Its Hard Getting a Unique Image Nowadays………

24 May 2015

In January 2015 I knocked off another “must photograph” place on my list for China. The Lonely Planet rates the Yuanyang rice terraces as number 22 of the places to see in China from a list of 30.

We took a five day “Wing On” tour from Hong Kong. The company on the bus were all very nice people and all keen on photography-afterall the tour was advertised as a photographic tour. We all got on so well that a “Whats App” group was formed and even now its still going! The sights and scenery were very good although most of the rice terraces scenes were from viewing platforms and we were surrounded (literally) by hundreds of fellow photographers all shooting the same scene! It seemed that sunset and sunrise were the best times and we waited for hours just to watch the sun go down. Dynamic range (too much) was a big problem and it would have been great to have a 400mm lens.

I took hundreds of shots and there were very few “keepers”. My “Whats App” group have published no photostudies either.

So with the hundreds of photographers shooting the same scene in extreme lighting, or flat boring lighting, it may become a battle of the “Post Processers”- to squeeze something out of the files with Photoshop or similar software. Glad I was shooting Raw files from the start and using a tripod.

In future should I return, I would like to spend time in the town of YuanYang and maybe walkup to the terraces or have a private driver. Sunset scenes would be best from the sides of the terraces rather than looking down. Unique scenes can often occur on the way to the destination rather than at the end point. I also believe you can get “nice’ photos from a view point but not really exceptional or unique images.

So this is not the “Game of Thrones” but the game of the photoshoppers to win this crown!