• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Hidden Harmonies China Blog

Hidden Harmonies China Blog

As China Re-Awakens, Finding New Harmonies in a Brave New World...

  • About Us
  • China Charities
  • FAQ
    • Terms of Service
  • Recommended Readings

A Dance Show to Remember

April 10, 2012 by YinYang 11 Comments

The following series of photos were taken by me few days ago featuring local dancers from Silicon Valley. I was really impressed by the stunning visuals, both in the costumes and the choreography. The red, the vibrance, and the amazing grace were all so ‘Chinese.’ While photographing, I was struck by the idea that this cool art is endowed in my heritage.


Filed Under: culture Tagged With: Chinese Folk Dance

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lime says

    April 11, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    What dance troop was this? Nice pictures by the way.

  2. YinYang says

    April 11, 2012 at 11:54 pm

    Thx. The performers are all locals in Silicon Valley. Some of them are as young as 5 and other groups are probably in their 50s.

  3. Joyce Lau says

    April 12, 2012 at 4:08 am

    The photos are beautiful, especially the second one with the red ribbons and the girls. It’s hard to get good, sharp shots of people on stage. First of all, they’re in motion. Plus, the lighting can be difficult — very bright in the foreground, very dark in background.
    Did you use a tripod? What zoom? I noticed that you got both close-ups and faraway shots. Did you doctor the colors? Just curious.
    I also like the last one. For some reason, Chinese performances / art are rarely shot in black and white. Of course, one would like to display the bright colors. But I think b&w is pretty cool here.

  4. YinYang says

    April 12, 2012 at 8:22 am

    Thx. I used the Canon 5D Mark 2 + the 70-200mm F2.8 IS zoom lens. In theaters there’s not enough lighting, so regular consumer cameras just won’t cut it. The flash on a camera is just not powerful enough to reach out to the stage, so all it does is to disturb the performers.

    The 5D Mark 2 is a full frame camera. Even that, I had to pump ISO to 3200. The lens is obviously important.

    I didn’t use a tripod. Had a monopod with me, but the movement was too quick, so I basically hand-held all the time.

    And, yes, I postprocessed the images and boosted the colors. “doctor” might be too strong a word. These days, all professional photographers postprocess their photos. In some fashion magazines, they may trim a skinny model’s legs to make her even more skinny. In that case, I’d call it “doctoring.” 🙂

  5. Joyce Lau says

    April 12, 2012 at 10:35 am

    Sorry! I didn’t mean “doctored” in a bad way. I was just wondering if you boosted the colors, since they are so bright and clear. 🙂
    You’re right about the flash. When I was a college student, I tried to take photos of local music shows for articles I was writing. I didn’t realize at the time that no regular consumer camera was doing to let me do good shots of people in motion, in an oddly lit environment, shot from a distance.
    I just looked up the Canon 5D Mark 2. And wow — you’re probably pretty serious about your hobby.
    I used to be more interested in photography — I even did my own darkroom work back in the day — but I have to admit that I’ve gotten lazy recently. All I take now are terrible snapshots…

  6. YinYang says

    April 13, 2012 at 11:58 am

    Sure, no problem. Do you still write articles? Then you already know photography is very complementary. A dSLR kit is not that expensive. This summer my family is vacationing in China, so I hope to bring more images to the blog.

    You might like some other photos I have published in the past:

    https://hiddenharmonies.org/2011/04/a-bit-more-texture-in-my-recent-trip-to-china/

    https://hiddenharmonies.org/2011/04/faces-of-guilin/

    https://hiddenharmonies.org/2011/04/an-evening-at-zhang-yimous-folk-musical-impression-liu-sanjie/

  7. Joyce Lau says

    April 13, 2012 at 8:09 pm

    I fondly remember your Guilin kids one from back when you posted it. I think that’s what makes a good photographer — not just technical ability to get lighting and focus right, but the ability to capture a special moment in a natural way.

    I sometimes work with photographers — and one piece of advice we give the younger ones is to not make things too “posey” — to avoid placing people in formal poses and forcing them to smile directly into the camera. In news, we call official photos the “grip and grin” — that boring image of two politicians shaking hands and forcing themselves to smile in a way they think is sincere!

    I do write articles for work, and I also blog personally (though less so these days, as work and a new baby have kept me busy). When I write, I don’t usually do the photography myself because, frankly, I’m just not that good. We either hire a professional photographer, or use photos supplied by a news wire, the PR agency or who-ever we’re working with.

