Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

How long does it take an Englishman, a Frechlass, two American’s and one Aussieroo to take a two hour bus ride from Shaowu city to Wuyi Mountain in the far north west of Fujian Province? Believe it or not, due to hangovers, much wasted time and the purchasing of future train tickets to make sure of plans over the Chinese New Year it actually took two days for us to finally reach Wuyishan just as the sun was bidding us a teeth chattering goodnight.

All the while I was left shaking my head in bewilderment!

When an Englishman, a Frenchlass, two American’s and one Aussieroo arrive in Wuyishan and go in search of a hotel for several nights, how many passports do you think were readily available for check in? You would think five, between us we had two but after being turned away by a handful of reception desks we finally found one that would accept us with copies of Visa’s and Passports that thankfully were printed from emails five minutes later.

When you travel in China (or Asia for that matter) you MUST have your passport!
Thankfully all settled down and soon after the BBQ was sizzling and the beer was flowing.

SO WHY BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS?

As I’ve been to Wuyishan many times in the three years I’ve lived off and on in Shaowu city, each time I have visited with different people and taken them on the same trails so this time I thought I would do things differently when it came to my photos. In all my years of clicking a camera, travelling and capturing 'moments frozen in time’ for future memories I have not once ever taken a single black and white photo. The fact is black and white photography has never really interested me that much I think mainly due to its rarity and expressed difficultness from other happy snappers.

Several months ago I found the black and white function on my Nokia N95 camera/phone and decided to give it a go and the results were horribly boring which is why on each of my daily walks in and around the city I made myself take at least five of them. I soon noticed that in a world that emphasises colour there is a different world to be seen when taken in black and white. Black and white offers an old world charm type feel and seems to accentuate the depth of the photograph. I’m not saying my photos will do this for you but for me (because they are taken of my reality) they have offered me a way to look at the world I live in a completely different fashion.

This visit to Wuyishan I tried to remember where I took many of my previous photos so I could then compare them and see if I liked the results and though they’ll never reach Black & White magazine I’m still pretty happy with them and I’ve also done a Facebook album of my favourite black and white photos from the past few months bike rides, walks and this visit to Wuyishan..

To read about and compare this visits photos to my last ‘colourful’ visit click here;
Another Wonderful Adventure at Wuyishan

Beers N Noodles toya…..shane
Nest stop Fuzhou city down on the warm Fujian coastline!
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The soundtrack to this entry was by Sheryl Crow
The album was ‘The Best Of’.
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