China

: My first morning in this vital city…so cosmopolitan…. so modern…so polluted…it was time for the adventure to begin.

: Lots of traffic and lots of bicyclists packed the roadways of Beijing for the morning commute.

: This aged pagoda stood like a sentinel on the mountainside as it has for ages…but now the air is clouded by the pollution of progress. This image, and others in this portfolio were all shot in color but the atmospheric contamination created an eerie fog effect that has toned color to varying shades of gray. These are all documented images…not created ones.

: Lining the streets around the hotel were assorted shop cubicles. Being a Kodak professional partner, I am always attracted to the Kodak logo wherever I travel…and I didn’t have to go too far to find Kodak and Canon, maker of my cameras and lenses.

: Hutongs are homes that have been in Chinese families for centuries. Lines of siheyuans, traditional courtyard residences were joined to one another to form hutong alleys that surround the Forbidden City and date back to the Yuan (1206-1341) Ming (1368-1628) and Qing (1644-1908). Because they occupy prime real estate, many hutongs are being demolished to make way for modern high-rise buildings but some hutongs are preserved for historical purposes and for tourism.

: The Forbidden City takes on a new connotation as pollution adds to its forbidden-ness…but pollution is not limited to Beijing. Pollution knows no boundaries. It is spreading throughout the world…across oceans…even down into the pristine air of Antarctica. Once upon a time Beijing was known as a city of open skies. Today the air is thick and grey from coal, its most abundant energy source.

: My trip to China coincided with preparations to host the Olympics…and it was to be a great coming-out party for the newly awakened up-to-date China. Capturing a view of the Great Wall with the Olympic logo merged antiquity with modernity in my viewfinder. That the air was clear and the sky was blue was a novelty as pollution clouded most of my visit…and the landscape even had a blush of color.

: The Great Wall of China, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, spreads 4000 miles across China’s northern border. That it was visible to Neil Armstrong’s naked eye from the moon adds to its daunting and impressive mystique.

: The mountains seemed to undulate like waves as the pollution reduced details and color.

: Some people wear masks to filter the pollutants that irritate eyes and throat… but in the end masks cannot prevent respiratory distress. China’s water supply, crops and fish have already reached frighteningly high levels of contamination… which should give us all something to cry over and do something about. Pollution contributes to an estimated 750,000 premature Chinese deaths each year according to one unpublished World Bank study. Contamination knows no borders and crosses oceans with remarkable potency.

: Xian, the capital of the Shannxi Province, boasts a 5000 year history as the center of thirteen dynsasties. Most recently, Xian has enjoyed the notoriety from the serendipitous archeological discovery and excavation of the Terra Cotta army that was crafted and buried to protect China’s unifying emperor, Qin Shi Huang, in his after-life. Three excavation pits were open to the public and a fourth dig was underway in 2009.

: Watching morning light fade the night is like the curtains going up for Nature’s performance….and what a wondrous stage is set: the Yangtze River cruise that will play for days!

: Color on the Yangtze River appears to be blanketed in shades of misty gray and bronze in the early morning. It is eerily beautiful, as this mist doesn’t lift.

: The stark white color of this pagoda stands sharply against the polluted air.

: Amid eerie and ominous atmospheric conditions, power lines drape the sky and this lone tower stands like an ancient pagoda…a portend to a potent new China.

: Exponentially, China’s pollution is so great that it dwarfs the environmental impact of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and in the United States. When is humanity going to wake up and change? This dam, however, is no fantasy. It is largest dam project ever undertaken by man and it is causing the greatest relocation of people in the history of civilization.

: Over a several year time-span, the water level of the Yangtze River is will systematically rise and flood its banks. This will cause the most massive forced migration of people in the history of mankind. Markers along the river indicate the new water levels so we can see the habitation that will be underwater in a few years.

: The semi-obliterated markers make me think of mah jongg tiles…but this is no game! I wanted to see this part of China before it was completely flooded and am daunted by the toxicity of the air, the staggering eruption of apartment complexes and the eradication of history.

: Like a fire-breathing dragon, cement factories spew pollution and cloud the homes and land of people who have lived in harmony with their environment for ages. This cement factory is, but one of many, that are rising up throughout China to keep up with growth and development.

