X- boy, X- girl. ARE we living around the mutants?

I am amazed with this boy my husband shot in the tibetan village on our latest trip to Grand Shangri-la.




The boy is a one of twin brothers; strangely, his twin brother has dark brown eyes, but he has bright blue eyes.(click to see the larger picture)

A recent Danish science study suggest blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor, perhaps this Tibetan boy and the Geisha in Japan are relatives?




The origin of Tibetan people is a subject of hard study. Some suggest that the majority of Tibetan gene pool may have diverged from the Han around 3,000 years ago. However, there are evidences of much earlier human inhabitation of Tibet. The distribution of Haplogroup D-M174 is found among all the populations of Central Asia and Northeast Asia south of Russian border, although generally at a low frequency of 2% or less. A dramatic spike in the frequency of D-M174 occurs as one approach the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau of western China. D-M174 is also found at high frequencies in Japanese people but it fades into low frequencies in the Han populated Mainland

by KanJANA

What and Why Taipei beats Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok

1.Taipei has a great MRT and mass transportation system with hi speed train.





2.There are priority seats on bus and train and they seriously promoting the idea of being aware of the needed one.



3.Taipei street food is good , clean, various choices and cheap.






4.Taipei city is super clean without public bin.
5.Taiwanese has freedom of speech and TV host,hostess ask tough direct questions.








6.Taipei people amazingly stand to one side when riding escalators.And naturally stay in line when waiting for bus and train.

The rule of "NOs" in Lijieng

The last spot of my Grand Shangri-la photo trip was "LiJieng"
The ancient water city turned touristy. Personally,I am not a fan of touristy places but it was nice to end the long,tiring trip here. We were able to relax and spent more non-shooting time with our van crews in this spot.




We,Thai crews invited Eric,Huang Cherng(aka A-Pae) and Becky (our tour guide) to go out clubbing. Going out at night in Li Jieng is normal, everyone does it here. The city turned from ancient at day to night bar,dance show and lots of drinks. There are new things I learned this trip while yelling "Tui Tui Tui" and hit the table with the wooden block they gave us.



There are some rules in Li Jieng. The rule of NOs.
Never say "NO"
"No" shy
"No" regret
"No" string attach

All these NOs lead to one universal act. Casual Sex, and one night stand.
Then I realized how much this city has changed and drink to that they said it so out loud. Again everyone in the club shout back together. This is like making a group vow to have irresponsible sex. Then come another round of NOs rule and I see my group shouting "TUI TUI TUI" meaning "YES YES YES" to these "NOs"

Chinese formula

In the past three years, from traveling for photography trip in China with Chinese, got me to understand how do they prefer to shoot their landscape pictures. There is formula, Chinese formula;
The perfect landscape picture(for Chinese),needs the perfect light, and it has to be the side light, better to have some clouds as a contrast to the deep blue sky, and farm houses – best if there are cooking smokes, and don’t forget the birds, and buffalo (of course it can be Yak, horse, deer…..), and of course the water.....lake...steam....
They will frame their picture the same way and wait for the light. You literally would see Chinese queue up to shoot at the exact same spot. It is bizarre!



I was recently in Taipei, Taiwan and took a day off to visit the Palace Museum where the famous painting by Huang Gongwang 黃公望 “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” (painted between 1347-1350) displayed.
The famous painting was burnt into 2 halves in 1650 and since then collected/preserved by and through separated routes are reunited again.



And now "landscape reunited" is the current themed exhibition in the museum.
What I learned from the museum get me understand how Chinese think about landscape.
Landscape usually referred as “Mountain-Water” 山水 [shān shuǐ] in China, for thousand of years, the beautiful Chinese landscape is the popular theme for painting, mostly in ink, more on state of mind than realistic painting so therefore the perfect landscape is born – beautiful mountains, fog, a few birds, the fisherman or boatman, ripples of water, perhaps the farmers, buffalo, pine or plum tress, often some cooking smokes……Déjà vu, right?

This is the formula that they have been practicing for hundred of years.

Chinese is a special language, and it is an art by itself, and of course the language affects its culture, and history. For thousands of years, the masters have set the standard, and generations after the master, follow the master, there is no shame to copy, in fact, it is encouraged to get as close (similar) as possible, for Chinese – it is learning, and that was then. Now, most of the Chinese photographers travel to the great locations to try to duplicate the image on the postcards, or on the books, is not to be mistaken as “copy”, it is “tradition”!
So, when they copy iPad or BMW, it is flattering, they thought these products are great design as master pieces, so their tradition is to produce as close or same as the master did.

Captured by KanJANA
Location: Xinduqiao, Sichuan, China.

Shoot-a-thon

5 hrs to spend shooting on the same location! I felt like they cheated my time and let me work desperately on one mountain, one lake, one monastery, and few Tibetan houses. What would I do with these 5 hrs? The question stuck in my mind while I was wandering the location and shot very carefully and slowly.
I became to understand later that the Chinese were waiting for the light so, the tour guide had set the time limit at 5 hrs. But this was not like spending your Saturday watching GLEE-a-thon. It requests patience, patience, and more patience which Chinese are famous for.
P'Thai had finished shooting since the first two hrs. And spent the rest of the time talking and tried to find something to eat to kill the time.

Let see what I got from this longest photography section!



















Captured by KanJANA
Location: Xinduqiao, Grand Shangri-la

Stylish Silent

I don't like my pictures to be too "LOUD"
Have you try to hear the pictures, paintings or sculptures? They all speak to you in different voice. I like soft, subtle and clean voice. Not over shouting!
These are shots from the Grand Shangri-La, May 2011 trip. They are quite quiet.
So Peaceful. So Serene. So Silent
They speak soft voice so, please click the picture if you want to hear them louder.

