Hello, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all.
I wanted to write a quick little note about how I blog, when I blog and why I blog; if you find this a bit repetitive please bare with me.
A few years back I was sitting in a hotel room at the Paris airport and I decided right then and there that I was going to be more open. But what did I mean by “more open”?
Well, I wanted to share. Share my experiences living in China. Share my experiences documenting China. Convey my experiences as a documentary photographer trying to eek out a living in this most competitive of environments. When I spoke with people I’d met during my travels everyone had always said that I should write a book, and while that my indeed happen one day, today I’d prefer to focus on the blog as less direction is needed and I have the chance to maintain an ongoing dialog about work and life in the Middle Kingdom.
So I had decided to be more open, but how. These are mighty questions. Obliviously I didn’t want to get too much in to my personal life, I’m happily married, and while my career causes certain stains in most of my close relationships there is no immanent threat of leading a long and lonely life.
What about my career, how open would I be about that? Well, this is a bit more hairy. No one likes someone who kisses and tells and no one likes to be singled out. So I decided that I would blog about jobs, after the fact, and never mention whom the client is. For those very curious blog readers it is easy enough to piece it all together if you really want to, but I am assuming that we all have better things to do. I also decided that while I may indeed write blogs while on assignments I wouldn’t publish them until at least a week or two later. My reasoning for this is because I don’t want my blog to be overly emotional or filled with too many minute details about working in China. I would like my blog to read like a smooth and somewhat sophisticated reflection on work and life in China. So even while I write sometimes on the road I often wait a few days and re-read and re-write some sections after some reflection. I don’t want to be in the business of writing news reports or reporting from the field. I would prefer something subtler and more well constructed, something that could perhaps be used for a book some day.
And, how would I blog? Well, I’ve chosen Blogspot as my blog host and this has both positives and negatives. Blogspot is owned by Google and seems to work seamlessly in to my workflow, being a Gmail junky, but the problem is that Blogspot is completely blocked in China. So in order to post I need to bypass the Great Firewall of China, and that means that I need to invest in a decent VPN that continually is improving their functions and features and allows me to post at will, for that I’ve turned to Witopia.
And when do I blog? Well, I’m married and I travel a ton. So my lovely wife and get a bit pissed if I come back from a 7 day trip and the first thing I want to do is avoid her and blog about my war stories. So I tend to blog most when on the road. I try to always write at least one blog each I am in an airport, I find it an incredibly good use of time given that most people think that time wasted in airport lounges kills efficiency. But it is amazing what I can get done with a pair of Noise Canceling headphone from Bose and my laptop. I also often write blogs that are not time sensitive, like this one, and pre-set the posting date for weeks in advance. I see this as a chance to continue to publish original material even though I may be incredibly busy or traveling in a remote place that week.
And lastly, how often to I blog? Well I’ve cut back to posting just one blog per week. But I often write several blogs a week add them to the cue to be published. Several months ago I was publishing 2-3 times a week but it wasn’t sustainable. I have a lot to say, but not that much. It’s important to note here that I try not to publish other people’s material on my blog, meaning that I rarely cut and paste or link to the work of others. I would like my blog to be as original as possible, my voice to the outside world only. But I often copy and link to work that I’m a co-collaborator in, such as my “New Work” notices, or articles and information that I find to be unbelievably interesting and important. Apart from that, I try to provide the narrative, and I think my life is interesting enough to generate content for that. I hope my readers approve. Upwards and onwards!
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, December 25, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: The Unpredictable Xinjiang Winter
Hello.
A few weeks back I was heading to Kashgar for a very special event in the Muslim religious calendar. It was a moment that I felt would compliment my continued documentation of Chinese Turkistan, or the region of Xinjiang, China.
So I planned my trip and decided that even though the festival lasted only one day, I would arrive about 3 days early and shoot the build up and stay a day or two afterwards to continue documenting the rebuilding of Kashgar’s old town, a topic which I’ve blogged about several times.
Everything started off well enough. I packed my bags, organized all my black and white Kodak TriX film and arrived at the airport on time, so far so good. The flight from Shanghai to Urumqi left on time and the first five hours of the trip went swimmingly. At just around the time we were supposed to descend to the Urumqi airport a stewardess approached me and said that the Urumqi airport was covered in heavy fog and that our flight would landing in Korle, an oil town about 700 km to the south. An interesting detour, but safety first.
Upon landing in Korle the flight attendants couldn’t really tell us if we were going to get off the plane or stay on the plane. The natives were getting restless. When we finally got off the plane we were ushered in to the main terminal building, which was a vast glass, and steel structure that personifies Chinese development in Xinjiang province. The terminal building was attractive, and seemingly well built; and it stood out like a sore thumb amongst the farming fields surrounding the air stripe. Much to my surprise the military was sharing the airport and continued with their regular flights even though their terminal building was filled with around 800 people, as other flights from various parts of China were now stranded in Korle as well. So as military jets screamed off in the background, angered Chinese and Uygurs peppered questions to ground staff about when we would be departing for Urumqi and what the weather condidtions were at the Urumqi airport. The ground staff had little information to convey but were quick to provide instant noodles and bottles of water as the dry winter air had us all feeling a bit parched.
As the hours wore on I had finished my book “Mr. China” by Tim Clissold and my Economist magazine. With all of Xinjiang still cut off from the outside world because of international phone call bans and no Internet access, my options for entertainment were getting bleaker by the moment. I had another book in my check-in luggage but it didn’t seem like I was going to get a hold of that anytime soon. And so I sat.
After sitting on the ground in an airport terminal on the edge of the vast Taklamakan Desert for about six hours the passengers were all told that our flight was officially cancelled. We would have to spend the night in Korle. My trip was becoming in jeopardy. I didn’t know what was going to happen. We were shipped out by bus to a local hotel in the city of Korle were we spent the night on the airlines dime. We were told to be ready to go back to the airport at 1130am the next morning. Why so late I asked one of the airport staff? If I could leave at 7am I would much prefer getting out earlier, as I could still make it to Kashgar and have an afternoon worth of work. But the reason was so that they could maintain their same landing slot from the previous day, fair enough. I asked the same woman again if this happened often. She replied in the winter it happens several times a month.
The essential problem is that Urumqi is basically a horrible place to have an airport. Mountains to the south and west cause a buildup of fog and cloud that surrounds the harsh provincial capital. The geographic conditions cause incredible wind speeds in the summer and often-intense fog and cloud in the dark and depressing winter. This wasn’t entirely a surprise to me. I’d been to Xinjiang in the winter before and noticed the fog and the harsh weather conditions, but it had never impeded travel before; I was less lucky this time. I was mid-way through a bit of a nightmare journey.
So after a night in Korle’s finest 1-star hotel we all loaded back up on the airport bus and headed back to the airport where we sat for another three hours. Then finally there was action and movement. We boarded our plane and headed for Urumqi. We were all saved. I’d make it Kashgar only one day late and still get a chance to shoot. But things got significantly stickier upon landing in Urumqi.
The flight from Korle to Urumqi is one of my all time favorite flights in China as the one-hour flight takes you straight over a fairly meaty section of the Tian Shan mountain range. Glued to the window for the entire flight I was memorized, as I often am, by the jagged peaks and harsh landscapes. In 2001 I had traveled by bus from Urumqi to Korle on the old mountain road that was cut straight through the Tian Shan range. As we winded our way to Korle on that fourteen-hour journey the stunning landscape and the un-believable amount of switchbacks along the route enchanted me; it was truly one of China’s great road journeys. I promised myself if I ever owned a motorcycle I would revisit that route. Nowadays the government has since built a suave new four-lane expressway that goes around the mountains and south to Korle cutting the travel time to about 7-8hrs. Sadly the mountain road is rarely used anymore.
After a dangerously bumpy landing in Urumqi, the fog was no joke; I collected my checked baggage and ran upstairs to check on my flight to Kashgar. The woman at the China Southern desk looked at my hopelessly. My flight was delayed but more importantly that there were about 8 planes worth of people that needed to get to Kashgar before me. So even if the weather were perfectly clear, I wouldn’t get a chance to fly until the following day. But the weather was horrible and after my flight landed from Korle they cancelled the rest of the flights for the day. Fuck!
The Urumqi airport was a complete mess. At the entrance to the airport and the surrounding check in areas there were people sitting, sleeping and camping out. Instant noodle containers were adrift everywhere. I was in the middle of what was a sea of stranded people. I couldn’t manage to stay there much longer and needed some space to think. I hailed a cab and headed in to town where I knew some people who might be able to help. Not knowing how long the fog would last I talked to a train ticket agent I knew from a previous trip. I asked if he had a and sleeper births available to Kashgar, he laughed so hard on his end of the phone I had to pull the phone away from my hear in much the same way you do when you accidentally dial someone’s fax number. Clearly the 24hr train journey from Urumqi to Kashgar wouldn’t be an option, tickets had disappeared. My next call was to a driver that I’d used a few times in the past, was he available and how long was the drive to Kashgar? He turned out to be in Korle, a few Chinese oil men had hired him to drive them from Urumqi to Korle the day before and he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, and he said the drive to Kashgar in this weather would take about 18-20 hours. Fuck! Fuck!
So I checked in to a hotel in Urumqi and found a bit to eat. By this time my nerves were shattered. I’d been traveling for two days straight. I hadn’t eaten well and it was looking more and more like I wasn’t going to make it to Kashgar. My mood was bitter. With no Internet in the region I was bored out of my skull. I tried to write but my mind was too frayed. I tried to read but I couldn’t focus. Instead I watched six straight hours of Entourage, the entire season 6, that I had on disk with me. A savior. It was exactly what I needed, a few cheap laughs and a good nights rest.
I was up at 630am the next morning. I had rebooked a flight that was supposed to be leaving at 9am and I called the airport and they told me that flights were leaving, but not on time. Okay, we had small progress. After a breakfast of Congee and fried bread sticks I was back at the airport. It was clear after passing through the airport doors at 730am that several hundred people had spent the night there on the floor. People were still passed out all over the cheap marble floor and the chaos from the previous day had seemed to intensify. Now there were flights leaving but who would be allowed to go first, the masses made their claims via several shooting matches. Made me thank god I wasn’t an airline staffer, I’d have lost my nerve and slapped someone.
Since I had canceled my flight from the previous day I was able to re-book and check in rather smoothly. My flight was delayed 4 hours but flights were leaving. It appeared that all I required was a bit of patience. And my patience paid off. Sure enough my flight left 4 hours late and I was in the air, bound for Kashgar. A small dose of victory in an ocean of chaos, but I had lost 48 hours of shooting time.
My fixer picked me up at the airport and got me over to my hotel. Within 10 minutes of checking in I was out in the town shooting. I needed to make up for lost time. It was the day before the big festival and everyone was selling sheep, which would be slaughtered the following day, in the streets. The scenes were fantastic. It was as though the famous Sunday animal market had moved right in to the city center. Tradesmen who bargain for a living pushed each other back and forth, shaking of the hands seals the deal. I managed to get close to several sheep sellers and watch them ply their trade; echoing mannerisms and skill of their forefathers, the generations of Silk Road traders and herdsmen who had come before. The atmosphere was electric.
My first half-day on the ground was positive. The TriX was moving fast and furious and that night I was giddy with anticipation of what might transpire the following day for the festival. My first good nights sleep in days yielded some quality rest. The next day would be long and intense.
Being up and out of the hotel before 930am, before the sun had risen, was not too big a problem, less the bitter cold. It was winter and while Kashgar is an oasis and at a lower altitude than Urumqi, it was still chilly; and the smell of burnt coal hung in the air from a night of staying warm in the mud brick homes of the old town and the surrounding farming communities. But fighting the bitter cold would be well worth it. For at 930am the action started has hundreds of people began filling in to the Id Kah Square, in front of the main mosque, for Morning Prayer. The scene was set alight by a rising sun from 10am to 1030am. Needless to say it was a Kodak moment.
Following Morning Prayer I headed in to the old town to watch the traditional process of slaughtering sheep in the small laneways of the old town, a majestic scene by any account. The rest of the day was followed by bouncing back and forth between the old town for the slaughtering of the sheep and the Id Kah Square for traditional music and singing and dancing. The morning cold had passed giving way to clear blue skies and a glaring sun that left this photographer fairy sunburned. Day two and day three were much the same as the festival tapered off and I focused back on speaking with old town residents and shooting portraits and architecture.
And in the blink of an eye I was back in Urumqi, fogged in waiting for my flight to Shanghai. I’d eaten something funky during the festival and was feeling most uncomfortable. My flight was delayed and I had come full circle. My six-day trip, only three days of shooing, and three days of being stranded and traveling, had taken their toll. I curled up on a few seats at the Urumqi Airport trying not to wretch.
Some trips take more out of you than others. After being stranded, delayed, knee deep in sheep blood and then delayed again I was a broken man. The food poisonings was a bonus. When I finally strolled in to my home in Shanghai at 2am my wife looked at me with the classic “WTF look”. Is it worth all this trouble she asks? Absolutely, I just prayed my pictures did the festival justice. But that wasn’t the right time for professional reflection; it was the moment for stomach medicine and a good 16 hours in bed. I would live to fight another day; hell, I was leaving for Lhasa in just five days. I needed to sort this out in a hurry. The journey continues.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
A few weeks back I was heading to Kashgar for a very special event in the Muslim religious calendar. It was a moment that I felt would compliment my continued documentation of Chinese Turkistan, or the region of Xinjiang, China.
So I planned my trip and decided that even though the festival lasted only one day, I would arrive about 3 days early and shoot the build up and stay a day or two afterwards to continue documenting the rebuilding of Kashgar’s old town, a topic which I’ve blogged about several times.