: We sailed down the Yangtze for three days and all along the banks we saw century-old homes and lifestyles in the process of being flooded to make way for modern China.

: Interspersed among industrial progress are homes that have housed families along the Yangtze for centuries.

: Along the Yangtze are farm fields like these have been cultivated for centuries.

: The flood will soon deliberately obliterate pastoral scenes like this one.

: The ruthlessness of power will wash away villages and history.

: The banks of the Yangtze have been systemically rising and will soon be flooded.

: This power plant facility is one of many that makes and stores energy as it contaminates the atmosphere.

: Morning has broken, the air is clear and the sky is blue. Towering skyscrapers, quickly constructed, urbanize the landscape. They will house the millions of displaced Chinese, whose homes will be flooded as well as people who migrate from rural outposts seeking work on moving the new China forward.

: China is becoming industrialized and like the Industrial Revolution in Europe and then in North America, this progress is also a time of contamination. Will we ever facilitate power and put global well-being ahead of profit?

: The Yangtze River systematically disrupts the lives and traditions of more than 1 million people.

: Like a giant lego-land, this city of towering apartment buildings was erected almost overnight to house the displaced Chinese and those who came to work on the dam project.

: These buildings seem surreal and exude a disconnect.

: These buildings seem surreal and exude a disconnect.

: Chongqing is a new city to China, having been established to house and meet the basic needs of the influx of Chinese who came here to seek employment from the Yangtze dam project.

: Chongqing was build to accommodate all the workers who had eagerly come to work on the Yangtze Dam project. Busy packed urbanization by day, it glittered like jewels at night.

: At first they were nearly invisible to the naked eye and then I looked again and saw these people working the land…just as their ancestors have done for eons. Soon this life and fertile soil will vanish from the rising waters of progress.

: We transfer to smaller boats at Wushan and sail up the Danning River through the Lesser Gorges or Xiao Sanxia. Spectacular cliffs, monkey sightings as well as wooden coffins tucked into cliff crevices from an ancient civilization dazzle our senses. Continuing downstream from Wushan we travel second gorge, WuXia, the witches gorge, 28 miles long. Last gorge is Xiling Xia, the longest gorge at 41 miles long.

: The sign marks the anticipated water level.

: Tourists flock to China to cruise on the Yangtze River before the flooding that will submerge the landscape and eradicate the Three Gorges. I was one of those tourists and it was as though I was on a Disney ride that was playing It’s a Small World After All. One tourist vessel followed the next, like many cars on a track that moved us through a fantasyland. Catch the gorgeous gorges before they vanish.

: This journey was compelling. The scenery was magnificent…and the foreboding of flooding in the name of progress added to the intensity.

: Terraced farmland and buildings clustered along the Yangtze banks sit quietly as they have for countless generations.

: This is a photograph of one of the four locks at Three Gorges Dam. Each lock can hold many vessels and takes about four hours to load. Scheduled for completion in 2009, it is clouded by controversy.

: The largest most powerful dam ever built is changing the landscape of the Yangtze river Valley forever. It is aimed to increase power output, control flooding and improve navigation…but its value is widely debated in China and abroad. The destructive flooding of archeological and cultural sites and the disruption and dissolution of the continuity of life for more than 1.3 million people is a pretty hefty price to pay for it intended accomplishments. This largest mass relocation that humankind has ever experienced has also arouse much criticism and the window of uncertainty is open to increased dangers of landslides, flooding and other unknown reactions to these massive ecological changes.

: The karst caves and mountain formations make Guilin a very popular tourist destination and the effects of pollution are not yet noticeable along the Li River. The tourists come and billboards advertise the sights.

: The Reed Flute Cave is named for the unusual reeds growing around it that can be made into flutes. The cave is more than 180 million years old and has been an attraction for over 1200 years. Refugees fleeing Japanese troops rediscovered it in the 1940’s. Over 70 inscriptions written in ink that date back to the Tang Dynasty, 729 AD, reveal that this cave had been a tourist attraction in ancient times. The limestone formations that formed the karst mountains also created this cave with its fantastic array of stalactites and stalagmites. Multi-colored lighting adds to the drama.