    The last story I shot was (ironically) a photography festival in Shanxi Province. But I just looked back on my blog post from that time and realized that I didn’t post my photos, which is funny. I thought I did.
    http://www.joyceyland.com/2010/09/giant-photo-festival-in-shanxi-province.html

    It was an interesting experience, since I usually write about the arts from Hong Kong or, occasionally, Shanghai — and everything is so posh and expensive here. The Shanxi photo festival was huge — the biggest in the world — but really gritty. There were photos posted to trees, or shown inside abandoned factories with leaky roofs and dirt floors. Of course, it was total chaos, which is why it was fun. It was a totally different experience for me, and drives home that an image does not have to be in a formal gallery with a price tag to count as art.

    Anyway, this little exchange has inspired me to go dig out my old camera. Like I said, I’ve mostly been taking terrible family snapshots with a small digital point-and-shoot or even my iPhone. I can do better…

  8. Joyce Lau says

    April 13, 2012 at 8:15 pm

    I use the Canon EOS 30D with a 17-85 mm zoom. I bought it about 5 years ago. I try not to use the flash if I can avoid it.
    I was lucky in Shanxi — I had wide open spaces, even natural light (when the rain cleared, it was uniformly overcast) and interesting subject matter. So I sort of lucked into good shots.
    But if I have strange lighting — like in a staged performance — I’m pretty much stuck!

  9. YinYang says

    April 13, 2012 at 11:09 pm

    @Joyce Lau
    Nice. You are a media person. 🙂 And congrats on your new baby. Very cute.

    Now you have an additional reason to resuscitate your 30D. Go for the 50mm f/1.4. It’s a great value and you will love it on the 30D. Great for portraits indoors with an active baby. Go into aperture priority mode with ISO around 200 or 400. Try f/1.8, f/2.0, f/2.2 etc.. Auto-focus on the nose, eyes – you’ll love the results.

    Good coverage of the Shanxi festival. IHT is now part of NYT?

  10. Joyce Lau says

    April 14, 2012 at 12:12 am

    Hi yinyang, Thanks for the tip. I will take your advice. You’re right. I’m missing valueable photo ops by not making more effort to photograph her while she is young.
    Yes, the IHT is part of the NYT. Several years ago, we lost our own website, so everything we do ends up on their site now.
    But when I read blogs or post, I do it independently of work.
    I’m a regular HH reader, but not a frequent commenter. While I don’t agree with everything you guys write, I think it’s good for someone who works for a big media organization to see what criticisms other people have out there.
    Work is pretty intense. And it’s easy to get caught into just reading stuff from the same sources all the time.

  11. YinYang says

    April 14, 2012 at 11:46 pm

    Since you are here, I’ll share a few more shots:






Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • The TikTok Ban That Failed. This Ban Is Not Really About ‘National Security’ Rather It Is About Greed And Control.
  • 大山的女兒–Daughter of the Mountain
  • No, the Chinese does not express glee over Shinzo Abe’s assassination and how western propaganda got it wrong about what Chinese thinks of Abe
  • The Overt Politicization of the Origins of Covid-19
  • The U.S. Loves Wars…

Recent Comments

  • Universitas Telkom on The TikTok Ban That Failed. This Ban Is Not Really About ‘National Security’ Rather It Is About Greed And Control.
  • Universitas Telkom on (Letter from may) Translation: Letter from Xinjiang – Reflections on the Xinjiang Problem
  • Hengxin on 大山的女兒–Daughter of the Mountain
  • Hompuso on Short Note on Media Disinformation: No, No, No… CIA is not Impersonating Others in Hacking Others … There is just not Proof!
  • Abraham on The Overt Politicization of the Origins of Covid-19

Tag Cloud

america Beijing censorship China china-u.s. relations coronavirus corruption culture dalai lama defamation againt Chinese democracy earthquake economy education Environment featured freedom freedom of speech Google government history hong kong human rights humor india internet japan media media bias nationalism olympics politics propaganda racism reform riot rule of law sino-u.s. relations sixfour South China Seas taiwan tiananmen tibet U.S. China Relations xinjiang

Archives

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Blogroll

  • China Dialogue
  • China in Africa: The Real Story by Deborah Brautigam
  • Chinese Portal
  • ESWN (東南西北)
  • Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
  • Fool's Mountain (sibling blog)
  • iLook China
  • Moon of Shanghai
  • Outcast Journalism
  • Professor Ann Lee
  • Sino Platonic
  • The Anti-Empire Report

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in