Photographing Beijing
Beijing has been one of my all time favorite places to photograph. I was particularly lucky that there was very little smog during my stay, although as I was leaving it was starting to get bad. I felt very safe there. Despite what I had heard about overcrowding in the subways, which I did not really witness, I found them extremely efficient and easy to navigate, and would highly recommend using the to get around. Beijing’s history is so rich and interesting and the tourist trail is fantastic for visitors, there is so much to see that I didn’t get to see nearly everything I wanted to in the 3 days I was there.
My first morning I went straight to the Forbidden City. I was there before opening time, so did not experience long queues.
It started to snow while I was waiting to get in so I walked into to see the palace grounds covered in clean white snow. Luckily the snow seemed to have put off a lot of visitors and for the first few hours we were able to explore some of the alleys by ourselves which was pretty special.
That evening I went to the Donghuamen Night Market, which was colorful and lively
The next morning was an early rise to see the Great Wall and Mutianyu. I booked a day trip with a local company with a store front which was better value than anything I had seen in advance and included the same lunch that a lot of companies used.
It was icy and slippy up there and we had to use the wall to cling to when walking on the steeper parts.
Looking up on the Great Wall
On the Second evening I went to explore the Shichahai area of Beijing which was a nightlife area around three lakes. It was a real highlight for me to explore modern Beijing and see people out for a nice evening. A really fun and beautiful area that was thrilling to walk around and photograph.
My final day was spent in the Summer Palace, which was breathtaking and huge.
My favorite are was this Market area on the water.
Afterwards had only a short time to walk though part of the Hutongs, but I really wish I had more time to explore
That evening I had to go back the the forbidden City for some night shots…
As I was getting ready to leave I was surprised by the purple water display in front of the palace. It seemed incongruous to the ancient palace but a nice send off all the same 🙂
Me! On the Great Walll. I had such a fantastic trip to Beijing and looking forward to returning.
All Pictures are taken with my Nikon D600 and 24-58 lens kit, the final two night shots were taken with my Canon T3i and Sigma 10-20 lens
Slide show of my November travels to China and Japan