On the weekend of 10/10, a drum festival was held in Jhubei which included not only Chinese drumming, but also some influences from across Asia. In addition, some Taiwanese pop stars performed at the end of the show, most notably A-Lin, who I’ll make a post about later.
These shots were taken with the slow but still usable 70-300. With the stagelights, I was usually able to make things work at 1/100 shutter and ISO 1600.
The above group was part of a traditional Hakka performance.
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These are from a Chinese Opera that took place in Jhubei last Saturday. The production quality was pretty impressive – I could tell that it was a larger touring company, rather than the local style that you’ll often see at temples. I was able to get some nice shots with the 70-300 after metering and locking the exposure in on Manual. I then went in and brightened the images and touched up some contrast and color levels.
The story tells of a family – two daughters are being set for marriage and the parents decide to switch suitors. It involved fight scenes, family issues, love, and the other “normal” themes for Chinese drama. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the name of the story.
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Short post today as I just got back from a school field trip. The field trip was my reason for not posting at my normal time – I’m sure the world will forgive me :)
This shot was taken last weekend at the Hsinchu market. These Chinese opera shows are very popular and quite common – I was happy to sneak to the side for a different perspective this time.
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Last Saturday, I had a chance to see a drum competition mixed into some dragon and lion dance performances. I’m pretty sure this included some dance troupes from the mainland, and needless to say all of this was impressive.
This was also a good chance for me to get better with photographing moving objects. I flipped on my AI-servo functions for the autofocus along with the continuous shutter and had a blast trying to get the performers jumping. The first image is an example of that:
While I’ve got a little bit of blur on the feet, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I do wish that I had a more neutral background with some bokeh, as my lens isn’t an f/2.8 or anything (it was at 70mm f/4.5) and since hindsight is 20/20, I could have used more zoom to fix that – this image is obviously cropped a little.
Some shots that did come out a little better is a series of jumping lions. These guys work in teams of two and have to jump on very small platforms – no more than the size of each foot. Include some acting that the “lion” must perform, and you have a very stressful situation:
I did manage to get both “parts of the lion” with their feet up in the air, but not as dramatically as I would have liked:
I think I prefer the first of the two, because you can see the concentration in the faces – some flash might have worked, but a correct exposure would’ve been tricky. I’m still getting assimilated with fill-flash on sunny days – this was a tough day to measure for.
Something that also helps me is to judge timing by the rhythm. It’s easy to tell if a lion will jump based on the sound of the gongs played by the musicians in the back. With drummers, I was able to pick up this pattern:
While I had seen dancing lions before (in Houston’s Chinatown, no less), I hadn’t had a chance to see these “lion trainers” and the act they brought. The very first picture is a shot of the first lion trainer I saw – a guy who plays with the lions with a large ball and has them do tricks. This was also done by a woman who put a lot of personality into the show as she interacted with her “animals.”
The male “lion trainer” was less interactive, but more acrobatic. The very first photo on this post shows his backflip – he landed on the back of a lion and rode it for a few seconds.
Another event which I hadn’t seen before was a dragon dance. This involved a leader which carried a ball on a stick which the dragon – handled by about 15-20 people – followed around. I was pretty impressed by the contortions needed to make the dragon do different tricks.
The above shot is one of my favorites from the day. The handlers were yelling the whole time – which, along with the drums, added to the atmosphere.
The above shot shows some of the crazy contortions needed to get a dragon to do what you want. Sure looks painful.
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One of the cooler parts about Tainan is its small but healthy arts district. Around this area at night, you can find local art galleries and people selling their crafts on the street as well as some restaurants that double as art galleries and music stages. While it could be larger, it is kind of a nice break from everything else and some interesting sights can be seen.
We happened to come across a group of people preparing for a performance on Saturday night. They ended up becoming human “statues” who moved for people to take pictures after money was placed in their baskets. I had to get over my ridiculous fear of clowns for this :)
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A major part of the program last weekend was a performance by an orchestra. I had the chance to get pretty close shots with the 70-300 as it was pretty easy to get into the photographers’ area in front of the general seating.
One of the more interesting pieces was a woman singing what sounded to be a more traditional song with the orchestra backing her up. She was extremely talented, and though she was only on for a few pieces, it was pretty great.
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Yuling and I arrived to the Yimin Temple celebration of the Ghost Festival on Friday anticipating some pork. Well, at least what will become pork.
At the temple, a pig (yes, a whole pig) is offered to the ghosts and gods in order to bless the town and appease the ancestors. While this food source is NOT wasted (Chinese food rarely is!), its head is put on display for a time. We missed this event as we were too early, but managed to capture some temple music meant to entertain the spirits that walk the earth during ghost month.
The first thing I noticed was a stage to the side with a Chinese Opera performance. This is pretty common during ghost month as it is believed to “entertain” the ancestors.
The performance, I later learned, represents a distinct brand of Chinese opera here in Taiwan. Taiwanese opera has its own style – and is much different than the varieties you’ll see in Hong Kong, Shanghai, or (especially) Beijing – where it is known as “Peking” opera… by the former Westernization of the capital’s name.
The above jar of sticks are 求籤, or (Cantonese) Kau Cim. I’m not sure what the Mandarin translation is, but I remember seeing them at Hong Kong’s Wong Tai Sin temple.
The above photos show some temple musicians playing a call for the gods to join the ceremony at the temple. I was joined as a photographer by a large cadre of locals with DSLR cameras – I’m guessing they were covering the temple’s preparations for the event.
The instrument in the first photo is a Suona, as covered in one of my earlier posts. You can listen to the unmistakable sound it makes it at the Youtube video I posted there.
