Markets, Fancy Dressing and Rice Paddies

November 2

Down for breakfast in the hotel at 8 for our 9 o’clock departure.

We drive through beautiful hill country, with views of terraced rice paddies en route to High Mountain Black Miao market in village of Ting Dong. Market days, based on a lunar calendar, take place approximately once a week. We come upon a logging operation, where large logs are being stripped of bark by women carrying small babies on their backs, while men load the logs onto large open trucks.

We arrive in the market town and spend some two hours, wandering slowly through the market, which contains every kind of product, produce, animals, fish, etc. dress ranges from very traditional Miao to modern. Young girls dressed up to attract attention, old men smoking pipes, women playing mahjong. Would never take so much time or interact with so many people on a non-photography trip. Also interesting and instructive to see what others choose to photograph and from what position and angle. Lunch at a restaurant. I mix Chinese, peanut butter and beer.

After lunch, we head out to another village, Donglang where Lee has arranged for us to photograph two teenage girls in full Miao costume. They misunderstood and were in full costume when we arrived. seo analysis Since Nevada wanted us to photograph them dressing, they had to take all of their costume off, then get dressed again for us, then pose in full costume.

We broke into two groups, then switched to photograph the other girl. Frankly, this got a bit boring, because it was staged, and I was happier just wandering around the town and photographing. Before leaving the town, we witnessed a tree in the center of town being chopped and pulled down.

We drove out of town to a place up in the mountains from which we could photograph the terraced rice fields in the late afternoon sun near Kongmingshan. Did this from several vantage points.

Headed back on 3-hour drive. Nevada told many war stories of travel in her early years. She was quite an adventurer and groundbreaker in the field of adventure and photo travel, but I found this far less interesting than hearing her talk about photography.

Of the things we did today, the market was by far the most interesting. Photographing models and the rice paddies was much less my thing, though I don’t regret having done them.

On the bus, Nevada spent some time with me flipping through the pictures I’ve downloaded to my iPad, and commenting quickly on them. She’s able to see immediately which she likes and which have possibilities, and which just don’t work. She had a few basic and very helpful suggestions for me that I can work on during the trip.

Staying at modern and comfortable Ao Yu Hotel in Congjiang. Quite good dinner in the hotel, though by the time we eat, around 10, I’m not all that hungry. Back to the room to wash underwear and socks, as we’ll be at this hotel two nights. driver will take in laundry tomorrow, but they will not do socks or underwear (in Africa, they call these “smalls”).