www.wileyskewes.com

Please go check it out since I think it is a huge improvement. Everything that is here, as well as all my blog posts (and a new one), is now posted there so there is really no reason to ever come back here. Say goodbye! Sorry the url above is not a link. The proxy I’m using doesn’t support that feature on WordPress. If you copy and paste the link into the address bar it should take you there. If you have any problems, email me at wiley.skewes@gmail.com

Until then, cheers.

Wiley

Aesthetic Urban Decay

As I walk around Dalian I find more and more empty lots where the old buildings have been carefully demolished to make way for grassy piles of the buildings’ remains. I imagine the land owners have either not finished financing their project or have run out of the finances they did raise. I have not ventured into one such lot yet, as any entrances are usually blocked, but it’s only a matter of time before I get over my fear of being caught and go where no westerner should have any real desire to go. This is part of a picturesquely crumbling wall surrounding one such lot.

D300, 50 mm, F4.5, 1/125”, ISO 200

What could this woman possibly have in common with Radiohead and Bob Marley?

This is an excerpt from one of the walls in Dalian’s Hopscotch bar. With Bob Marley and Radiohead flanking a crinkled photo of a Chinese woman, you can’t help but wonder whether there is intent here, or just a hodgepodge of what a Chinese bar owner thinks expatriate American hipsters might like.

D300, 50 mm, F2.8, 1/40”, ISO 800

Shedding Light On Street Games

For reasons I do not fully understand yet, you can almost always find people playing cards or Chinese chess on the side of Dalian’s streets. I suspect this is also true of the rest of China and that it has something to do with the group mentality of Chinese culture. This man was outside a restaurant where I was eating dinner and, for a few minutes, the late afternoon sun combined with a thin layer of clouds to light the group perfectly. I don’t think the men appreciated their unique position as much as I did, however, as my camera’s presence was cause for a healthy amount of nervous and agitated laughter.

D300, 50 mm, F7.1, 1/20”, ISO 500

French bar music in China.

Dalian’s expatriate  community is very small and tends of congregate in a select few bars around town. And when looking for live music, Hopscotch is it. Thursday nights have a casual open mic setup that draws a healthy crowd and a regular group of musicians. This French student, Thomas, always plays a good set.

D300, 50 mm, F1.8, 1/80”, ISO 800

Fleeting curiosity.

These men rode past me while I was wandering around the countryside near Ulanhot, China. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but they kind of strike me as clothed and Chinese versions of the old men in Waking Ned Devine.

For a full account of my brief adventure in Inner Mongolia, see the Ulanhot post from 17 July 2009 on my blog.

D300, 50 mm, F10, 1/200”, ISO 160

The jolliest Mongolian I've ever met.

My favorite photos are usually the ones I don’t expect to take. In this case, I hiked down from the hill where I was camping in hopes of getting some pictures of the goat herd I had seen in the valley below. While I was shooting though, I quickly realized that, while I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted, what I was doing wasn’t creating it. And just like that, as though he had read my mind, the herder picked up one of the kids and flashed this jolly smile. In the end, I deleted every photo I had taken other than the ones of the herder and kid even though I’d set out intending to photograph the herd.

For a full account of my brief adventure in Inner Mongolia, see the Ulanhot post from 17 July 2009 on my blog.

D300, 50 mm, F16, 1/125”, ISO 200

You never know what you'll find in an alley.

My favorite part of living in Dalian so far has been the thinks I find when I go out looking for nothing in particular. If I walk out of my apartment and start walking down streets I’ve never been on before or take a random bus to the end of it’s line, I’m guaranteed to find something noteworthy. In this case, I took a slightly different route to work and ended up in an ally where the city’s couriers keep their bikes. The uniformity and abundance was what caught my attention, and I spent a while just looking at them before I even thought to pull out my camera.

D300, 50 mm, F1.8, 1/2500”, ISO 640

An urban moment.

I’m always very excited when a photo achieves a sense of moment, and I think from that perspective this is my favorite one to date. With the empty road, the street lights seem to light the way solely for Devon and Rosie who were kind enough to assume that I would catch up when I was done so that we could find some Chuan.

D300, 50 mm, F1.4, 1/60”, ISO 1000