South of the Bund, there is a place called the Cool Docks, where you can enjoy a private beach, good restaurants, and party all night if that's what you like.
The first time I went there, it was in the early morning. My roommate's boyfriend had had quite a rough night, and to make things short, his abuse of alcohol and other substances was about to make him make a huge mistake. On a whim, he and his best friend decided to go "to the beach", and bring me along.
It was around 7:30 a.m, everything was closed, they were already drunk, but they didn't mind. They just wanted to forget that crazy night they had had. As for me, I was feeling very uncomfortable. I was totally sober, tired (I hadn't slept much either), and to be fair, a bit afraid. One never knows what a man full of alcohol, cocaine and MDMA might do.
Anyway, all my fears suddenly vanished when I saw, for the first time, this view on Pudong. In the quite hush of the early morning, with none around but the three of us, it was just one of those mesmerizing moments you can't easily get out of your mind. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me on the moment. Maybe, somehow, it was better this way. It helped me keep the magic of the moment.
The end of the story is that after one long morning drinking beers and vodka, swearing and ranting about women as alcoholics do, I managed to escape the place. The day after, my roommate and her boyfriend were together again. As for the picture, I managed to take it a month later, in the evening. I was walking in Shanghai, and suddenly thought it was a wonderful day to take this long awaited picture. The sky was wonderful, as perfectly cloudy, as perfectly sunlit as a sky could be. Of course, it was not the exact same scene I had first seen, but I guess this one was not meant to be taken in picture. It belonged to the hush of the morning.
Tags: Pudong Shanghai Nex6 City Tower Skyscraper Sunset TheCoolDocks Huangpu JinMao Oriental Décapsuleur Skyline China pwpartlycloudy
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Another picture of the Bund. Thanks to long exposure, I could capture the move of the clouds above Pudong's skyline.
I like this mix of movement and immobility: it gives the impression nothing can alter the majesty of Pudong, not even time, though it is wrong. Pudong will change a lot in the years to come, and I hope I'll have a chance to see it with my own eyes (and camera).
Tags: Shanghai Pudong Bund China Nex6 PearlTower City Tower sel20 Sony pwpartlycloudy night
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The day I took this picture, I was looking for something special to capture, something I had never taken into picture, something I wouldn't think of but would suddenly come across, at the corner of a street, on a bench in a park, in the pet market near Laoximen....
Unfortunately, it was raining softly, and the air was quite polluted on that day. I knew every picture I would take would be dark, grayish, and unsharp. Confronted with such poor conditions to take a good picture, I gave up.
Fortunately, on my way back home, I decided to go and take a look at Pudong from the Bund. I knew I wouldn't take any good picture, but I just wanted to see Pudong.
When I arrived, there was so much fog that you couldn't even see the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower. The view was bewitching.
Back home, I developed this picture, and decided I would make it a black&white picture. It looks better this way, somehow, and it is more faithful to the memory I have of this day: everything was black, and white, and gray, and foggy.
Tags: Shanghai Pudong Mist B&W Black White China Nex6 fog day Sel20 Sel20f28
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One of my favorite shots of Pudong by night. It was quite late, so the World Financial Center was not lit. Anyway, the scene was magic, as usual.
Tags: Shanghai Pudong Night Nex6 China Pearl Tower Exposure
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Having a neat sky in Shanghai is something that is quite rare, so as soon as I got out of school, I ran to my house, took my camera, and ran to the Bund, to have a glimpse of Pudong by sunset under clear weather.
Tags: Shanghai Pudong Nex6 China
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