Everything started off well enough. I packed my bags, organized all my black and white Kodak TriX film and arrived at the airport on time, so far so good. The flight from Shanghai to Urumqi left on time and the first five hours of the trip went swimmingly. At just around the time we were supposed to descend to the Urumqi airport a stewardess approached me and said that the Urumqi airport was covered in heavy fog and that our flight would landing in Korle, an oil town about 700 km to the south. An interesting detour, but safety first.
Upon landing in Korle the flight attendants couldn’t really tell us if we were going to get off the plane or stay on the plane. The natives were getting restless. When we finally got off the plane we were ushered in to the main terminal building, which was a vast glass, and steel structure that personifies Chinese development in Xinjiang province. The terminal building was attractive, and seemingly well built; and it stood out like a sore thumb amongst the farming fields surrounding the air stripe. Much to my surprise the military was sharing the airport and continued with their regular flights even though their terminal building was filled with around 800 people, as other flights from various parts of China were now stranded in Korle as well. So as military jets screamed off in the background, angered Chinese and Uygurs peppered questions to ground staff about when we would be departing for Urumqi and what the weather condidtions were at the Urumqi airport. The ground staff had little information to convey but were quick to provide instant noodles and bottles of water as the dry winter air had us all feeling a bit parched.
As the hours wore on I had finished my book “Mr. China” by Tim Clissold and my Economist magazine. With all of Xinjiang still cut off from the outside world because of international phone call bans and no Internet access, my options for entertainment were getting bleaker by the moment. I had another book in my check-in luggage but it didn’t seem like I was going to get a hold of that anytime soon. And so I sat.
After sitting on the ground in an airport terminal on the edge of the vast Taklamakan Desert for about six hours the passengers were all told that our flight was officially cancelled. We would have to spend the night in Korle. My trip was becoming in jeopardy. I didn’t know what was going to happen. We were shipped out by bus to a local hotel in the city of Korle were we spent the night on the airlines dime. We were told to be ready to go back to the airport at 1130am the next morning. Why so late I asked one of the airport staff? If I could leave at 7am I would much prefer getting out earlier, as I could still make it to Kashgar and have an afternoon worth of work. But the reason was so that they could maintain their same landing slot from the previous day, fair enough. I asked the same woman again if this happened often. She replied in the winter it happens several times a month.
The essential problem is that Urumqi is basically a horrible place to have an airport. Mountains to the south and west cause a buildup of fog and cloud that surrounds the harsh provincial capital. The geographic conditions cause incredible wind speeds in the summer and often-intense fog and cloud in the dark and depressing winter. This wasn’t entirely a surprise to me. I’d been to Xinjiang in the winter before and noticed the fog and the harsh weather conditions, but it had never impeded travel before; I was less lucky this time. I was mid-way through a bit of a nightmare journey.
So after a night in Korle’s finest 1-star hotel we all loaded back up on the airport bus and headed back to the airport where we sat for another three hours. Then finally there was action and movement. We boarded our plane and headed for Urumqi. We were all saved. I’d make it Kashgar only one day late and still get a chance to shoot. But things got significantly stickier upon landing in Urumqi.
The flight from Korle to Urumqi is one of my all time favorite flights in China as the one-hour flight takes you straight over a fairly meaty section of the Tian Shan mountain range. Glued to the window for the entire flight I was memorized, as I often am, by the jagged peaks and harsh landscapes. In 2001 I had traveled by bus from Urumqi to Korle on the old mountain road that was cut straight through the Tian Shan range. As we winded our way to Korle on that fourteen-hour journey the stunning landscape and the un-believable amount of switchbacks along the route enchanted me; it was truly one of China’s great road journeys. I promised myself if I ever owned a motorcycle I would revisit that route. Nowadays the government has since built a suave new four-lane expressway that goes around the mountains and south to Korle cutting the travel time to about 7-8hrs. Sadly the mountain road is rarely used anymore.
After a dangerously bumpy landing in Urumqi, the fog was no joke; I collected my checked baggage and ran upstairs to check on my flight to Kashgar. The woman at the China Southern desk looked at my hopelessly. My flight was delayed but more importantly that there were about 8 planes worth of people that needed to get to Kashgar before me. So even if the weather were perfectly clear, I wouldn’t get a chance to fly until the following day. But the weather was horrible and after my flight landed from Korle they cancelled the rest of the flights for the day. Fuck!
The Urumqi airport was a complete mess. At the entrance to the airport and the surrounding check in areas there were people sitting, sleeping and camping out. Instant noodle containers were adrift everywhere. I was in the middle of what was a sea of stranded people. I couldn’t manage to stay there much longer and needed some space to think. I hailed a cab and headed in to town where I knew some people who might be able to help. Not knowing how long the fog would last I talked to a train ticket agent I knew from a previous trip. I asked if he had a and sleeper births available to Kashgar, he laughed so hard on his end of the phone I had to pull the phone away from my hear in much the same way you do when you accidentally dial someone’s fax number. Clearly the 24hr train journey from Urumqi to Kashgar wouldn’t be an option, tickets had disappeared. My next call was to a driver that I’d used a few times in the past, was he available and how long was the drive to Kashgar? He turned out to be in Korle, a few Chinese oil men had hired him to drive them from Urumqi to Korle the day before and he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, and he said the drive to Kashgar in this weather would take about 18-20 hours. Fuck! Fuck!
So I checked in to a hotel in Urumqi and found a bit to eat. By this time my nerves were shattered. I’d been traveling for two days straight. I hadn’t eaten well and it was looking more and more like I wasn’t going to make it to Kashgar. My mood was bitter. With no Internet in the region I was bored out of my skull. I tried to write but my mind was too frayed. I tried to read but I couldn’t focus. Instead I watched six straight hours of Entourage, the entire season 6, that I had on disk with me. A savior. It was exactly what I needed, a few cheap laughs and a good nights rest.
I was up at 630am the next morning. I had rebooked a flight that was supposed to be leaving at 9am and I called the airport and they told me that flights were leaving, but not on time. Okay, we had small progress. After a breakfast of Congee and fried bread sticks I was back at the airport. It was clear after passing through the airport doors at 730am that several hundred people had spent the night there on the floor. People were still passed out all over the cheap marble floor and the chaos from the previous day had seemed to intensify. Now there were flights leaving but who would be allowed to go first, the masses made their claims via several shooting matches. Made me thank god I wasn’t an airline staffer, I’d have lost my nerve and slapped someone.
Since I had canceled my flight from the previous day I was able to re-book and check in rather smoothly. My flight was delayed 4 hours but flights were leaving. It appeared that all I required was a bit of patience. And my patience paid off. Sure enough my flight left 4 hours late and I was in the air, bound for Kashgar. A small dose of victory in an ocean of chaos, but I had lost 48 hours of shooting time.
My fixer picked me up at the airport and got me over to my hotel. Within 10 minutes of checking in I was out in the town shooting. I needed to make up for lost time. It was the day before the big festival and everyone was selling sheep, which would be slaughtered the following day, in the streets. The scenes were fantastic. It was as though the famous Sunday animal market had moved right in to the city center. Tradesmen who bargain for a living pushed each other back and forth, shaking of the hands seals the deal. I managed to get close to several sheep sellers and watch them ply their trade; echoing mannerisms and skill of their forefathers, the generations of Silk Road traders and herdsmen who had come before. The atmosphere was electric.
My first half-day on the ground was positive. The TriX was moving fast and furious and that night I was giddy with anticipation of what might transpire the following day for the festival. My first good nights sleep in days yielded some quality rest. The next day would be long and intense.
Being up and out of the hotel before 930am, before the sun had risen, was not too big a problem, less the bitter cold. It was winter and while Kashgar is an oasis and at a lower altitude than Urumqi, it was still chilly; and the smell of burnt coal hung in the air from a night of staying warm in the mud brick homes of the old town and the surrounding farming communities. But fighting the bitter cold would be well worth it. For at 930am the action started has hundreds of people began filling in to the Id Kah Square, in front of the main mosque, for Morning Prayer. The scene was set alight by a rising sun from 10am to 1030am. Needless to say it was a Kodak moment.
Following Morning Prayer I headed in to the old town to watch the traditional process of slaughtering sheep in the small laneways of the old town, a majestic scene by any account. The rest of the day was followed by bouncing back and forth between the old town for the slaughtering of the sheep and the Id Kah Square for traditional music and singing and dancing. The morning cold had passed giving way to clear blue skies and a glaring sun that left this photographer fairy sunburned. Day two and day three were much the same as the festival tapered off and I focused back on speaking with old town residents and shooting portraits and architecture.
And in the blink of an eye I was back in Urumqi, fogged in waiting for my flight to Shanghai. I’d eaten something funky during the festival and was feeling most uncomfortable. My flight was delayed and I had come full circle. My six-day trip, only three days of shooing, and three days of being stranded and traveling, had taken their toll. I curled up on a few seats at the Urumqi Airport trying not to wretch.
Some trips take more out of you than others. After being stranded, delayed, knee deep in sheep blood and then delayed again I was a broken man. The food poisonings was a bonus. When I finally strolled in to my home in Shanghai at 2am my wife looked at me with the classic “WTF look”. Is it worth all this trouble she asks? Absolutely, I just prayed my pictures did the festival justice. But that wasn’t the right time for professional reflection; it was the moment for stomach medicine and a good 16 hours in bed. I would live to fight another day; hell, I was leaving for Lhasa in just five days. I needed to sort this out in a hurry. The journey continues.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, December 11, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Kodak Support
Hello.
I’ve been using Kodak black and white film for my entire career; meaning simply that I’ve been a TriX fan since day one, and I will die a TriX fan. But the film is expensive and it’s been incredibly difficult to find in China in 35mm format. So it was essentially a sign from the heavens above when Kodak contacted me earlier this year and offered me some free TriX; I was glowing for weeks.
My color film choices have been slightly more strained. I’ve been a Fuji man for most of my career, for no other reason that this kind of film is the most readily available in China. My choices of Provia 100 and 400 provided me with a quality film with a vast range; but I never gave it much of a thought really. I never dabbled with competitor films and I never questioned my film choices. I just went with the flow, concerned more about the story and the composition than the actual film being used.
Then earlier this year Kodak sent me that batch of TriX, that I mentioned above, and they included a few rolls of color film as well; a very savvy move on their part. I’ll admit the color stock sat on my desk for several weeks before I got off my butt and put them through a few test runs, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that I finally did. I was incredibly pleased with the results, so much so that I asked Kodak for a few more rolls. And to my surprise they said sure. I glowed further.
I’m mainly shooting color side film, or transparency film. I rarely dabble in negative film anymore these days. So I’ve been shooting the new E100VS and EV 200 Kodak color slide film, and I’ve been pleased with the results. The range and the richness of the colors are lovely. The super-fine grain is helpful as well, especially when the film is pushed, as I push the EV200 to ISO 800 for some of my shots where there is less available light.
So now, finally, I am a die-hard Kodak user. And much to my pleasure they have begun supplying me with all of my black and white and color film needs, and I couldn’t be thankful enough. It’s my first sponsorship of sorts, and it’s very humbling to have a company like Kodak supporting my image making.
How has this changed my life? Well, first off it has allowed me to have more control over my work. For example, often clients I work for ask me to now shoot longer projects, that don’t have fast turn around times, in digital. When I ask why they insist on digital they often site cost concerns. My reply now is, “don’t worry. I’ll be shooting film and it won’t cost you a thing”. Kodak have stepped in a filled a financing gap. Where I would have normally shot in digital to keep costs down follow the instructions of the magazine, I can now pursue my artistic belief that film still offers more range and higher quality, it still my preferred medium. And I now have the financial flexibility to continue using film when many clients have turned their backs on analog photography. And you know what the funny thing is? After I turn in the projects clients often write back saying thanks for making the effort to use film, the results are lovely. I love that.
Now, I’m not very good at comparing gear or writing blogs about how one camera, or film, is better than the other and why. I just know what I like and it now makes me very happy to have new opportunities to pursue more film photography. And in this day and age, given the harsh economic conditions, having a choice between film and digital, when it doesn’t cost you extra money, is a pretty special thing.
At this very moment I’ve taken a couple hundred rolls of Kodak color slide film and I’m currently working on a project that will hopefully get some decent responses from my clients. It’s my first, color, all-Kodak large film project and it’ll involve me hunkering down in a remote part of China for about 10-12 days and just shooting. And with the weather being horribly cold, film cameras – my Canon EOS 1V’s - and their fantastic durability are the only choice. And with that, of course, comes an entire bag of my Kodak E100VS and E200.
Lastly, I few months back I wrote a blog about how Kodak Kodachrome was retired and that Kodak and their color film business might be on it’s last legs. But clearly I was wrong. They’ve recently developed the new slide film that I am using today and they’ve introduced a new color negative film as well. So, yes, while Kodachrome was retired it appears that Kodak have improved on a previous model and retired an aging workhorse. Kodak are still in the film game, they are still heavily invested in producing color and black and white film; and they are also investing in people like me, a relative new comer to the game, but a photographer who puts a serious amount of film through his camera and isn’t afraid to talk about it. And I can’t thank Kodak enough for their support. Now if someone from Canon would just call, I’d be walking on air.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I’ve been using Kodak black and white film for my entire career; meaning simply that I’ve been a TriX fan since day one, and I will die a TriX fan. But the film is expensive and it’s been incredibly difficult to find in China in 35mm format. So it was essentially a sign from the heavens above when Kodak contacted me earlier this year and offered me some free TriX; I was glowing for weeks.
My color film choices have been slightly more strained. I’ve been a Fuji man for most of my career, for no other reason that this kind of film is the most readily available in China. My choices of Provia 100 and 400 provided me with a quality film with a vast range; but I never gave it much of a thought really. I never dabbled with competitor films and I never questioned my film choices. I just went with the flow, concerned more about the story and the composition than the actual film being used.
