A mosey around the hutongs

Managed to book myself in for those photgraphy lessons and today was the first. We went on a fieldtrip beginning at the Lama Temple (we didn't go in), into Confucious' Temple and then walking through some of the hutongs in the Dongcheng district. Our teacher, Lukas Birk, asked us to chose a subject so as to narrow our focus (so we wouldn't just take happy snaps). I chose 'Bicycles' as my theme, thinking about my Nine Million Bicycles project and hoping to advance that along a little bit.

I wasn't disappointed...









These are some of the better shots I took (more over at my Flickr), mostly I am happy with them, I could tweak my framing a little more, though Lukas said I had a natural eye for framing (shucks)...

Anyway, yes. Hutongs are an awesome place when you really look through them. At first they appear very grey and stark (especially in winter), but when you explore the nooks and crannies and begin to actually notice what is going on, it's a whole other world with lots of colour, movement and life...