Published by Swiss James on 30 Jun 2008 at 10:15 am
What (else) I did this weekend
After a heavy Friday night (for which I blame Baijiu, B52s and The Beaver), and a more restrained Saturday (Comedy night@Racks, The Spot, The Shelter, home early) I had a good day of wandering around on Sunday.
If you ever feel like you’re insignificant in this world, that life passes you by and nobody pays attention to you, try setting up a tripod and camera on Nanjing Dong Lu. There’ll be a crowd of people watching you within a few minutes.
(If you’re white you can achieve the same trick by just sitting down next to an empty seat on Nanjing Dong Lu. A steady stream of Chinese bumpkins who want to have their photo taken with a genuine laowei will be along shortly.)
Here’s another timelapse video:
I’m a friend of Shanghai Dave, so I saw the comedy on Friday. Unfortunately the venue was - um, underpopulated. The first comic was a reminder that a lot of stand-up comedy is very very cultural specific. Heck, I’m American and a lot of his references were lost on me, since I’ve been abroad for much of the last decade.
The second guy, however, was very funny.
James - Nice work. That young girl in red seems to be a plant as she hung around a bit longer than anyone else. Did you pay her to stand like that? I do think this would be better if someone was standing still throughout. And I thought that train thing was gonna wipe you out, but sadly it missed.
It was pretty full on Saturday, although I don’t think I’ll go to Racks again if there isn’t comedy on. 78RMB for a cocktail, that’s not good value.
Not sure which order they were in on the Friday night, although there was some stuff about prescription drug names and some guy who I guess is a black American Footballer that went over my head.
WoAi- that girl is having her picture taken, see her Dad with his back to the camera? Well you were supposed to be the guy standing still throughout and you didn’t turn up, so there you go!
Oops, I didn’t realise that was my role i thought you wanted be to be the security guard preventing anyone or any thing from knocking over your camera. You could have starred yourself in my absence. Perhaps we can have another stab next week now that you are familiar with the technique?
Nice music choice James. I like boats.
Jesse - the guy with the cocaine eyes - went second. And he was funny.
WoAi- well that was the plan at first, I reckoned that one of us could go and get coffee whilst the other looked after it etc.
But then you suggested standing in frame and I thought that would be good too.
Would be up for doing a night time one during the week if you’re in? Really want to try out your wide angle zoom too. This conversation is far too geeky, we should be having it ‘off line’
kristi- do you know that band? I found them on a random music site, it’s a good album
T- yeah he went first on Saturday. I thought they were both good, Alberstadt had some China stuff that went down really well, as well as the American-specific chuckles.
Yup. I dig them. I’m a fan of Jesse Elliott (the songwriter), I vaguely remember reading they will be touring England in July.
James - No probs with the wide angle, it’s a Sigma 12-24mm but the maximum aperture is relatively poor, but I guess if the camera is tripod mounted it’ll be ok if you up the ISO a bit and use noise reduction later on. Obviously at such a wide angle there will be chromatic aberration, but this should be within acceptable parameters. How’s Thursday for you?
kristi- in July? But I’m back in July! Oh let it work out…..
WoAi- I didn’t realise you’d gone third party, was thinking about the Tamron 11-18mm myself, it goes to f2.8 which is fast for a wide angle.
Like I told you before, I’m only looking to get about a 1/30 exposure time anyway so even if I lose a couple of stops with that lens it should still be fine.
Chromatic aberration should be OK for a moving image, but I wonder what the barrel distortion is like and ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
oh Thursday’s good though.
Dude, I know. That’s why I told you.
I always feel sorry for these pitiful ladies at the Nanjing Tong Lu train station who are stranded in Shanghai and asking for help getting home.
Before they return to their villages, maybe I should bring them to a stand up comic for some fun?
Colin you give me an idea actually- maybe I’ll walk down Nanijing and record the number of times someone tries to sell me a fake watch or handbag, then remix it into a Euro-techno pumper:
“Hello, watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag? Watchbag?
W-W-W-W-Watchbag?
Watch Watch bag?”
I was wondering Swiss James of the shire whether you could do one of your time lapse videos of Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center - where us Brits show that Cook, Drake and Pinsent weren’t flashes in the pan. It is currently looking like the fishpond at my old school after Bobby Locke poured oil into it’s frogspawned waters. Good to see China using it’s massive military to good use as ‘pool cleaners’.