Then earlier this year Kodak sent me that batch of TriX, that I mentioned above, and they included a few rolls of color film as well; a very savvy move on their part. I’ll admit the color stock sat on my desk for several weeks before I got off my butt and put them through a few test runs, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that I finally did. I was incredibly pleased with the results, so much so that I asked Kodak for a few more rolls. And to my surprise they said sure. I glowed further.
I’m mainly shooting color side film, or transparency film. I rarely dabble in negative film anymore these days. So I’ve been shooting the new E100VS and EV 200 Kodak color slide film, and I’ve been pleased with the results. The range and the richness of the colors are lovely. The super-fine grain is helpful as well, especially when the film is pushed, as I push the EV200 to ISO 800 for some of my shots where there is less available light.
So now, finally, I am a die-hard Kodak user. And much to my pleasure they have begun supplying me with all of my black and white and color film needs, and I couldn’t be thankful enough. It’s my first sponsorship of sorts, and it’s very humbling to have a company like Kodak supporting my image making.
How has this changed my life? Well, first off it has allowed me to have more control over my work. For example, often clients I work for ask me to now shoot longer projects, that don’t have fast turn around times, in digital. When I ask why they insist on digital they often site cost concerns. My reply now is, “don’t worry. I’ll be shooting film and it won’t cost you a thing”. Kodak have stepped in a filled a financing gap. Where I would have normally shot in digital to keep costs down follow the instructions of the magazine, I can now pursue my artistic belief that film still offers more range and higher quality, it still my preferred medium. And I now have the financial flexibility to continue using film when many clients have turned their backs on analog photography. And you know what the funny thing is? After I turn in the projects clients often write back saying thanks for making the effort to use film, the results are lovely. I love that.
Now, I’m not very good at comparing gear or writing blogs about how one camera, or film, is better than the other and why. I just know what I like and it now makes me very happy to have new opportunities to pursue more film photography. And in this day and age, given the harsh economic conditions, having a choice between film and digital, when it doesn’t cost you extra money, is a pretty special thing.
At this very moment I’ve taken a couple hundred rolls of Kodak color slide film and I’m currently working on a project that will hopefully get some decent responses from my clients. It’s my first, color, all-Kodak large film project and it’ll involve me hunkering down in a remote part of China for about 10-12 days and just shooting. And with the weather being horribly cold, film cameras – my Canon EOS 1V’s - and their fantastic durability are the only choice. And with that, of course, comes an entire bag of my Kodak E100VS and E200.
Lastly, I few months back I wrote a blog about how Kodak Kodachrome was retired and that Kodak and their color film business might be on it’s last legs. But clearly I was wrong. They’ve recently developed the new slide film that I am using today and they’ve introduced a new color negative film as well. So, yes, while Kodachrome was retired it appears that Kodak have improved on a previous model and retired an aging workhorse. Kodak are still in the film game, they are still heavily invested in producing color and black and white film; and they are also investing in people like me, a relative new comer to the game, but a photographer who puts a serious amount of film through his camera and isn’t afraid to talk about it. And I can’t thank Kodak enough for their support. Now if someone from Canon would just call, I’d be walking on air.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, December 04, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: My New Canon EOS 1V's
Hello.
Yes. It appears I've done the impossible. The ridiculous. The un-imaginable. I've purchased two more film cameras. Insane? Perhaps, but much needed. Let me try to explain.
When I was a budding photographer I was a bit clueless and in serious need of guidance. That guidance was provided by TIME magazine regular, and Fifty Crows Award winner, Andrew Moore. To see some of Andrew's work visit the Fifty Crows and search under the winners for the year of 2000. You'll see his photographic coverage of Northern Ireland.
I met Andrew while I was learning how to be a photographer. Well, in fact I am still learning how to be a photographer but I met Andrew at an earlier stage. We were side by side shooting together during the massive protests in Hong Kong on July 1st 2003, they say about a million people took to the streets that day. Andrew's work was lovely.
Andrew had relocated from the UK to Hong Kong and had begun work in Asia. At that time I had only one camera and 1 lens, a Canon EOS 1 with a 50mm f/1.4 lense. Life was bliss. But as I continued working on personal projects and trying to put together a strong portfolio to show clients Andrew actually provided a lot of guidance and assistance. He showed me a lot of his personal work and offered me a lot of tips. It might not have taken too much of his time or effort, but our relationship was very influential and inspiring for me.
When I was about to leave Hong Kong Andrew mentioned that he was selling is Canon EOS 1n's, and asked me if I would like to purchase them. I said absolutely. They were the camera's that he used for much of his long and storied, and award winning, Northern Ireland work. I paid a well below market price and packed my bags and returned to Shanghai. Since that moment those Canon EOS 1n's have been the backbone of my career to date. I've used them thousands of times and put every kind of film imaginable through them. The whole time remembering the history of the cameras. It's been an emotional experience to say the least.
Well I'm sad to say, sorry Andrew, that I've just upgraded to the Canon EOS 1v. It is perhaps the last Canon film camera ever to be developed; and while the design and functions haven't changed since it was introduced almost a decade ago; it was a welcome upgrade for me. As I've mentioned several times on this blog I push through a lot of film and the EOS system has been my workhorse. Andrew's 1n's operated flawlessly for over five years and only just a few weeks ago did I order up the new 1v's from B&H. Why did I order them from B&H in the US? Simple really. When I went to the camera market in Shanghai people laughed at me when I told them I was looking for the EOS 1v. And when I called my favorite photography supplier in Hong Kong he told me it would take three weeks to order. B&H had it at my doorstep within five working days. Awesome!
I've put the camera through its paces over the last few weeks and it has performed wonderfully. Once again Canon comes through in the clutch. A few people have written in and asked what kind of gear I shoot with, so here is a brief run down of the gear I've got at home:
2x Leica M6
2x Canon EOS 1n (Andrew, I couldn't bring myself to sell them)
2x Canon EOS 1v
2x Canon EOS 5D MII (digital)
1x Fuji 6x9 (which you'll see in a new project coming soon)
So yes, I've had to re-mortgage my house to buy photography equipment over the last few years; but I feel I've invested well. My equipment is durable, takes a beating and holds up well in the re-sale market. We'll get in to lenses another day; I'm a bit busy with a project right now using my Canon EOS 1v's; I still love film.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Yes. It appears I've done the impossible. The ridiculous. The un-imaginable. I've purchased two more film cameras. Insane? Perhaps, but much needed. Let me try to explain.
When I was a budding photographer I was a bit clueless and in serious need of guidance. That guidance was provided by TIME magazine regular, and Fifty Crows Award winner, Andrew Moore. To see some of Andrew's work visit the Fifty Crows and search under the winners for the year of 2000. You'll see his photographic coverage of Northern Ireland.
I met Andrew while I was learning how to be a photographer. Well, in fact I am still learning how to be a photographer but I met Andrew at an earlier stage. We were side by side shooting together during the massive protests in Hong Kong on July 1st 2003, they say about a million people took to the streets that day. Andrew's work was lovely.
Andrew had relocated from the UK to Hong Kong and had begun work in Asia. At that time I had only one camera and 1 lens, a Canon EOS 1 with a 50mm f/1.4 lense. Life was bliss. But as I continued working on personal projects and trying to put together a strong portfolio to show clients Andrew actually provided a lot of guidance and assistance. He showed me a lot of his personal work and offered me a lot of tips. It might not have taken too much of his time or effort, but our relationship was very influential and inspiring for me.
When I was about to leave Hong Kong Andrew mentioned that he was selling is Canon EOS 1n's, and asked me if I would like to purchase them. I said absolutely. They were the camera's that he used for much of his long and storied, and award winning, Northern Ireland work. I paid a well below market price and packed my bags and returned to Shanghai. Since that moment those Canon EOS 1n's have been the backbone of my career to date. I've used them thousands of times and put every kind of film imaginable through them. The whole time remembering the history of the cameras. It's been an emotional experience to say the least.
Well I'm sad to say, sorry Andrew, that I've just upgraded to the Canon EOS 1v. It is perhaps the last Canon film camera ever to be developed; and while the design and functions haven't changed since it was introduced almost a decade ago; it was a welcome upgrade for me. As I've mentioned several times on this blog I push through a lot of film and the EOS system has been my workhorse. Andrew's 1n's operated flawlessly for over five years and only just a few weeks ago did I order up the new 1v's from B&H. Why did I order them from B&H in the US? Simple really. When I went to the camera market in Shanghai people laughed at me when I told them I was looking for the EOS 1v. And when I called my favorite photography supplier in Hong Kong he told me it would take three weeks to order. B&H had it at my doorstep within five working days. Awesome!
I've put the camera through its paces over the last few weeks and it has performed wonderfully. Once again Canon comes through in the clutch. A few people have written in and asked what kind of gear I shoot with, so here is a brief run down of the gear I've got at home:
2x Leica M6
2x Canon EOS 1n (Andrew, I couldn't bring myself to sell them)
2x Canon EOS 1v
2x Canon EOS 5D MII (digital)
1x Fuji 6x9 (which you'll see in a new project coming soon)
So yes, I've had to re-mortgage my house to buy photography equipment over the last few years; but I feel I've invested well. My equipment is durable, takes a beating and holds up well in the re-sale market. We'll get in to lenses another day; I'm a bit busy with a project right now using my Canon EOS 1v's; I still love film.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, November 27, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Neo-Malthusian
Hello.
I would like to first off say that I'm a realist. I don't believe in Red or Blue, or Conservative or Democrat. I believe in what happens on the ground. Perhaps that would be obvious given that I try to document reality and real life on a daily basis. I take my political ideology from what I see in my daily life. I take my understanding of what state our society or planet is in by my work, my travel and my experiences. And after reading a special report by the Economist, a few weeks back, on population growth I have a few comments I'd like to share on this blog. I hope you'll find them thought provoking, and a strong base for debate.
I think it is important to start out by saying that I live in China, the world's most populous country. At the moment there are around 1.3 or 1.4 billion people that call China home; that means just about 1 in every 4 people in the world is Chinese.
Within China I travel almost weekly, visiting cities and rural communities alike, and often after my jobs are completed and I make my way back to my home in Shanghai (a city of 20 million) I can't help but often think to myself that there are just too many people in this country. It's impossible for them all to obtain a high standard of living and it's impossible for the government to reach each person with basic government services like education and healthcare. There is just too much to manage, democracy or no democracy; managing a country effectively with more than a billion people might just not be possible. One only has to look to democratic India to see how messy democratic development can be.
Sure that might sound like a good excuse, "oh, we have too many people to govern effectively"; but it could actually have a lot of truth to it. Too many people means competition is intense at every level of society which leaves the masses feeling often helpless, which often leads to people thinking that corruption is their only escape or way out. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but when I see ten year old kids coming out of school exams crying hysterically because they didn't do well and they won't get in to a good middle school, echoing words like: "my life is over", "I've failed my parents", and "I'll never get a good job"; I can't help but thinking that is a lot of pressure for a ten year old kid. When I was ten years old Canada had about 25 million people, a shade more than Shanghai, and I can't remember ever feeling like that - even right up until the end of my University career. So what is my point?
My point is that I'm starting to get a sick feeling in my stomach every time I visit a small village somewhere in rural China and see a husband and wife with 5 or 6 kids and not enough food or clothes to go around. I'm pained by reading about Philippine laborers losing their jobs in Taiwan and having to return to Manila with no money and no plan to feed their wife and five children. I'm exhausted by reading about how the world needs Chinese citizens to consume more, to what end? As our societies evolve and women have more educational and employment opportunities birth rates do fall, and they have started falling across much of the world; and that is a good thing. Very few of us, less than 1/4 of the global population, live in an environment where our only form of social security comes from the number of children we have. And hopefully that number will continue to decrease, in fact it must.
While the joys of having children and rising a family are obvious, so too are the successes of family planning and lighter forms of population control. Any country that promotes abstinence should be smacked for thinking the world lives in a sitcom from the 1950s. People have sex, and lots of it; often because it feels great and is a lot of fun if done so responsibly; so getting condoms and educating people how to use them is crucial. And there is a lot of evidence of that paying dividends in Africa and parts of Asia. The Economist even reported that women in Latin America and Asia used condoms 4x more often then women in Africa, so there is still much work to be done on the micro-planning level.
What about the macro-level? How does government family planning work? Well, like all macro planning; it is often very painful for some at the ground level but often better for the society as a whole. Much has been made of China's "One Child Policy" since it's inception in the late 1970s, but reports show that that policy alone has prevented about 400 million new births; meaning that the population of China is today only 1.3 billion instead of 1.7 billion and there are only 20 million new graduates entering the labor market each year instead of 40 million. Now it is true that such macro level planning restricts individual rights and freedoms, there have been horror stories of forced abortions, abandonment of baby girls, sterilization and all the rest of it; but can you imagine the energy demands of a China with 1.7 billion people? Already with 1.3 billion China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, one could make the argument that effective macro level population control in China is benefiting the global environment. Are individuals responsible enough to make the right choices on their own? Do they know what is best for them? Often yes, but perhaps sometimes no.
The Economist reports that the world population is likely to peak around 9.6 billion people in 2050, and then decline from there. China will actually start declining much sooner and be taken over by India as the most populous country in the world; which is a very scary prospect for both urban and rural Indians. Between now and 2050 our world needs to figure out a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions, find ways to generate renewable energy, waste less, consume less, produce more food, use water more efficiently, create better infrastructure, manage mega cities more effectively and above all else (as the Chinese government would say) keep political stability.
