Continuing our “Covid-fun” to get people excited to travel again… well, even though China may NOT be the first on your list, here are some favorites from Shanghai!
It’s been a while, but I finally updated my Now page!
See that obelisk thing there in the lower left? That was the gathering spot for our big Shanghai photo walk! That was a particularly fun one! I saw an old friend from Jesuit High School, Liam Gowing. I was completely surprised that he randomly happened to be there in the middle of Shanghai! I had not seen him in about 20 years and it was really fun to catch up. Thanks again to everyone that came out for that event!
If you’re a Passport Member then today you get to see the creation of this fun panorama from Shanghai. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise!
This is made out of 9 different photos that I stitched together in Photoshop. I was trying to get an “angle” on Shanghai that no one has ever seen before, so I flew it out over the Bund to get this angle.
I’m pretty sure flying a drone in China is illegal. I mostly think this because I was arrested a few years earlier for doing it. But I figured, hey, if I can talk myself out of Chinese prison once, I can do it twice, right? This is how I think… anyway, when I went to launch this down by the coast, I saw about three other Chinese dudes launching their own quadcopters. This only emboldened me!
That recent Elon Musk video reminded me of this classic one.
Wet Pudong sounds kind of naughty, eh? This is the “business” area of Shanghai where nobody really lives. So, at night, it’s pretty much empty! That makes it great for nightcrawlers like me that enjoy taking nighttime cityscapes without a bunch of people getting in the way.
On one of our crossings, the rain started to howl down so we popped out the umbrella. I usually don’t include the umbrella as a prop for these sorts of scenes, but I thought it made for a nice contextual element. There is a ferry that goes back and forth, but we ended up staying on it for three trips just so we could get lots of photos!
This is the closest that Hollywood has ever gotten to a DMT experience!
Early one morning, I woke up to get sunrise photos, but it turned out to be rather foggy. I decided to launch the quad to get photos of these three massive skyscrapers poking out of the cloud layer. I’m glad at the way it turned out, and I’m glad that I actually managed to land the drone through the haze!
Check out these amazing people as they use the Coronavirus to make their fans think they are even more awesome.
The view out of my room at the Ritz-Carlton in Shanghai was absolutely amazing. I could just sit in the easy chair and watch the world go by. One day, a rather wicked storm came blowing through the city. I was about to go out and take photos (I like taking photos in the rain), but it was a little too rainy and stormy… so I decided to have a lazy afternoon and just take photos out the window!
Today’s video for Passport Members is a quick and dirty edit from a single RAW file that I think you’ll really like. I was pretty sure that this overexposed photo was a goner, but I was shocked at what Aurora HDR did to it!
I use Aurora HDR so much and I’m often surprised how I am still amazed by it. I almost just deleted this photo altogether. It was completely overexposed but somehow Aurora just made it look perfect! Enjoy!
If I wasn’t trying to be a minimalist, this is the kind of awesome clock I would buy! 🙂
While I was in Shanghai, I took a fun motorcycle sidecar tour around the city. This is Bagsnob who went along with me. I thought she looked completely ridiculous in this helmet thing so I had to take a photo! We spent about three hours tooling around the city and spent most of the time in the old French concession area. If you get a chance to take a motorcycle sidecar tour, I highly recommend it!
This is a great story about my friend (and camp-mate at Walter!) who had his bike stolen. Read the story here!
Here’s a new photo I recently finished from Shanghai, China. I woke up early to get a sunrise photo, but it was too smoggy/foggy for any good light. I figured, well, as long as I am awake, I should try to be productive… I walked around for a while and the only interesting thing I could see was this… so I launched the quad to get a photo of three of the tallest buildings in China.
