzhou. It has a long coastal line of 400km, with a large portion of sea shore protected by mountains and rocks (calm and safe), making it perfect for fishers to establish since the past thousand years.

For the last couple of years, an emerging touristic activity is photography, which attracts large number of photo enthousiasts from all around China, and still growing. Large scale of floating village, infinite seaweed field, thousands of rows of bamboo planted in sea shore, endless number of fisher boats going to high sea, crew of fishers carrying their catches to the land, colorful sand, breath-taking sunrise and sunshine, those are unique and abundant things that Xiapu has to offer to every photographer. In addition, the cost of lodging and eating at Xiapu is a fraction of what is costs in Shanghai, beside having much fresher and better selection of seafood!

The 6 of us have hired a local guide, Mr. Zhang, who is member of the association of photographers of Xiapu. He was born there and have lived all his life there, so he knows the place, the people, the weather, the view, and the timing. We wouldn’t be able to shoot any great pictures if any of the 5 elements was missing! Under his guide, we were able to witness amazing tidal effect at the sea shore, within 30 minutes, a seemingly boring place “suddenly” becomes a spectacular zebra-like oyster field; a muddy place suddenly becomes clear white as water fill up. For all of us coming from city, this was such a great show given by Mother Earth!

One last thing worth mentioning is, 2 of crew members are new to our team, Perry and Momo, because Max and Roger were not able to join us this time. It turned out we had a great time together, eating and drinking every night, playing cards and singing too. It was a memorable trip, and probably one of the cheapest I ever had. It costed us only 2000 yuan per person, for 5 days in total, all inclusive!

Click here to see the entire album.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Photo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.