It's really an incredible task. I read the other day that a woman in the US had seven babies at one time, a result of fertility drugs; and that she is on welfare and hasn't held a steady job in years. I also read that in 1949 when the Communist government took control of China there were only 350 million people here. Can the world prosper with less people? Yes. Can individuals throughout the world become responsible and educated global citizens and manage issues like individual birth rates, waste and consumption on their own? I really hope so.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I would like to first off say that I'm a realist. I don't believe in Red or Blue, or Conservative or Democrat. I believe in what happens on the ground. Perhaps that would be obvious given that I try to document reality and real life on a daily basis. I take my political ideology from what I see in my daily life. I take my understanding of what state our society or planet is in by my work, my travel and my experiences. And after reading a special report by the Economist, a few weeks back, on population growth I have a few comments I'd like to share on this blog. I hope you'll find them thought provoking, and a strong base for debate.
I think it is important to start out by saying that I live in China, the world's most populous country. At the moment there are around 1.3 or 1.4 billion people that call China home; that means just about 1 in every 4 people in the world is Chinese.
Within China I travel almost weekly, visiting cities and rural communities alike, and often after my jobs are completed and I make my way back to my home in Shanghai (a city of 20 million) I can't help but often think to myself that there are just too many people in this country. It's impossible for them all to obtain a high standard of living and it's impossible for the government to reach each person with basic government services like education and healthcare. There is just too much to manage, democracy or no democracy; managing a country effectively with more than a billion people might just not be possible. One only has to look to democratic India to see how messy democratic development can be.
Sure that might sound like a good excuse, "oh, we have too many people to govern effectively"; but it could actually have a lot of truth to it. Too many people means competition is intense at every level of society which leaves the masses feeling often helpless, which often leads to people thinking that corruption is their only escape or way out. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but when I see ten year old kids coming out of school exams crying hysterically because they didn't do well and they won't get in to a good middle school, echoing words like: "my life is over", "I've failed my parents", and "I'll never get a good job"; I can't help but thinking that is a lot of pressure for a ten year old kid. When I was ten years old Canada had about 25 million people, a shade more than Shanghai, and I can't remember ever feeling like that - even right up until the end of my University career. So what is my point?
My point is that I'm starting to get a sick feeling in my stomach every time I visit a small village somewhere in rural China and see a husband and wife with 5 or 6 kids and not enough food or clothes to go around. I'm pained by reading about Philippine laborers losing their jobs in Taiwan and having to return to Manila with no money and no plan to feed their wife and five children. I'm exhausted by reading about how the world needs Chinese citizens to consume more, to what end? As our societies evolve and women have more educational and employment opportunities birth rates do fall, and they have started falling across much of the world; and that is a good thing. Very few of us, less than 1/4 of the global population, live in an environment where our only form of social security comes from the number of children we have. And hopefully that number will continue to decrease, in fact it must.
While the joys of having children and rising a family are obvious, so too are the successes of family planning and lighter forms of population control. Any country that promotes abstinence should be smacked for thinking the world lives in a sitcom from the 1950s. People have sex, and lots of it; often because it feels great and is a lot of fun if done so responsibly; so getting condoms and educating people how to use them is crucial. And there is a lot of evidence of that paying dividends in Africa and parts of Asia. The Economist even reported that women in Latin America and Asia used condoms 4x more often then women in Africa, so there is still much work to be done on the micro-planning level.
What about the macro-level? How does government family planning work? Well, like all macro planning; it is often very painful for some at the ground level but often better for the society as a whole. Much has been made of China's "One Child Policy" since it's inception in the late 1970s, but reports show that that policy alone has prevented about 400 million new births; meaning that the population of China is today only 1.3 billion instead of 1.7 billion and there are only 20 million new graduates entering the labor market each year instead of 40 million. Now it is true that such macro level planning restricts individual rights and freedoms, there have been horror stories of forced abortions, abandonment of baby girls, sterilization and all the rest of it; but can you imagine the energy demands of a China with 1.7 billion people? Already with 1.3 billion China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, one could make the argument that effective macro level population control in China is benefiting the global environment. Are individuals responsible enough to make the right choices on their own? Do they know what is best for them? Often yes, but perhaps sometimes no.
The Economist reports that the world population is likely to peak around 9.6 billion people in 2050, and then decline from there. China will actually start declining much sooner and be taken over by India as the most populous country in the world; which is a very scary prospect for both urban and rural Indians. Between now and 2050 our world needs to figure out a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions, find ways to generate renewable energy, waste less, consume less, produce more food, use water more efficiently, create better infrastructure, manage mega cities more effectively and above all else (as the Chinese government would say) keep political stability.
It's really an incredible task. I read the other day that a woman in the US had seven babies at one time, a result of fertility drugs; and that she is on welfare and hasn't held a steady job in years. I also read that in 1949 when the Communist government took control of China there were only 350 million people here. Can the world prosper with less people? Yes. Can individuals throughout the world become responsible and educated global citizens and manage issues like individual birth rates, waste and consumption on their own? I really hope so.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, November 20, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: The Economist
Hello.
Why does the Economist hate photographers so much?
I mean, they don't really hate photographers. The Economist is a big picture buyer and their magazine is getting thicker and thicker each year. My reason for my opening statement is that they don't credit any photography; and recently they used one of my images from a computer factory in Shenzhen, and there was no credit in the magazine and only a "Corbis" credit online. See below.
Now, I think I understand why they don't credit writers for their magazine; and it's because they are all staffers and they don't want to draw away from the brand of the Economist and let any individual writers become larger than the actual magazine. And that is fair enough assuming people are compensated enough for giving up that opportunity.
But freelance photographers, and writers as well, rely so much on proper captioning as a form of marketing or advertising. I've had a lot of re-sales over the years from people who viewed an image in a newspaper or magazine and picked out my name in the caption, then googled me and found my website or archive.
So why does the Economist do that? Anyone have any inside information? While it might get on my nerves personally, you can't really fault the Economist and their methods or business plan. Their magazine is booming, in both terms of subscriptions and advertising, while the rest of the industry is falling in to a dark hole. I've been a subscriber for five or six years and I couldn't image living without my weekly edition; if for nothing else it gives me a lot of blog about.
Economist Picture:
_________________________________
Back to the circuit board
Oct 22nd 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
Tech firms are doing so well that boosters say they will spur a broader economic recovery. That is unlikely.
THIS year’s Web 2.0 Summit, an annual technology conference in San Francisco, featured a reception at a swanky hotel dubbed “Web After Dark”. The event was packed with euphoric entrepreneurs toasting their grand plans. Conference veterans noted the contrast with the previous year’s summit, which many attendees spent drowning their sorrows as the world economy sank into chaos.
There is plenty of other evidence that the darkness that has hung over the information-technology industry for many months is lifting. Three of the sector’s heavyweights—IBM, Intel and Google—recently reported surprisingly robust profits. Even Yahoo!, a struggling internet portal, did less badly than expected. On October 19th Apple stunned even the most bullish investors by posting its best quarterly results ever: revenues came in at $9.9 billion, 24% higher than the same period a year earlier. Venture-capital investments in America are growing again. And Windows 7, the new operating system Microsoft launched on October 22nd, is expected to pep up demand for personal computers and related gear. The OECD believes a recovery has been under way for some time, particularly in Asia.
All this is more than welcome. But the wave of good news has also helped to buoy the industry’s infamous self-regard. Some even predict that IT will pull the economy out of the mire, with investment in technology giving a swift boost to productivity and job creation. As Edward Yardeni, an economist known for his optimism, has put it: “This will be a technology-led recovery.”
Just how much of a boost IT can provide is a subject of some contention. Both Forrester and Gartner, the industry’s leading research firms, predict that the downturn will bottom out in the current quarter and that growth will resume next year. Yet the two firms differ on the severity of the recession in IT and, more importantly, the speed at which the industry will pull out of its slump. Forrester sees a V-shaped future, whereas Gartner envisages more of an L, with revenues remaining below last year’s level until 2012 at the earliest.
There are good reasons to be conservative. For a start, talk of rapid growth in percentage terms disguises low absolute numbers, thanks to the depth of the recent contraction. If venture-capital investments in America were up by an impressive 17% in the third quarter, according to the National Venture Capital Association, this was mainly because they had dropped to an historic low. The volatile dollar muddles the picture as well. For almost a year, the currency’s increasing strength weighed heavily on the results of American IT firms by devaluing foreign revenues. Now its increasing weakness makes their numbers look far healthier.
In addition, excellent results at Apple, Google and even Intel reflect increased demand from consumers. Apple has benefited from the boom in smart-phones, Google from users clicking on more advertisements and Intel from the popularity of “netbooks” (small laptops), many of which contain its chips. But companies still account for by far the biggest chunk of technology spending. IBM, which offers the entire range of corporate IT services, from powerful computers to consulting services, is therefore a much better proxy for the overall health of the IT industry. Although its profits were better than expected, its revenues fell by nearly 7% in the third quarter compared with the same period last year.
Moreover, it is likelier that the economy, supported by low interest rates and stimulus programmes, is reviving IT, rather than the other way around—a function of IT’s increasing pervasiveness. It now accounts for over half of American firms’ investment in equipment (see chart). In the countries of the OECD, the organisation’s secretariat estimates, it accounts for more than 8% of value-added and nearly 6% of employment. Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, an economist at the OECD, says, “For most OECD countries, the prospects are of a very fragile and weak recovery, for the overall economy and thus for IT.”
Even if corporate investment in IT does bounce back faster than expected, it could be some time before the effects feed through to the broader economy. In a new book, “Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology Is Reshaping The Economy”, Erik Brynjolfsson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Adam Saunders of the Wharton School point out that it usually takes five to seven years for IT investments to produce substantial returns because it typically takes that long for companies to make the organisational changes needed to capitalise on the new technology. What is more, Mr Brynjolfsson points out, the recession has encouraged companies to focus their IT investments on boosting the productivity of shrunken workforces, which may mean that unemployment remains stubbornly high for some time to come.
So the parties in San Francisco seem premature. Yet the recession has also accelerated trends that could make for a bigger celebration later. It has speeded up the adoption of promising new technologies, such as cloud and mobile computing. Without the crisis, consumers might not have rushed to buy cheap netbooks or even smart-phones. Needing to cut investment, companies looked more closely at software delivered as a service over the internet. One firm that has grown consistently this year is Salesforce.com, the largest provider of such offerings.
These trends have also been fuelled by the shift of the industry’s centre of gravity to emerging markets, where consumers have less money to spend on technology and companies are more likely to outsource their IT (see article). Countries such as China and India have seen IT spending increase by up to 30% annually in recent years and account for much of the industry’s recent growth. Between 2003 and 2008, developing countries’ share of spending on IT grew from 15% to 24%, according to the OECD. Developing countries also make more than half of the world’s electronics. China alone churns out more than a quarter, compared with just 3% in 1995, according to Reed Electronics, another market-research firm.
As for rich countries, the crisis has prompted governments to speed up IT investments which might otherwise not have become a priority for years, says the OECD’s Mr Wunsch-Vincent. The stimulus packages of most countries in the OECD include large sums for smart power grids, digitisation of health records and the deployment of broadband networks. All this, he says, should boost productivity and employment in time, provided the politicians have spent wisely—a big if.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Why does the Economist hate photographers so much?
I mean, they don't really hate photographers. The Economist is a big picture buyer and their magazine is getting thicker and thicker each year. My reason for my opening statement is that they don't credit any photography; and recently they used one of my images from a computer factory in Shenzhen, and there was no credit in the magazine and only a "Corbis" credit online. See below.
Now, I think I understand why they don't credit writers for their magazine; and it's because they are all staffers and they don't want to draw away from the brand of the Economist and let any individual writers become larger than the actual magazine. And that is fair enough assuming people are compensated enough for giving up that opportunity.
But freelance photographers, and writers as well, rely so much on proper captioning as a form of marketing or advertising. I've had a lot of re-sales over the years from people who viewed an image in a newspaper or magazine and picked out my name in the caption, then googled me and found my website or archive.
So why does the Economist do that? Anyone have any inside information? While it might get on my nerves personally, you can't really fault the Economist and their methods or business plan. Their magazine is booming, in both terms of subscriptions and advertising, while the rest of the industry is falling in to a dark hole. I've been a subscriber for five or six years and I couldn't image living without my weekly edition; if for nothing else it gives me a lot of blog about.
Economist Picture:
_________________________________
Back to the circuit board
Oct 22nd 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
Tech firms are doing so well that boosters say they will spur a broader economic recovery. That is unlikely.
THIS year’s Web 2.0 Summit, an annual technology conference in San Francisco, featured a reception at a swanky hotel dubbed “Web After Dark”. The event was packed with euphoric entrepreneurs toasting their grand plans. Conference veterans noted the contrast with the previous year’s summit, which many attendees spent drowning their sorrows as the world economy sank into chaos.
There is plenty of other evidence that the darkness that has hung over the information-technology industry for many months is lifting. Three of the sector’s heavyweights—IBM, Intel and Google—recently reported surprisingly robust profits. Even Yahoo!, a struggling internet portal, did less badly than expected. On October 19th Apple stunned even the most bullish investors by posting its best quarterly results ever: revenues came in at $9.9 billion, 24% higher than the same period a year earlier. Venture-capital investments in America are growing again. And Windows 7, the new operating system Microsoft launched on October 22nd, is expected to pep up demand for personal computers and related gear. The OECD believes a recovery has been under way for some time, particularly in Asia.
All this is more than welcome. But the wave of good news has also helped to buoy the industry’s infamous self-regard. Some even predict that IT will pull the economy out of the mire, with investment in technology giving a swift boost to productivity and job creation. As Edward Yardeni, an economist known for his optimism, has put it: “This will be a technology-led recovery.”
Just how much of a boost IT can provide is a subject of some contention. Both Forrester and Gartner, the industry’s leading research firms, predict that the downturn will bottom out in the current quarter and that growth will resume next year. Yet the two firms differ on the severity of the recession in IT and, more importantly, the speed at which the industry will pull out of its slump. Forrester sees a V-shaped future, whereas Gartner envisages more of an L, with revenues remaining below last year’s level until 2012 at the earliest.
