Freelance Photography : Bertrand Celce

Shanghai pics

Sichuan Lu in the eveningThis picture sums up the two wheelers range in the chinese cities streets : From right to left : A motorbike , a bicycle and an electric scooter . These electric scooters are amazing . They are everywhere , of course completely noiseless . At first I did'nt realize they were electricity powered . Just thought the person had cut off the engine to spare gas . But then, looking as they were gathering speed again , I understood . At a visit at a local branch of the Carrefour supermarket chain , I saw new electric scooters starting at about 1200 Yuan ( or 120 Euro) , and new bicycles at 129 Yuan ( 12 Euro ! ) . Crowds of bicycles are still the norm all over China ( including Shanghai ) but other two-wheelers take a bigger share everyday . Waiting on the subway platformI think we westerners are liked very much in China , and I don't think only to these beautiful young women that came at my side while I was walking, to exercise their english . Several little things tell me that we are positively viewed . One of these things was the countless occasions young chinese asked me to pose among them for a picture . Typically , I would pose near 1 or 2 girls , then 1 or 2 other so that each in the friends group could have her/his souvenir . Sometimes I even saw (I acted as if I did'nt see anything) them discreetly coming near me while the other took the picture. There was plenty of place everywhere to pose with the beautiful given background , but they chose me ... Maybe I have some resemblance with Da Shan ( Real name Mark Rowswell ), this canadian national who became a star here after a first appearance on the chinese TV in the early eighties .... But anyway , when I come back to France and don't find the same reception here , I just ask myself : Did I change so much ?!
This pic on the left shows a man working _all the place seems to be remodelled all the time_ with a billboard in the back . Most billboards are about brands , cell phones , and othe consumer goods . This one looks more like the ones they had 40 years ago . The transition between these two different billboard culture is interesting . One thing remains from the former : The huge size of the billboards and the brightness of the colors .

Good News

Barges , cranes on the Huangpu river ( Shanghai )... Yes , I'm back , and the pictures are OK... When you take pictures far away, working mostly non digital like this time , there is always a doubt about the pics . You sometimes idealize the pictures you shot , sometimes underestimate them . So when the day comes to check the pictures back home at the lab , you really come down with reality . I have always wild thoughts about shutter opening only half of its course , things like that . But mostly the result is OK , even if it is hard to be fully satisfied .
Shanghai is there with her bright lights , dim lights , broad avenues , narrow streets , its human tides, the Huangpu river and its typical harbour smell, the Bund chiming clock in the old Customs House , and its melody every 1/4 hour (giving the place a London Big Ben atmosphere), ship horns , sputtering engines of old barges ...
My place being very close to the Bund and the river , I litterally breathed this atmosphere . And liked it . This town has a lot of energy and the Huangpu pumps even more air & blood into it. Hundreds of boats and ships of all kind going up and down, barges , tankers , freighters , day cruise boats , small old boats with their tchouc-tchouc old belt engines smoking and visible at the back . Early in the morning , like between 6 and 7 , people doing tai-chi or gym . At night , all the lights of boats and buildings ... Shanghai . View from the hotel