Nanking Road, 夜上海

There is always a continuous stream of people walking along Nanking Road. It seems to be a very busy thoroughfare at all hours. The neon lights are very colourful; but other than that I do not see any other attractions, just many other tourists, all walking up and down the same road. Perhaps it is a place you go for a walk after dinner? At this hour the neon lights have not been switched on yet. The atmosphere of the place changes completely after dark. Click 夜上海 to hear the famous song by 周璇 Zhou Xuan.

On this trip I experimented with my digital camera by taking pictures without using a flash. It works just fine; but you need a very steady hand. This photo of the Pearl Tower at night was quite reasonable, without any tripod or timed exposure device. I am very happy with the result. Please click on this photo to enlarge. I have increased the Megapixels settings of my camera to get more details. Perhaps I will make this into a post card, sell it and make a fortune.

This is a very famous land mark at the Bund, 上海灘, the Bank of China building. We were looking at it from across the Huangpu River, 黃浦江, at the base of the Pearl Oriental Tower where we took our group photo yesterday. Today we are on the opposite side of the same river.

After dark, the coloured lights changed the atmosphere all along Nanking Road. The place comes alive like it has a life of its own. In this area you will find many cafes, restaurants, bars, night clubs and probably massage parlours (and in days gone by, many brothels, casino and opium dens)

I like the lighting effects along this back lane. It was dark and yet I could see many details: a photographer's dream. I am starting to see why there are so many tourists walking around in this area after dark. They must be all photographers! On second thought, maybe not all.

It is still a bit early. The cafes are not busy yet. I can imagine the atmosphere changing when the crowds arrive later in the evening. The photographic opportunities are tremendously varied because of the very different lighting effects available in a small area. The candle at each table gives it a very special feeling. There is just so much to see in such a short time. I am very thankful for bringing my point and shoot Sony digital camera with me on this trip.

It allows me to add images to this blog, a year later, in Hamilton. I have changed the uploading method slightly because of the shear number of images. I upload in batches of 25 photos to Picasa Web Album, until all are ready on the internet. Then I start my blog and easily transfer the photos from PWA on the internet to my blog on the internet. No waiting time required. One click and instantly the photo appears on the blog.

All the waiting time was spent during the actual upload time. I did the uploading during commercial breaks while watching "The Last Samurai" on TV last night. That is the way to go. I did not do it like this before, for my other blogs because I had only a few images to load. This, I usually did by selecting 5 photos from Picasa on my harddisk, saved them on desktop and uploaded from desktop to my blog as I typed the text,

adding a photo here and there as and when required. The second reason is: I have recently bought another 20Gb of storage space (at USD5/year) from Google and have plenty of unused storage space available now. In the beginning Goolge gives every blogger 1 Gb for free use on Picasa Web. My 1 Gb has run out after creating 64 blogs in 5 years. It is very fair that I should start paying for this service provided so generously by Google to every user.

I am not complaining because there is a very good reason. I am still getting it for free! On all my blogs I have placed Google adsense ads. These ads have accumulated earnings totalling USD164 from Google in 5 years! Can you beat that? It was not really my own money I was using to pay for the extra storage space any way. So, now you know why I am still a happy blogger.

I tried another camera setting for exactly the same shot taken earlier in the evening when this photo was much darker than this. Using photo shop is another way; but it doesn't feel right: Same like a golfer cheating inside a bunker by throwing the ball up to the green by using his hand when his partner is not looking. I first heard about this special golf shot from another golfer, Peter Sie in Kuching. He called it, using a hand wedge! (not the sand wedge). Apparently some golfers are very dishonest. They cheated in various ways! Some of them have been known to nurse a higher handicap for years. These are poor losers. You can spot them a mile away. Play with them but don't bet!