There are good reasons to be conservative. For a start, talk of rapid growth in percentage terms disguises low absolute numbers, thanks to the depth of the recent contraction. If venture-capital investments in America were up by an impressive 17% in the third quarter, according to the National Venture Capital Association, this was mainly because they had dropped to an historic low. The volatile dollar muddles the picture as well. For almost a year, the currency’s increasing strength weighed heavily on the results of American IT firms by devaluing foreign revenues. Now its increasing weakness makes their numbers look far healthier.
In addition, excellent results at Apple, Google and even Intel reflect increased demand from consumers. Apple has benefited from the boom in smart-phones, Google from users clicking on more advertisements and Intel from the popularity of “netbooks” (small laptops), many of which contain its chips. But companies still account for by far the biggest chunk of technology spending. IBM, which offers the entire range of corporate IT services, from powerful computers to consulting services, is therefore a much better proxy for the overall health of the IT industry. Although its profits were better than expected, its revenues fell by nearly 7% in the third quarter compared with the same period last year.
Moreover, it is likelier that the economy, supported by low interest rates and stimulus programmes, is reviving IT, rather than the other way around—a function of IT’s increasing pervasiveness. It now accounts for over half of American firms’ investment in equipment (see chart). In the countries of the OECD, the organisation’s secretariat estimates, it accounts for more than 8% of value-added and nearly 6% of employment. Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, an economist at the OECD, says, “For most OECD countries, the prospects are of a very fragile and weak recovery, for the overall economy and thus for IT.”
Even if corporate investment in IT does bounce back faster than expected, it could be some time before the effects feed through to the broader economy. In a new book, “Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology Is Reshaping The Economy”, Erik Brynjolfsson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Adam Saunders of the Wharton School point out that it usually takes five to seven years for IT investments to produce substantial returns because it typically takes that long for companies to make the organisational changes needed to capitalise on the new technology. What is more, Mr Brynjolfsson points out, the recession has encouraged companies to focus their IT investments on boosting the productivity of shrunken workforces, which may mean that unemployment remains stubbornly high for some time to come.
So the parties in San Francisco seem premature. Yet the recession has also accelerated trends that could make for a bigger celebration later. It has speeded up the adoption of promising new technologies, such as cloud and mobile computing. Without the crisis, consumers might not have rushed to buy cheap netbooks or even smart-phones. Needing to cut investment, companies looked more closely at software delivered as a service over the internet. One firm that has grown consistently this year is Salesforce.com, the largest provider of such offerings.
These trends have also been fuelled by the shift of the industry’s centre of gravity to emerging markets, where consumers have less money to spend on technology and companies are more likely to outsource their IT (see article). Countries such as China and India have seen IT spending increase by up to 30% annually in recent years and account for much of the industry’s recent growth. Between 2003 and 2008, developing countries’ share of spending on IT grew from 15% to 24%, according to the OECD. Developing countries also make more than half of the world’s electronics. China alone churns out more than a quarter, compared with just 3% in 1995, according to Reed Electronics, another market-research firm.
As for rich countries, the crisis has prompted governments to speed up IT investments which might otherwise not have become a priority for years, says the OECD’s Mr Wunsch-Vincent. The stimulus packages of most countries in the OECD include large sums for smart power grids, digitisation of health records and the deployment of broadband networks. All this, he says, should boost productivity and employment in time, provided the politicians have spent wisely—a big if.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, November 13, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: New Work from Chinese Turkistan
Hello,
I just wanted to write to make you aware of some new work I've completed on my multi-year project about Chinese Turkistan, or China's northwestern Xinjiang province.
The project has been an exciting progression in both the disciplines of anthropology and photography, in an attempt to emulate the methodology of the great documentary photographers of the past century. It's been a most challenging task, and at stages it has been an incredibly rewarding process. The task at hand, is still that of documenting a culture and a way of life that is struggling to come to grips with an ever expanding Chinese presence throughout the region. This struggle, in my opinion, will always exist at some level; and my documentary project may never have a finite ending because of that. But still I continue to visit the region several times a year, capturing glimpses of a culture on its last legs - so to speak.
Xinjiang was in the news for all of the wrong reasons during much of July and August for ethnic riots in the city of Urumqi. And while Urumqi was clearly the flashpoint, the rest of China's largest province remains relatively calm as the local population comes to terms with the development goals of the regional government. Below are two links. The first is to a series of new work, some of which was included in a gallery show that I had in Toronto, Canada in August 2009. The second link is a wider edit of both new and old work covering the last several years.
The New Work:
LINK: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
A Wide Edit of Old and New work:
LINK: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, November 06, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Bizarre Driver
Hello.
As part of my profession, I end up hiring a lot of drivers. Almost every job I am involved in requires me to travel somewhere and hire a driver so that I can get either from A to B, or so I can make multiple visits in one day without worrying about standing around waiting for taxi's.
With that being said I can say with confidence that I've hired hundreds of drivers over the last nine years in China. I've had the chain smokers, the mobile phone talkers, the drunks, and one who fell asleep at the wheel. But don't think it is all negative; I've had a few gems as well.
Last week I was bumbling around Hainan Island working on a story and I hired a driver to take me from the provincial capital in Haikou along the coast to south to Sanya. The drive was very pretty and at one point, after cruising through endless stretches of cocunut plantations, we came across a massive mountain right on the coast.
My natural reaction when I see something like that is: let's get to the top and see what the coast line looks like. And after convincing my driver it would be exciting to veer off our original path for just a few minutes, he said he would try the road that seemed to be leading up the mountain. And so we followed the narrow switch backs for almost 20 minutes twisting and turning until we reached near the top of the mountain. Once there, it was just a short walk up some bamboo stairs to the summit of the mountain, and endless views north along Hainan's coast. I popped out of the car and started towards the stairs, my assistant was close behind me; but alas the driver stayed put.
Dumbfounded I walked back to the car and asked him if he wanted to come along? Then mentioning that I wanted him to join us. He said no and reclined his seat and closed his eyes. I asked him if he had been up to the top of this mountain before, he said no; never having opened his eyes. I let it go.
Upon reaching the summit I was amazed by the incredibly beautiful coast line; I shot a bunch of shots with several different lenses and once finished I just sat back and gazed out at the ocean for a good half an hour; taking in the salty sea air. It was a perfect moment of relaxation after a few hectic days of traveling and shooting.
Upon getting back to the car my assignment was beaming about how lovely the view was, my driver had been out cold; sleeping like a log. Once we got back in to the car I asked again if he would like to take a quick peak, he said no, started his car and we carried on with our trip down to Sanya.
Odd? Normal? Lazy? Unmotivated? Generally unhappy? Focused? Goal Oriented? Exhausted?
It strikes me as odd that sometimes in China, particularly men, don't seem very adventurous or care much to seek out the natural beauty of their own country. Are they above it all? Or just simply uninterested? I couldn't believe it when my driver said he wasn't going to come with us. There was not even an entrance fee. It was free. Clearly you don't have to be a photographer to enjoy an incredible mountain top coastal view. What gives?
Mountain Viewing Note: Travel from Haikou to Wenjiao on the provincial highway. From Wenjiao continue East until you reach LongLou. Once you get their you'll be able to see the massive mountain. Just head due East, straight to the ocean. At the bottom of the mountain you'll see signed that indicate that the site is a nature reserve, then about half way up you'll see another sign asking you to turn back and that it is forbidden to enter; ignore that one and keep ascending. You'll have to park you're car at the Chinese Naval Base at the summit of the mountain, don't worry there are fairly tourist friendly. Stay away from the base and take the bamboo stairs up to the summit, opposite the base. Enjoy the view.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
As part of my profession, I end up hiring a lot of drivers. Almost every job I am involved in requires me to travel somewhere and hire a driver so that I can get either from A to B, or so I can make multiple visits in one day without worrying about standing around waiting for taxi's.
With that being said I can say with confidence that I've hired hundreds of drivers over the last nine years in China. I've had the chain smokers, the mobile phone talkers, the drunks, and one who fell asleep at the wheel. But don't think it is all negative; I've had a few gems as well.
Last week I was bumbling around Hainan Island working on a story and I hired a driver to take me from the provincial capital in Haikou along the coast to south to Sanya. The drive was very pretty and at one point, after cruising through endless stretches of cocunut plantations, we came across a massive mountain right on the coast.
My natural reaction when I see something like that is: let's get to the top and see what the coast line looks like. And after convincing my driver it would be exciting to veer off our original path for just a few minutes, he said he would try the road that seemed to be leading up the mountain. And so we followed the narrow switch backs for almost 20 minutes twisting and turning until we reached near the top of the mountain. Once there, it was just a short walk up some bamboo stairs to the summit of the mountain, and endless views north along Hainan's coast. I popped out of the car and started towards the stairs, my assistant was close behind me; but alas the driver stayed put.
Dumbfounded I walked back to the car and asked him if he wanted to come along? Then mentioning that I wanted him to join us. He said no and reclined his seat and closed his eyes. I asked him if he had been up to the top of this mountain before, he said no; never having opened his eyes. I let it go.
Upon reaching the summit I was amazed by the incredibly beautiful coast line; I shot a bunch of shots with several different lenses and once finished I just sat back and gazed out at the ocean for a good half an hour; taking in the salty sea air. It was a perfect moment of relaxation after a few hectic days of traveling and shooting.
Upon getting back to the car my assignment was beaming about how lovely the view was, my driver had been out cold; sleeping like a log. Once we got back in to the car I asked again if he would like to take a quick peak, he said no, started his car and we carried on with our trip down to Sanya.
Odd? Normal? Lazy? Unmotivated? Generally unhappy? Focused? Goal Oriented? Exhausted?
It strikes me as odd that sometimes in China, particularly men, don't seem very adventurous or care much to seek out the natural beauty of their own country. Are they above it all? Or just simply uninterested? I couldn't believe it when my driver said he wasn't going to come with us. There was not even an entrance fee. It was free. Clearly you don't have to be a photographer to enjoy an incredible mountain top coastal view. What gives?
Mountain Viewing Note: Travel from Haikou to Wenjiao on the provincial highway. From Wenjiao continue East until you reach LongLou. Once you get their you'll be able to see the massive mountain. Just head due East, straight to the ocean. At the bottom of the mountain you'll see signed that indicate that the site is a nature reserve, then about half way up you'll see another sign asking you to turn back and that it is forbidden to enter; ignore that one and keep ascending. You'll have to park you're car at the Chinese Naval Base at the summit of the mountain, don't worry there are fairly tourist friendly. Stay away from the base and take the bamboo stairs up to the summit, opposite the base. Enjoy the view.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Print Media Relationships
Hello.
A friend of mine recently introduced a series of short movies on YouTube that are pretty hilarious.
I wanted to share them with you all. The person uploading the video is Mr. Trotty57. Not sure if this person is also the creator or not. There are several hilarious videos depicting classic relationships between editors and photographers and writers. If you are in the industry, it should provide a giggle.
Follow This Link.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
A friend of mine recently introduced a series of short movies on YouTube that are pretty hilarious.
I wanted to share them with you all. The person uploading the video is Mr. Trotty57. Not sure if this person is also the creator or not. There are several hilarious videos depicting classic relationships between editors and photographers and writers. If you are in the industry, it should provide a giggle.
Follow This Link.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, October 26, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Global Post - Hakka Houses
Hello.
I'm very pleased to say that my Hakka Apartment feature from Fujian, China got a nice SPREAD
in the online magazine GLOBAL POST.
Global post seem to be making strides at becoming a formidable force in online news. They have a strong collection of contributors, as well as a decent budget and a great group of editors.
This will hopefully help balance the landscape between print and online magazines and help offer up a new venue for writing and photography. Fingers crossed they keep it at. I would love to be able to blog about further posts.
Click SPREAD for a link to my work.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: The State of China's Economy
Hello.
It would appear that Chinese tycoons and corrupt officials have hijacked the Chinese economy and manipulated it for their own ends, in a political-economic system that Mr. Wu Jinglian calls "crony capitalism".
Who is Mr. Wu, and why should we care?
Well, he is a 79 year old economist and has just been the subject of an excellent profile by David Barboza of the New York Times.
Mr. Wu, or "Market Wu" as he was known after advising Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, has begun speaking out against China brand of Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics. While calling for an economic clean up, he has even gone so far as to push for a British-style democracy, advocating that political change in China is inevitable. And yes, Mr. Wu's sharp criticism has landed him in hot water with the current regime; so much so that he has been officially branded a SPY by Chinese state run media; although the actual authorities in China deny any investigations involving Mr. Wu.
Stories like this one, by David, offer an incredible and unique glimpse in to how China has progressed since 1979 and where China is headed. Mr. Wu clearly holds the keys to all the good economic gossip. Ten years ago, or even five years ago, men like Mr. Wu would have never spoken out for fear of retribution. But more and more Chinese folks with an insiders scoop or something unique to say seem to no longer be afraid of speaking their mind, or calling a spade a spade.
In Mr. Wu's case he is obviously in the twilight of his career and doesn't seem to fear anything; let alone retribution by the government. So what does this aging economic insider have to say about China? In a nutshell, that economic reforms in the early 1980s have been responsible for fueling growth and altering the course of an entire nation. But that rapid growth also opened the flood gates to official corruption. And that the government is prone to meddle in the market too often and this: widens the income gap, protects inefficient monopolies and as led to an air of cronyism between big business and politics.
Mr. Wu after being banished to the farms of Central China during the Cultural Revolution returned to reach the highest levels of influence, advising Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin on macro economics and how to clean up massive State Owned Enterprises. Having always been quick to strike, Mr. Wu isn't holding back any punches indicating that China must really being to change it's ways or the country's future is far from guaranteed - global stock markets take note. Mr. Wu sees a traditional battle between Maoists and Reformers in the current government tearing this country apart, with Maoists pushing for central planning and Reformers wanted to line their own pockets. After seeing so much change since 1979 you might expect Mr. Wu to be an optimist, but he is not; indicating that cronyism and corruption are undermining the future of China.
