Cleaning Up At Xitang (西塘)

Cleaning Up At Xitang
I am back from a vacation trip to China. In a short span of 10 days, we travelled from Nanjing to places like Yiwu (义乌), Mount Huangshan (黄山), Qiandaohu (千岛湖), Hangzhou (杭州) and finally to
Shanghai, where we visited the World Expo. On our way back to Nanjing from Shanghai, we dropped by Xitang (西塘), the ancient scenic town in Zhejiang Province (浙江省) made popular by the Mission Impossible III movie. We have just about wrapped up our trip there when I managed to catch this cleaner at work from a vantage point along one of the numerous stone bridges crossing the canals in the little town.

A Delicate Perch

A Delicate Perch
Taken at the Botanical Gardens. Conventionally, I would have opted for a vertical composition for this but there were some distracting elements surround this shot (and the dragonfly wasn’t going to wait forever for me to adjust my composition!). In the end, I opted for a bolder use of negative space to the right of the subject.

My next post will be at least 10 days from now… will be on vacation again. Hoping to bring you some new pictures when I get back!

Pac Man Power-Me-Up

Pac Man Power-Me-Up
I have always held a fascination for the classic Pac-Man arcade game since childhood. The game celebrated its 30th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, with Google coming up with an ingenious version which you can still play (for free) here. The lotus and water lily leaves at the Singapore Botanical Gardens has reminded me time and again of the game. The above is another shot whose title I have dedicated to the long-lived classic 🙂