: Guilin, one of the most beautiful cities in China, is known for it karst mountains. Formed from limestone and thrust upward from below the earth’s surface, wind, rain and rivers have eroded them over eons into organic and ethereal natural sculptures…and, when gossamer clouds drape them, the setting is truly breath taking. Fog obscured this karst mountain backdrop during my stay but under any circumstance Guilin is a photographer’s dream.

: It was an abysmally gray day in Guilin. I had come for the gossamer clouds renown for covering the karst mountains…so I shifted my focus to what was before me. Around mid-day the sky suddenly turned blue and a grove of poplar trees popped into view. Color at last…and the movement of the boat caused just enough vibration to give this image a painterly quality.

: While I tend to avoid photographing people, the position of the figure dressed in blue, leaning forward with a sack on his back, makes this photograph poignant, reflective and serene. What a contrast from the active industrial progress hundreds of miles away from Guilin…and so this man walks down a path. I wonder what he is thinking and if he is mourning the creep of progress that is robbing China of its past.

: Color and reflections attract my eye. I fell in love with Guilin while watching the movie, The Painted Veil, and discovered that Guilin was on the itinerary for my upcoming trip to China. The landscape here is fresh and vivid. The city is beautiful and a very popular tourist attraction. As of yet the polluting factories have not visibly contaminated the air here.

: Along the river edge were signs of habitation. Of particular interest was the presence of a satellite dish adjoining, what appears to be, rather primitive lodging.

: As we sailed down the Li River we saw many local people washing their clothing along the edge of the river.

: Double-crested cormorants aid fisherman to make their catch. These floating rafts were seen up and down the Li River.

: I was in China for more than two weeks and this was the first morning I saw the sun. So stunned was I, to feel the light shining through my hotel window, I jumped up to record the event.

: From my hotel window I saw the cityscape silhouetted by the pollution, appeared to me to be paper cutouts. As an art teacher in a former life, I had my art students undertake a project to create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface…so their tonal values decreased as their work receded from the foreground. I was in China for two weeks and one morning saw a strange phenomenon…the sun… struggling to shine through the layers of pollution. Shanghai is a modern city and an economic center.

: Shanghai is a modern, bustling city.

: It was Ironic that a no smoking sign was emblazoned on the boat cabin in smoky Shanghai Harbor.

: Like most tourists, I took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak and immersed myself in photographing Victoria Harbor and the Hong Kong panorama from the elevated perspective while others ate ice cream and perused the shops. This view is looking north toward Kowloon.

: A close up of Victoria Harbor and the Hong Kong panorama from the elevated perspective.

: The presence of the ancient Aberdeen Fishing Village dates back to the Ming Dynasty and floats in Aberdeen Harbor against the backdrop of economically bustling Hong Kong. Its continued presence is questionable as China is so focused on its present day status in the world that it is sacrificing its history.

: While the reflections caught my eye, I was more intrigued by the surreal view of this major roadway devoid of traffic. Photographed from my hotel window, when I should have been sleeping, I had to frame the image with the building exterior. Extreme pollution continues to plague China and there are lots more cars on the roads today than there were in 2007 when this was taken.

: The dinner-cruise barge adds to the dazzle of Hong Kong lit up at night…and camouflages the pollution!

: Soaring into the atmosphere, this bridge symbolically captured my thoughts of China, the sleeping giant…awakening and rising to heights beyond our ken in an instant….

: Qutang Gorge, or the Bellows Gorge, is the shortest of the Three Gorges and only five miles long….but its scenery is most dramatic. The Yangtze River is only 500 feet across here and cliffs tower above and dwarf the tour boat.

: Anachronisms popped up throughout China but none so startling as in Shanghai. A thoroughly modern economic metropolis that could easily be taken for any western economic center (save for the calligraphic signage) the toilet-training custom of splitting a toddler’s pants prevails. Along the curb squatting children were a frequent sight. My visit coincided with the preparation for Olympics in Beijing and the Chinese government requested its population to refrain from this child-rearing technique…to no avail.

: A basic age-old tradition of potty-training clashes openly on the streets of Beijing…and they don’t carry plastic bags to collect the waste. Before the Olympics the Chinese government did attempt to curb this habit but I didn’t stay around long enough to see if the population cooperated.

: The dinner-cruise barge adds to the dazzle of Hong Kong lit up at night…and camouflages the pollution!