The original article by David Barboza of the New York Times can be found by following this LINK.
Let's seriously hope people people like Mr. Wu start popping out of the woodwork; their stories are profound, historically important and make for a great read.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
It would appear that Chinese tycoons and corrupt officials have hijacked the Chinese economy and manipulated it for their own ends, in a political-economic system that Mr. Wu Jinglian calls "crony capitalism".
Who is Mr. Wu, and why should we care?
Well, he is a 79 year old economist and has just been the subject of an excellent profile by David Barboza of the New York Times.
Mr. Wu, or "Market Wu" as he was known after advising Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, has begun speaking out against China brand of Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics. While calling for an economic clean up, he has even gone so far as to push for a British-style democracy, advocating that political change in China is inevitable. And yes, Mr. Wu's sharp criticism has landed him in hot water with the current regime; so much so that he has been officially branded a SPY by Chinese state run media; although the actual authorities in China deny any investigations involving Mr. Wu.
Stories like this one, by David, offer an incredible and unique glimpse in to how China has progressed since 1979 and where China is headed. Mr. Wu clearly holds the keys to all the good economic gossip. Ten years ago, or even five years ago, men like Mr. Wu would have never spoken out for fear of retribution. But more and more Chinese folks with an insiders scoop or something unique to say seem to no longer be afraid of speaking their mind, or calling a spade a spade.
In Mr. Wu's case he is obviously in the twilight of his career and doesn't seem to fear anything; let alone retribution by the government. So what does this aging economic insider have to say about China? In a nutshell, that economic reforms in the early 1980s have been responsible for fueling growth and altering the course of an entire nation. But that rapid growth also opened the flood gates to official corruption. And that the government is prone to meddle in the market too often and this: widens the income gap, protects inefficient monopolies and as led to an air of cronyism between big business and politics.
Mr. Wu after being banished to the farms of Central China during the Cultural Revolution returned to reach the highest levels of influence, advising Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin on macro economics and how to clean up massive State Owned Enterprises. Having always been quick to strike, Mr. Wu isn't holding back any punches indicating that China must really being to change it's ways or the country's future is far from guaranteed - global stock markets take note. Mr. Wu sees a traditional battle between Maoists and Reformers in the current government tearing this country apart, with Maoists pushing for central planning and Reformers wanted to line their own pockets. After seeing so much change since 1979 you might expect Mr. Wu to be an optimist, but he is not; indicating that cronyism and corruption are undermining the future of China.
The original article by David Barboza of the New York Times can be found by following this LINK.
Let's seriously hope people people like Mr. Wu start popping out of the woodwork; their stories are profound, historically important and make for a great read.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, October 19, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Mao's Grandson, a General
Hello.
With all the huff and puff surrounding the 60th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China a few weeks back it was easy to miss the breaking news that Chairman Mao's grandson, the 39 year old Mao Xinyu, became the youngest Major General in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) history in late September.
Although his promotion has not been officially announced by the PLA, it has appeared as a story in several state run newspapers and has set the blogging world alight in China. Why has their been so much interest online about this young Major General (See link to pictures)? According to bloggers it's because he was a mediocre student, comes across a bit unkept and is a rather large fellow - weighing in at around 220 pounds. Let's just say he doesn't really look field ready.
Laughing or not, being Chairman Mao's grandson in China is a big deal and the official media are much more respectful than folks online. But it appears that his promotion is part of a coming out party that may also include him leaving the military in the near future and getting more involved in politics, perhaps as a big city mayor or a provincial party secretary. I'm not sure if China is ready for another Mao in politics, but this is a story worth keeping an eye on in the coming years. It always boggles my mind how far underlings of famous leaders can get before people around them start to realize that they've fallen far from the papa-tree; but in this case that could be a very good thing as Chairman Mao's political and economic policies wreaked havoc on Chinese people from 1949 until his death in 1976,
Follow this LINK
to see the story and images of Mao's Grandson.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
With all the huff and puff surrounding the 60th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China a few weeks back it was easy to miss the breaking news that Chairman Mao's grandson, the 39 year old Mao Xinyu, became the youngest Major General in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) history in late September.
Although his promotion has not been officially announced by the PLA, it has appeared as a story in several state run newspapers and has set the blogging world alight in China. Why has their been so much interest online about this young Major General (See link to pictures)? According to bloggers it's because he was a mediocre student, comes across a bit unkept and is a rather large fellow - weighing in at around 220 pounds. Let's just say he doesn't really look field ready.
Laughing or not, being Chairman Mao's grandson in China is a big deal and the official media are much more respectful than folks online. But it appears that his promotion is part of a coming out party that may also include him leaving the military in the near future and getting more involved in politics, perhaps as a big city mayor or a provincial party secretary. I'm not sure if China is ready for another Mao in politics, but this is a story worth keeping an eye on in the coming years. It always boggles my mind how far underlings of famous leaders can get before people around them start to realize that they've fallen far from the papa-tree; but in this case that could be a very good thing as Chairman Mao's political and economic policies wreaked havoc on Chinese people from 1949 until his death in 1976,
Follow this LINK
to see the story and images of Mao's Grandson.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Overcrowding in Shanghai
Hello.
The world maybe suffering from economic turmoil, but that hasn't stopped boatloads, trainloads and busloads of people from showing up in Shanghai, China looking for work and a better life. The situation has gotten so intense that the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission (SPFPC) is looking for ways to better distribute the population density from the crowded city center out in the suburbs.
It turns out that there are roughly 18.88 million people in Shanghai. I say roughly because a) people are coming and going all the time, and b) the Chinese government, both local and national, love to round off numerical values to include as many 8's as possible; as 8 is a lucky number in China.
With almost 19 million people scrabbling around bustling Shanghai, the SPFPC are looking at ways to avoid overcrowding. About 1/2 of all the residents here live in the massive 600-square kilometer downtown area, and the rest live in various suburbs around the city.
It's important to remember that this overcrowding is mainly due to mass migration of people from other provinces to Shanghai, as people chase their middle class ambitions. By SPFPC numbers it looks like Shanghai is growing by around 300,000 or 400,000 people a year. No small number for a city rushing to build and develop infrastructure after almost starting from scratch twenty years ago.
Solutions are difficult to find, if China starts telling people that its biggest cities are off limits; or starts restricting movements there would be a huge backlash. The only real solution would be to encourage second tier cities to develop faster and become better places to live, with better economic opportunities; and that may actually happen as Shanghai gets too expensive and factories and offices such for cheaper wages and rents.
The above image is a crowded neighborhood in an older part of Shanghai; where migrants often first land in their bid to find work and start a new path.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, October 12, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Being Seriously Undercut
Hello.
I do my best to try and avoid producing corporate photography for Chinese companies. There are a lot of great China's companies out there doing some incredible work, producing wonderful products and doing so in a generally responsible way.
But often where the trouble begins is with day rates, fee's, expenses, and of course copywrite. Much of the trouble stems from the fact that the corporate photography industry is China is not very mature, another reason is that there is so much local competition that drives prices down. And a recent example infuriated me so much that it motivated me to blog.
I do a significant amount of work for Public Relations companies and their clients. And recently one of the top PR companies in Asia called me up and asked me to prepare a quote for a local Chinese client; early on they told me that the client didn't have too much money and was looking to keep the copywrite of the images, what a way to start negotiations!
First of all, I don't give up copywrite. Ever.
You can shoot corporate work for a corporate client and keep the copywrite; usually by offering them various licensing terms. That way if you take a killer image that the company wants to use for decades to come; it will generate a nice residual income for you, but alas I am in China and getting these messages across to clients can be difficult at best. My example continues.
So I wrote up a brief proposal indicating a fee for the work and clauses that allow me to keep the copywrite and another clause explaining the licensing fee. My proposal was rejected. Then I re-drafted the proposal indicating that I would keep the copywrite but they could use the images for a multiple year term, which was very generous on my part. But they wouldn't budge on the copywrite and apparently my day rates were also much much too high. Essentially, I walked away from the deal. The terms were too difficult and I felt although the project was interesting it had to be on my terms; and they weren't budge.
I just found out a few days ago that the client hired a local photographer/videographer for US$300 per day and he agreed to give up all copywrite to the corporation. I was essentially undercut, not a winning day for the corporate photography world. And at US$400 per day it's a virtual steel assuming the quality is at a high level, which is no guarantee in any part of the world.
Lessons learned are many. First is know your price, know what you will work for and what you won't work for. The jobs you want will eventually find you. Remember, most of your career will often be defined by the jobs you turn down, and not the jobs you take.
It's a jungle out there.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I do my best to try and avoid producing corporate photography for Chinese companies. There are a lot of great China's companies out there doing some incredible work, producing wonderful products and doing so in a generally responsible way.
But often where the trouble begins is with day rates, fee's, expenses, and of course copywrite. Much of the trouble stems from the fact that the corporate photography industry is China is not very mature, another reason is that there is so much local competition that drives prices down. And a recent example infuriated me so much that it motivated me to blog.
I do a significant amount of work for Public Relations companies and their clients. And recently one of the top PR companies in Asia called me up and asked me to prepare a quote for a local Chinese client; early on they told me that the client didn't have too much money and was looking to keep the copywrite of the images, what a way to start negotiations!
First of all, I don't give up copywrite. Ever.
You can shoot corporate work for a corporate client and keep the copywrite; usually by offering them various licensing terms. That way if you take a killer image that the company wants to use for decades to come; it will generate a nice residual income for you, but alas I am in China and getting these messages across to clients can be difficult at best. My example continues.
So I wrote up a brief proposal indicating a fee for the work and clauses that allow me to keep the copywrite and another clause explaining the licensing fee. My proposal was rejected. Then I re-drafted the proposal indicating that I would keep the copywrite but they could use the images for a multiple year term, which was very generous on my part. But they wouldn't budge on the copywrite and apparently my day rates were also much much too high. Essentially, I walked away from the deal. The terms were too difficult and I felt although the project was interesting it had to be on my terms; and they weren't budge.
I just found out a few days ago that the client hired a local photographer/videographer for US$300 per day and he agreed to give up all copywrite to the corporation. I was essentially undercut, not a winning day for the corporate photography world. And at US$400 per day it's a virtual steel assuming the quality is at a high level, which is no guarantee in any part of the world.
Lessons learned are many. First is know your price, know what you will work for and what you won't work for. The jobs you want will eventually find you. Remember, most of your career will often be defined by the jobs you turn down, and not the jobs you take.
It's a jungle out there.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, October 09, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Hakka Tulou Buildings in Fujian
Hello,
I'm writing to make you aware of some new work I've produced. The photos revolve around the Hakka Tulou houses in remote Fujian province. The story is a remarkable testament to how unique some parts of China still remain, and what wonderful treasures they posses. You may not remember what a Hakka Tulou is, but you'll remember them once you see the images. My goal was to not only capture the remarkable architecture but also the culture and the life of the people living there. Please follow the link below to view the images online.
LINK: Ryan Pyle Archive
A Brief Summary:
In 2008 UNESCO granted the Tulou "Apartments" World Heritage Status; siting the buildings as exceptional examples of a building tradition and function exemplifying a particular type of communal living and defensive organization. The Fujian Tulou is "the most extraordinary type of Chinese rural dwellings" of the Hakka minority group and other people in the mountainous areas in southwestern Fujian, China. The Tulou is usually a large enclosed building, rectangular or circular in configuration, with a very thick weight supporting earth wall (up to 6 feet thick) and wooden skeletons, from three to five stories high, housing up to 80 families. These earth buildings usually have only one main gate, guarded by 4-5 inch thick wooden doors reinforced with an outer shell of iron plate. The top level of these earth buildings has gun holes for defense against bandits. They are a testament to the unique cultures that existed throughout China.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, October 05, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: China's Drive to Go Solar
Hello,
Once again the New York Times has given me a lovely opportunity to visit, along with Keith Bradsher, the SunTech offices and manufacturing center in Wuxi, China. Did I mention I'm the luckiest guy in the world and I love my job? I love factory visits and I love visiting successful Made IN China companies, like SunTech.
Keith writes a great story looking at the industry in general and SunTech specifically. It was my first collaboration with Keith and we had a great time, and really enjoyed our visit. Read on below.
Keith Bradsher's article is below. Or you can click HERE
____________________________________
Copywrite: New York Times
August 25, 2009
China Racing Ahead of U.S. in the Drive to Go Solar
By KEITH BRADSHER
WUXI, China — President Obama wants to make the United States “the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy,” but in his seven months in office, it is China that has stepped on the gas in an effort to become the dominant player in green energy — especially in solar power, and even in the United States.
Chinese companies have already played a leading role in pushing down the price of solar panels by almost half over the last year. Shi Zhengrong, the chief executive and founder of China’s biggest solar panel manufacturer, Suntech Power Holdings, said in an interview here that Suntech, to build market share, is selling solar panels on the American market for less than the cost of the materials, assembly and shipping.
Backed by lavish government support, the Chinese are preparing to build plants to assemble their products in the United States to bypass protectionist legislation. As Japanese automakers did decades ago, Chinese solar companies are encouraging their United States executives to join industry trade groups to tamp down anti-Chinese sentiment before it takes root.
The Obama administration is determined to help the American industry. The energy and Treasury departments announced this month that they would give $2.3 billion in tax credits to clean energy equipment manufacturers. But even in the solar industry, many worry that Western companies may have fragile prospects when competing with Chinese companies that have cheap loans, electricity and labor, paying recent college graduates in engineering $7,000 a year.
“I don’t see Europe or the United States becoming major producers of solar products — they’ll be consumers,” said Thomas M. Zarrella, the chief executive of GT Solar International, a company in Merrimack, N.H., that sells specialized factory equipment to solar panel makers around the world.
