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Jennifer Zhou | all galleries >> Galleries >> Cityscape > My Home Town, Shenyang, China, 2004
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13-FEB-2004

My Home Town, Shenyang, China, 2004

I have a great love for this picture. And not just because it represents my photography well. I made it in my own home town of Shenyang, a snowy city in Northeast China. While snow often brings misery, it can be beautiful. And that is what I try to say here, by bringing color and life to Shenyang's snowy streets.


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Guest 01-Aug-2007 06:50
Nice picture! >.<
Guest 12-Mar-2006 21:08
Simply beautiful!
twc 22-Dec-2005 22:35
let's play some mind games, Jen. what would happend if you put the focuse on the
forground (suger cane), middle (pine apple) or in the back (push cart)?

where is your heavy tripod, definate not in use in this pic.

Is that a deliberate decision? you want the whole pic to be somewaht blurred?


To me the blurred effect is an astoned effect. but how it sis acheved? by accident or you have planned. Can you tell me? I like to know how a genious thinks in her mind.

Tai
M Yu 20-Oct-2005 18:25
This reminds me of my childhood in Changchun, the city in the north of Shenyang. I loved biting and chewing those sugar cranes, looks like black bamboo, in the foreground.
Guest 12-Jan-2005 09:14
At the begginging you see the impact of the cold and misserable day, the lonliness on the streets and the foot paths of the ones who passed all of it gives shivers of coldness. Then however there is this incongruity of the pine apples first, basicly becouse they are the only sharp colour in the picture, on the other hand, it is incongruent too have a tropical fruit in the middle of winter posted untop of the boxes, seems to remind that somewere it is nice and warm, the same as wat I think are the sugar canes.
Phil Douglis02-Oct-2004 05:24
****
Phil Douglis01-Oct-2004 18:21
This is one of my favorite images of yours, Jen. I am glad you left the warmth of your room to go out in the snow and make this picture. The concept of layering should become part of your thought process when making pictures such as this -- think of them as journeys into space, and carry your viewers into the picture from front to back, through a series of experiences such as you do here --- linking the layers to each other with a common thread, such as these footprints and tire tracks provide.
Jennifer Zhou01-Oct-2004 11:18
Thanks, dR, Leo, and Phil! I like it too!:) I would so regret if that day I decided to stay in my cosy room..I made this picture that day:http://www.pbase.com/angeleyes_zyl/image/26450968 through my window, but still couldn't help going out to the street!

Thank you Phil for telling me what you like about this picture--layers..I wasn't aware of neither the layers nor Alfred Stieglitz's Fifth Avenue image because I never had chance to see his image until you gave me the link and a week ago when we talked about "Equivalent" and your teacher Minor White..

I will surely look for layers next time taking pictures..learn to shot consciously~

Jen
Phil Douglis29-Sep-2004 21:46
I keep coming back to it as well. It is one of the finest images you have made, Jen. It envelopes us in incongruity -- bamboo and straw baskets, in the snow. Ancient China and contemporary China are also incongruously juxtaposed as strikingly powerful context. Beautifully organized and delicately colored. Oh, how this would suffer in black and white or sepia.
Guest 01-Sep-2004 23:18
wonderful... came back to this one again. lovely in all ways.

dR
Phil Douglis18-Aug-2004 20:33
Leo likes it and I like it, too. I like it for its layers -- the bamboo in the foreground, the baskets in the middleground, and the storm-buffeted people weaving their way through the wavy tire tracks in the background. The footsteps in the snow carry the eye from layer to layer. Were you aware, Jen, that Alfred Stieglitz's famous image "Winter, Fifth Avenue," made back 1893, uses the same basic idea as you are using here?. Stieglitz was one of the first to layer his images. He also was among the first to promote photography as art. He was the first to use photography as metaphor with his images of clouds. And his images showing nude fragments of the body of his wife, the artist Georgia O'Keefe, were among the first to be displayed in sequential form. Here is a link to "Winter Fifth Avenue." You can also see other images by Stieglitz on this site, as well as read an article about him.http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/stieglitz/stieglitz_winter_on_fifth_avenue.html
Leo 11-Aug-2004 08:59
To me, it's more interesting to see tropical fruits in the snowy Shenyang... nice capture
Guest 08-Aug-2004 04:53
this is amazing... such a wonderful shot, excellent colors and textures.

great job jz. ; )

dR
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