Since March, Chinese governments at the national, provincial and even local level have been competing with one another to offer solar companies ever more generous subsidies, including free land, and cash for research and development. State-owned banks are flooding the industry with loans at considerably lower interest rates than available in Europe or the United States.
Suntech, based here in Wuxi, is on track this year to pass Q-Cells of Germany, to become the world’s second-largest supplier of photovoltaic cells, which would put it behind only First Solar in Tempe, Ariz.
Hot on Suntech’s heels is a growing list of Chinese corporations backed by entrepreneurs, local governments and even the Chinese military, all seeking to capitalize on an industry deemed crucial by China’s top leadership.
Dr. Shi pointed out that other governments, including in the United States, also assist clean energy industries, including with factory construction incentives.
China’s commitment to solar energy is unlikely to make a difference soon to global warming. China’s energy consumption is growing faster than any other country’s, though the United States consumes more today. Beijing’s aim is to generate 20,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2020 — or less than half the capacity of coal-fired power plants that are built in China each year.
Solar energy remains far more expensive to generate than energy from coal, oil, natural gas or even wind. But in addition to heavy Chinese investment and low Chinese costs, the global economic downturn and a decline in European subsidies to buy panels have lowered prices.
The American economic stimulus plan requires any project receiving money to use steel and other construction materials, including solar panels, from countries that have signed the World Trade Organization’s agreement on free trade in government procurement. China has not.
In response to this, and to reduce shipping costs, Suntech plans to announce in the next month or two that it will build a solar panel assembly plant in the United States, said Steven Chan, its president for global sales and marketing.
“It’ll be to facilitate sales — ‘buy American’ and things like that,” Mr. Chan said, adding that the factory would have 75 to 150 workers and be located in Phoenix, or somewhere in Texas.
But 90 percent of the workers at the $30 million factory will be blue-collar laborers, welding together panels from solar wafers made in China, Dr. Shi said.
Yingli Solar, another large Chinese manufacturer, said on Thursday that it also had a “preliminary plan” to assemble panels in the United States.
Western rivals, meanwhile, are struggling. Q-Cells of Germany announced last week that it would lay off 500 of its 2,600 employees because of declining sales. It and two other German companies, Conergy and SolarWorld, are particularly indignant that German subsidies were the main source of demand for solar panels until recently.
“Politicians might ask whether this is still the right way to do this, German taxpayers paying for Asian products,” said Markus Wieser, a Q-Cells spokesman.
But organizing resistance to Chinese exports could be difficult, particularly as Chinese discounting makes green energy more affordable.
Even with Suntech acknowledging that it sells below the marginal cost of producing each additional solar panel — that is, the cost after administrative and development costs are subtracted — any antidumping case, in the United States, for example, would have to show that American companies were losing money as a result.
First Solar — the solar leader, in Tempe — using a different technology from many solar panel manufacturers, is actually profitable, while the new tax credits now becoming available may help other companies.
Even organizing a united American response to Chinese exports could be difficult. Suntech has encouraged executives at its United States operations to take the top posts at the two main American industry groups, partly to make sure that these groups do not rally opposition to imports, Dr. Shi said.
The efforts of Detroit automakers to win protection from Japanese competition in the 1980s were weakened by the presence of Honda in their main trade group; they expelled Honda in 1992.
Some analysts are less pessimistic about the prospects for solar panel manufacturers in the West. Joonki Song, a partner at Photon Consulting in Boston, said that while large Chinese solar panel manufacturers are gaining market share, smaller ones have been struggling.
Mr. Zarrella of GT Solar said that Western providers of factory equipment for solar panel manufacturers would remain competitive, and Dr. Shi said that German equipment providers “have made a lot of money, tons of money.”
The Chinese government is requiring that 80 percent of the equipment for China’s first municipal power plant to use solar energy, to be built in Dunhuang in northwestern China next year, be made in China.
Dr. Shi said his company would try to prevent similar rules in any future projects.
The reason is clear: almost 98 percent of Suntech’s production goes overseas.
____________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: China's 60th Birthday
Hello.
I don't often say it much, but I'm very proud and excited about what China's managed to accomplish in the last 60 years; given that the first 30 years (1949-1979) were a complete regression.
I've lived here in the Middle Kingdom for almost a decade, and I hope to live here for several more; and during that time I've seen a lot of change. Much of it for the better. But let's not forget that while the country has developed rapidly in the last thirty years it is still a far cry away from what the Communist Party said it might be in the late 1940s when they were trying to build a power base. Back in the days General Mao and his team like to throw around terms like a multi-party system, and an independent judiciary; and today in 2009 we are still far from those ideals.
But yes, economic growth has lifted many people out of poverty to the point where some don't care much about politics; much to the pleasure of Party leaders. But there are huge gaps in the system and they are becoming more difficult to close as each day passes. The Party's control over the judiciary and the economy has led to so much rampant corruption that much of China's business and political environment operates like a mafia of sorts.
The birthday celebrations today in Beijing, and throughout the country, will offer a lot of military pomp and party propaganda, but that is not what I think about when I envision China and its future. I think about China's young entrepreneurial class; who have migrated to the big cities and started up their own businesses, and in stark contrast to that I fear for the the 700 million agricultural class that the dynamic growth as passed over; what will their futures hold? As an aside, it has always been the small entrepreneurs in this country that have made the business and working environment the stuff of miracles. And it should be the governments responsibility to maintain that fair business environment for years to come. Let's hope the party leaders understand their role.
Focusing back on economic growth, clearly there are mis-steps and not all if fair and transparent; but we're only one generation removed from Chairman Mao and his Cultural Revolution. I know that is no longer an excuse, but many of those in power at the moment have been strongly influenced by that period of history, and it still affects governance and accountability throughout the ranks. Developing from a third world country to a first world country takes a significant amount time, especially when leaders in power have had a largely patriotic educational foundation. Once the next few rounds of county level and provincial level government officials are bettered educated and a bit more "worldly", meaning simply thinking beyond their individual county fiefdoms, issues regarding personal freedoms and rule of law may indeed make headway; but I won't hold my breath.
If the government doesn't take steps to ease in more choice and personal freedoms, it is my opinion, that the Party will have missed a glorious opportunity to progress and develop in a way in which the global community can better respect and look up to. Much work needs to be done. No time can be wasted.
When I decided to move to China in 2001 I thought I was moving to a virtual backwater. A remote part of the world where I could learn photography on my own and document a country that I found fascinating and challenging. Just eight years later I'm amazed at how rewarding my personal and professional journey has been and how comfortable my home town of Shanghai has become. Progress for "most" is happening; but development and growth is a messy business and not for the faint of heart.
Even with all it's problems and headaches of running a country with 1.3 billion people; perhaps now is a good time to give a bit of praise to the government for actually keeping this country together from 1949 to 2009; as the country's journey to reach this point has been far from easy. Ruling with an iron fist or not, I can drive on a four-lane expressway from Shanghai to Kashgar and jump on a plane to just about any remote corner of the country I choose. Sure there are people, minority groups and counties that have been left behind, but with such brutal breakneck growth people are bound to be left out and be plenty pissed off about it.
Can China develop in a more sustainable manner? Include more people in the spoils and focus on cleaning up the environment? What about bringing about proper regulation and an independent rule of law? How about making a whole hearted effort to stop corruption, even throughout the inner party circles in Beijing?
So it is now that I raise my glass in a very guarded and unsure manner, here is looking at the next 60 years. Will we always have just "one party"? Will State Owned Enterprises still dictate policy and protectionism? Will the little person ever get a voice? Will the fist be removed from the puckered cheeks of the country's media? In 2069, will I still be blogging and living in Shanghai at the tender age of 91?
There are many challenges ahead. But there have been many successes behind us. I'm proud to live in China, and honored to have a chance to be documenting this country's rise. Peaceful or not, I'm here. Sustainable or not, I'll be trying to understand the who, the how and the why.
Onwards and upwards; and hopefully in a more equal and transparent way.
PS. Ai Weiwei, a Chinese painter, artist, architect and photographer recently wrote and essay for TIME magazine about China at 60yrs. Ai Weiwei's father was a famous poet who was exiled to Xinjiang and spent most of his life being harassed. Ai Weiwei's essay offers a much more personal perspective to China's development and growth. His essay is a very interesting read. You can find his essay HERE.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I don't often say it much, but I'm very proud and excited about what China's managed to accomplish in the last 60 years; given that the first 30 years (1949-1979) were a complete regression.
I've lived here in the Middle Kingdom for almost a decade, and I hope to live here for several more; and during that time I've seen a lot of change. Much of it for the better. But let's not forget that while the country has developed rapidly in the last thirty years it is still a far cry away from what the Communist Party said it might be in the late 1940s when they were trying to build a power base. Back in the days General Mao and his team like to throw around terms like a multi-party system, and an independent judiciary; and today in 2009 we are still far from those ideals.
But yes, economic growth has lifted many people out of poverty to the point where some don't care much about politics; much to the pleasure of Party leaders. But there are huge gaps in the system and they are becoming more difficult to close as each day passes. The Party's control over the judiciary and the economy has led to so much rampant corruption that much of China's business and political environment operates like a mafia of sorts.
The birthday celebrations today in Beijing, and throughout the country, will offer a lot of military pomp and party propaganda, but that is not what I think about when I envision China and its future. I think about China's young entrepreneurial class; who have migrated to the big cities and started up their own businesses, and in stark contrast to that I fear for the the 700 million agricultural class that the dynamic growth as passed over; what will their futures hold? As an aside, it has always been the small entrepreneurs in this country that have made the business and working environment the stuff of miracles. And it should be the governments responsibility to maintain that fair business environment for years to come. Let's hope the party leaders understand their role.
Focusing back on economic growth, clearly there are mis-steps and not all if fair and transparent; but we're only one generation removed from Chairman Mao and his Cultural Revolution. I know that is no longer an excuse, but many of those in power at the moment have been strongly influenced by that period of history, and it still affects governance and accountability throughout the ranks. Developing from a third world country to a first world country takes a significant amount time, especially when leaders in power have had a largely patriotic educational foundation. Once the next few rounds of county level and provincial level government officials are bettered educated and a bit more "worldly", meaning simply thinking beyond their individual county fiefdoms, issues regarding personal freedoms and rule of law may indeed make headway; but I won't hold my breath.
If the government doesn't take steps to ease in more choice and personal freedoms, it is my opinion, that the Party will have missed a glorious opportunity to progress and develop in a way in which the global community can better respect and look up to. Much work needs to be done. No time can be wasted.
When I decided to move to China in 2001 I thought I was moving to a virtual backwater. A remote part of the world where I could learn photography on my own and document a country that I found fascinating and challenging. Just eight years later I'm amazed at how rewarding my personal and professional journey has been and how comfortable my home town of Shanghai has become. Progress for "most" is happening; but development and growth is a messy business and not for the faint of heart.
Even with all it's problems and headaches of running a country with 1.3 billion people; perhaps now is a good time to give a bit of praise to the government for actually keeping this country together from 1949 to 2009; as the country's journey to reach this point has been far from easy. Ruling with an iron fist or not, I can drive on a four-lane expressway from Shanghai to Kashgar and jump on a plane to just about any remote corner of the country I choose. Sure there are people, minority groups and counties that have been left behind, but with such brutal breakneck growth people are bound to be left out and be plenty pissed off about it.
Can China develop in a more sustainable manner? Include more people in the spoils and focus on cleaning up the environment? What about bringing about proper regulation and an independent rule of law? How about making a whole hearted effort to stop corruption, even throughout the inner party circles in Beijing?
So it is now that I raise my glass in a very guarded and unsure manner, here is looking at the next 60 years. Will we always have just "one party"? Will State Owned Enterprises still dictate policy and protectionism? Will the little person ever get a voice? Will the fist be removed from the puckered cheeks of the country's media? In 2069, will I still be blogging and living in Shanghai at the tender age of 91?
There are many challenges ahead. But there have been many successes behind us. I'm proud to live in China, and honored to have a chance to be documenting this country's rise. Peaceful or not, I'm here. Sustainable or not, I'll be trying to understand the who, the how and the why.
Onwards and upwards; and hopefully in a more equal and transparent way.
PS. Ai Weiwei, a Chinese painter, artist, architect and photographer recently wrote and essay for TIME magazine about China at 60yrs. Ai Weiwei's father was a famous poet who was exiled to Xinjiang and spent most of his life being harassed. Ai Weiwei's essay offers a much more personal perspective to China's development and growth. His essay is a very interesting read. You can find his essay HERE.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: iPhone Available in China?
Hello.
It appears that, according to a wide variety of news sources, that China Unicom and China Mobile are set to being selling the Apple iPhone in the world's largest mobile phone market. Why has it taken so long and what will be the outcome?
It has taken so long because the revenue sharing model that Apple hammered out with it's US and European partners just wouldn't fly in China. And why would it? Reports suggest that Apple will sell some 3 million iPhones in China during the first 12 months of the launch, perhaps a revenue sharing deal was a bit too greedy. Apple, and the iPhone are popular in China. There have been a lot of fakes produced and smuggled phone's from the US and Hong Kong can be found at any computer market throughout the country.
But don't think all will be free and fare. The iPhone's sold in China will be stripped of their wireless (wifi) capabilities. My guess is that is to generate more fee's for China's massive mobile phone companies. Wouldn't it be nice just to see China adopt a product or a service as is? Instead of tinkering and making things painful and inefficient. Painful to watch some days.
ps. The image above is from a story I did with the NYT a few years back out Chinese folks getting their iPhones from the US and "unlocking" them in China. So really, the iPhone has already been in China for at least 2 years.
LINK: WSJ Story Please Click Here
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: China's Steel Town
Hello,
I wanted to write and make you aware of some recent work I've completed. I recently visited Baotou city, home to Bao Steel - China's seventh largest steel producer, for several reasons. The first reason was to look at how China was, after the Olympics, back to it's old polluting ways. Upon my visit to Baotou it was business as usual, even though they had been hurt by the financial crisis the mill was still full steam ahead with China's stimulus package focused on infrastructure local steel mills have increased production year on year. Now with Chinese steel companies bargaining hard, perhaps too hard, for iron ore prices; it might be an interesting time to actually take a look at what one of these steel mills, and the town surrounding it actually look like.
LINK: Ryan Pyle Archive
Summary:
Baotou is an excellent example of being a one-industry town, and that industry is steel. Baotou is also notorious as a big polluter mostly from the large Bao Steel factory. With Baotou sitting directly west of Beijing much of Beijing's notorious smog and haze comes from cities such as Baotou. With the economic stimulus package that was just earmarked for infrastructure and housing you can bet China's environmental goals have been put on hold for the foreseeable future, my guess is that the residents of Baotou may not mind too much; after all social stability is key.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, September 21, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Ba Ling Bridge
Hello.
I recently had the opportunity to visit a region of China that has often been overlooked during China's sprint towards modernity, and that region is the province of Guizhou. Guizhou is landlocked and mountainous, meaning it has missed out on China's industrial expansion, export manufacturing and farming innovations. The province is one of China's poorest and has been considered a lost hinterland for centuries. With that being said, the central government is now sprinkling money throughout many of China's rural backwaters in an effort to increase transportation links and re-connect this massive country; as well as help out areas of depressed growth. The Ba Ling River Bridge is one of the most visually telling examples of Beijing's efforts to "bridge the gap" between China's wealthier and poorer regions. The bridge is set to connect the capital city of Guizhou province, Guiyang, with the capital of Yunnan province, Kunming; one of the most mountainous and transport defunct regions of China as deep river gorges and mountain ranges are scattered along the route. I recently visited the bridge and was granted unprecedented access, but for only about an hour as the construction boss was on a long lunch. I even had time to climb the 40+ story suspension tower, which was a treat in high wind. Please follow the link below to view the work:
LINK: Click Here for Gallery
Summary:
The Ba Ling River Bridge, due to be completed in early 2010, is one of China's longest suspension bridges. Measuring 1.4 miles (2.25km) the project is a marvel of Chinese engineering that looks wholly out of place among rural Guizhou provinces farms and rice fields. The Ba Ling River Bridge, soaring a quarter of a mile (400m) above the Ba Ling River, is an example of large-scale infrastructure projects that are being built throughout China in an effort to modernize China's vast western hinterland.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, September 18, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Grazia Neri Closing
Hello.
I try not to post to many news-ish items on my blog, mainly because there are other sites that accomplish this task much more effectively than I do. But today when I woke up I had an email in my inbox that both shocked and saddened me, and I felt compelled to blog.
You see Grazia Neri is not just another agency in Italy. They are "the" agency in Italy. And they have been a leading light in Italian photography for 42 years and my experiences with Grazia Neri have always been great. Their sales and assignment people have always been warm and welcoming.
I have been represented by Grazia Neri, as an assignment photographer, since 2005; just shortly after Corbis scrapped its assignment photography division. At first I think I was just the only person they knew in China and wanted to fill that gap, but over time our relationship grew and we had the chance to collaborate on several exciting projects.
I want to thank all the people I've worked with at Grazia Neri, over the last few years, for their passion for photography and their professionalism. The Italian photography industry lost a key player in progressing photography, all eyes will be watching to see what attempts to step in and fill that void. A sad Friday indeed.
____________________________
Official Press Release - English
- Some financial information has been removed from this post.
After 42 years of excellence and integrity in the world of italian and international Photography and Photojournalism, Grazia Neri Agency is now compelled to enter into liquidation (voluntary winding up). The extreme editorial and advertising crisis that has started in the second half of 2008 and has exploded in 2009 has brought the Agency to a severe financial crisis. All of this in a very short time. The crisis of the italian editorial market is such as not to leave hope for a recover in short or medium time.
We have made all efforts to cut the Agency costs and in the last months and to the last moment we have looked for a suitable strategic partner but with no success.
In this situation, with a huge grief for our history, for the employees, the sales team, the international and italian photographers, agents and friends, for all the splendid human experiences of years, regretting the loss of an important cultural role, Grazia Neri Agency has decided to terminate its activities.
In the next months the Agency will continue its operations only to accomplish ongoing projects, tasks and activities which are necessary to the liquidation.
Thank you for your extraordinary work, creativity, friendship and help that have highly contributed in writing this beautiful collective story of more than forty years.
Michele Neri
Milano, September 17th 2009
____________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I try not to post to many news-ish items on my blog, mainly because there are other sites that accomplish this task much more effectively than I do. But today when I woke up I had an email in my inbox that both shocked and saddened me, and I felt compelled to blog.
You see Grazia Neri is not just another agency in Italy. They are "the" agency in Italy. And they have been a leading light in Italian photography for 42 years and my experiences with Grazia Neri have always been great. Their sales and assignment people have always been warm and welcoming.
I have been represented by Grazia Neri, as an assignment photographer, since 2005; just shortly after Corbis scrapped its assignment photography division. At first I think I was just the only person they knew in China and wanted to fill that gap, but over time our relationship grew and we had the chance to collaborate on several exciting projects.
I want to thank all the people I've worked with at Grazia Neri, over the last few years, for their passion for photography and their professionalism. The Italian photography industry lost a key player in progressing photography, all eyes will be watching to see what attempts to step in and fill that void. A sad Friday indeed.
____________________________
Official Press Release - English
- Some financial information has been removed from this post.
After 42 years of excellence and integrity in the world of italian and international Photography and Photojournalism, Grazia Neri Agency is now compelled to enter into liquidation (voluntary winding up). The extreme editorial and advertising crisis that has started in the second half of 2008 and has exploded in 2009 has brought the Agency to a severe financial crisis. All of this in a very short time. The crisis of the italian editorial market is such as not to leave hope for a recover in short or medium time.
We have made all efforts to cut the Agency costs and in the last months and to the last moment we have looked for a suitable strategic partner but with no success.
In this situation, with a huge grief for our history, for the employees, the sales team, the international and italian photographers, agents and friends, for all the splendid human experiences of years, regretting the loss of an important cultural role, Grazia Neri Agency has decided to terminate its activities.
In the next months the Agency will continue its operations only to accomplish ongoing projects, tasks and activities which are necessary to the liquidation.
Thank you for your extraordinary work, creativity, friendship and help that have highly contributed in writing this beautiful collective story of more than forty years.
Michele Neri
Milano, September 17th 2009
____________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Annenberg Slide Show Night
Hello.
For anyone in the LA area tonight there is a Slide Show Night hosted by the Annenberg Space for Photography. Some of my Chinese Turkistan work has been included. The details are below:
LINK: Annenberg Slide Show Night
TEXT:
Slide Show Night
Following the great success of the Slide Show Night hosted by the Annenberg Space for Photography, during the L8S ANG3LES exhibit last April, the Photo Space is pleased offer an evening dedicated to the talents of international photojournalists. On September 17, 2009 the screens of the Photo Space will display a new array of exciting images which both compliment the mission of Annenberg Foundation, as well as the current exhibition.
This Slide Show night is inspired by Pictures Of Year, International (POYi), which focuses on photojournalism and documentary photography. The images gathered for this presentation have been culled from the work of 30 photographers, covering current subjects as varied as addiction, Native American socio-economic issues, International Affairs, Migrant Fishing in the Bering Sea, the fervor of Michael Jackson Fans, the cultures of Chinese Turkistan and Ethiopian Jews.
The program is a non-seated event. Complimentary food and beverage will be provided to registered guests.
Date: September 17th, 2009
This event is fully booked.
Time: 7:00-9:00pm
Location: 2000 Ave of the Stars #10
Los Angeles, CA. 90067
Free Event
Parking: $1.00 with validation in visitors parking lot
For more parking information visit this page.
Participating Photographers:
Cory Arnold
Nina Berman
Larry Brownstein
David Butow
Philippe Engelhorn
Deanne Fitzmaurice
Yves Gellie
Masaru Goto
Katja Heinemann
Ryan Heffernan
Lisa Hogben
Aaron Huey
Kenneth Jarecke
Ann Johansson
Irene Fertik
Catherine Karnow
Ed Kashi
Brenda Ann Kenneally
Rita Leister
Gary Dwight Miller
Mike O’Meally
Darcy Padilla
Ryan Pyle
Benjamin Rasmussen
Espen Rasmussen
David Rochkind
Joseph Rodriguez
Marissa Roth
Q. Sakamaki
Lourdes Segade
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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For anyone in the LA area tonight there is a Slide Show Night hosted by the Annenberg Space for Photography. Some of my Chinese Turkistan work has been included. The details are below:
LINK: Annenberg Slide Show Night
TEXT:
Slide Show Night
Following the great success of the Slide Show Night hosted by the Annenberg Space for Photography, during the L8S ANG3LES exhibit last April, the Photo Space is pleased offer an evening dedicated to the talents of international photojournalists. On September 17, 2009 the screens of the Photo Space will display a new array of exciting images which both compliment the mission of Annenberg Foundation, as well as the current exhibition.
This Slide Show night is inspired by Pictures Of Year, International (POYi), which focuses on photojournalism and documentary photography. The images gathered for this presentation have been culled from the work of 30 photographers, covering current subjects as varied as addiction, Native American socio-economic issues, International Affairs, Migrant Fishing in the Bering Sea, the fervor of Michael Jackson Fans, the cultures of Chinese Turkistan and Ethiopian Jews.
The program is a non-seated event. Complimentary food and beverage will be provided to registered guests.
Date: September 17th, 2009
This event is fully booked.
Time: 7:00-9:00pm
Location: 2000 Ave of the Stars #10
Los Angeles, CA. 90067
Free Event
Parking: $1.00 with validation in visitors parking lot
For more parking information visit this page.
Participating Photographers:
Cory Arnold
Nina Berman
Larry Brownstein
David Butow
Philippe Engelhorn
Deanne Fitzmaurice
Yves Gellie
Masaru Goto
Katja Heinemann
Ryan Heffernan
Lisa Hogben
Aaron Huey
Kenneth Jarecke
Ann Johansson
Irene Fertik
Catherine Karnow
Ed Kashi
Brenda Ann Kenneally
Rita Leister
Gary Dwight Miller
Mike O’Meally
Darcy Padilla
Ryan Pyle
Benjamin Rasmussen
Espen Rasmussen
David Rochkind
Joseph Rodriguez
Marissa Roth
Q. Sakamaki
Lourdes Segade
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Reflection on my Exhibition
Hello.
A few weeks back I had another post on the Resolve Blog. Please read below:
I recently had an exhibition on my work from Chinese Turkistan, or Xinjiang, China, in Toronto, Canada a few weeks back. And for those readers who aren’t familiar with the process of putting on a gallery show, it can be a very trying experience for any photographer, emerging or established.
The first thing that comes to mind when someone says gallery exhibitions is money. Cash, and cash flow, dominate our lives and setting aside a significant portion of money to research, produce, print, mount and frame is not an easy task by any means. But I’ve found a way, and this is my experience.
In the early days of my time in China I realized that I had a strong connection to the province of Xinjiang, the mainly Muslim region in northwest China. I had traveled there often and felt an immediate passion to tell the story of the people who lived there. But while this passion existed for sometime it didn’t translate in to actually making images there for some years later. In fact it wasn’t until I visited the region on assignment in 2005 that I was able to jump-start my motivation again. That year I visited Xinjiang 4 times, and the following years was much the same. I felt determined not to let this moment slip by, but what moment am I referring to?
The Chinese portion of the Silk Road, once known as Chinese Turkistan, is changing before our very eyes. Old mud brick homes and labyrinth-like old towns are being torn down in the name of “progress”. It’s not an easy thing to stomach, watching a culture and a way of life change month in and month out. My conviction is strong. I am dedicated to the region for the long term.
But once the images are made, what then? Well they need to be developed and then edited, which is something I can manage easily enough. Scans should be made so that you can pitch around your story ideas and perhaps introduce your work to new editors and gallery owners. And if a gallery owner bites and is interested in a show, you need to be ready to actually produce a show; but what does that actually mean?
In my case it means editing my work to a specific set of guidelines usually created by the gallery curator and myself. Then my Kodak TriX 400 negatives are picked up in Toronto and sent over to my printer who hand prints the show in a wet dark room, yes; just like back in the old days. The results, from my printer Bob Carnie, are magical. What Bob can do with a 35mm negative is remarkable and inspiring. Once the print is dried and flattened then it’s mounted, signed and framed. Seems like a simple process but choosing sizes, mounts, frames; as well as watching your costs, and collaborating with the gallery on a guest list is enough to make you want to scream out: “I just want to take pictures, and not deal with all of this other crap!”
As the emotional upheaval reaches it’s darkest hour, then comes the opening. You put on your suit, try to remember to shave, and engage with a captive audience by expressing the passion you carry for your work and your dedication to documentary photography. Because my work is from a remote land and often a misunderstood place, I try always try to give a 20-30 minute lecture prior to each show for those who are interested in coming a bit early for some background to the region and some details of my own past.
I was very touched during this most recent show when a couple, both Uygur refugee’s living in Toronto, attended and thanked me for caring and educating people about their homeland. It was an incredibly touching moment given that the couple had not been in touch with both their parents and two teenage children who are still in Urumqi, the city which experienced ethnic riots in early July.
My photography may not be for everyone, and it may not be very suitable for people to purchase and hang in their homes or offices, but it has a place in this world, it has to. The region of Xinjiang, with its rich Silk Road history and unique culture, is being drowned out by Chinese development and “progress at any cost”. The future for the region is bleak; my only hope is that I can make enough trips out there and continue this journey I’ve set myself on. I hope you enjoy viewing the images.
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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