Captured by KanJANA

Location:Grand Shangri-la,China

Subtle Spectacular

I always like sleek, clean cut and subtle element In my landscape pictures. Some think it is too simple, too plain and too boring. I would say, there is no right or wrong in photography as same as other art, it is the STYLE!
And here is my style "Subtle Spectacular"
Sometimes "lonely is beauty" and most of the time as the master put it "Less is More"
Please click each picture to view the enlarge size.

Captured by KanJANA

Location:4317 m. Height

Who s the man!

(DRAFT only..... Need to put pictures)
Viewer, if you stop by, please come back this weekend...

MUGHECUR, was the first serious spot of the trip. It was a national park where you went up to the top by the mini bus, then you walked further up to the Tibetan village for 45 minutes. It was very good exercising and you could now see who could survive this trip and who may not.

Shot of me in front of the Tibetan house. After a long walk up, thanks for the training i did in BKK before coming here, I felt no complication and I felt more manly than some of the Thai guys who never exercise.
Some gave up and had to be on the horseback, some almost fainted and began speaking to the stranger.
There was The one we had to give him the medal, Simon, an Australian photographer, whom I helped designing his first published book, joined our Thai group and came together from Bangkok. He is 65 years old, carried two very heavy cameras, but managed to walk like flying!

After the Tibetan village, we walked down to shoot the water stream, the Du Juan flower. The big lake..... All what Chinese came for, natural landscape.
I began to feel like I could no longer shoot mountain and forest. I need culture, people, and a better lunch!

Captured by KanJANA

Location:Mu Ger Xua

Ugly Kids are all the same

These were shot during my first spot of the latest trip to Shangrila, China. A small village in Shang Li.

I was wandering around without interesting in shooting landscape and spotted this young attractive boy who stepped out from the shop. I always shoot kids so I would like to update the portraiture portfolio. so, I called to get attention from the boy ( on the right in the second pictures) and began shooting. Not quite yet get the shot I satisfied, I kept trying and then, the other boy came in and tried giving me posses and signed me to shoot him. I did not want to capture him because I was more interested in the other cute boy. But as same as all the ugly kid i met everywhere, he sticked around and never left. And he wanted to be in every of my picture. I could not shake him away. I stopped shooting to distract his interest but every times I began to shoot, he came in the frame. I was tired and gave up. So,the best shot I got was to compromise my intention and captured both of them having a fun time eating some sweet snacks together. It came out lovely and of course the ugly one want to be at front!

More portraiture picture from this trip, please see post "The Portrait of Chinese"

Captured by KanJANA

The Portrait of Chinese

Trip:Grand Shangri-La Voyage
May 2011




I used to be very shy to get close to the subject when shooting portraiture. But what I have noticed from this trip was that I have been mastered my skill to get really close and was able to capture the unguarded moment; as well known word describe Steve McCurry's portraiture work.

I was very happy when I got this shot, it was the best one from about 8-10 shots I captured her. In the same time, a bit surprised that she did not smile in any of these shots at all, not even a giggle. she let no other emotions shown, just this straightforward look to the camera. This really reminded me of my passed Chinese grand father who always stood still and gave no emotions when he was photographed.




This little guy was running around the small Tibetan pagoda that we forced the driver to stopped for us to take picture. Tibetan kids are very similar to Hmong kids, very attractive, smiley, red dusted cheek, and importantly watering all the time on their nose or dropping out from their mouth.
Here is the best example to show you what I meant. Anyway, He still very lovely and this is one of my best picture of this trip.






Another girl nearby sitting with her uncle. Both photogenic but I am more favor to shoot kids.





He was the carrier who help my friend carry all his bags and his Tri-pod. He attracted my eyes and while everyone else tried shooting the mountain, I following him and shot his portrait. He did not want to at first but at the end, I managed to get pretty good shots in the soft afternoon sunlight which is nice.

Captured by KanJANA

Warm up my creativity,the first frame of the trip

This was my first shot of this trip. The wall of the store, hanging the beer bottles. Look very graphical to me.
Other than a photography, I did a simple sketch of the entrance of this small village.

Our first spot was at Shang Li, nice wooden architectural village but a little touristy for me. I was not so interested to go shoot the lake or its landscape. I stepped out from the photographer crowds and went by myself to sketch a picture with some Chinese school students. They were in their art class and were assigned to draw and paint the scene. I talked to few students but they did not understand much English but I managed to borrow a small chair, searched my spot and began drawing. I spent an hour to get this drawing done hopefully when i am back, I would have time to refine it.
It was a good exercising for my hands and eyes coordination. Now it was time to produce some good photographs!

Captured and Sketched By KanJANA

Grand Shangrila Voyage

The 14 days trip itinerary begins from Shanghai, Chengdu, Kangding, Xinduqiao, La Rural, Yading, Xiangcheng, Zhongdian, Lijiang, Shuhe, Shanghai

This time I was pretty prepared. Physically and emotionally..............walking training....gym....clothes....pack....beauty......photography....all the gears were ready. The whole trip was about shooting, landscape mostly, Chinese who ware half of the crews, enjoy, appreciate, and crazy about mountains. They could be in the car traveling to certain spot, waited for 4-5 hours to shoot one picture in the specific lighting.
Here are the brief stat' of this trip.
The highest we were : 5217 m.
The main attraction : Mountainsssss
The longest time in the car: 6 hrs.
The physical challenge level : No complication
The emotional challenge level: High....How to stay in same location for 5 hrs. waiting for the right light ( said who?) and how to get through the Chinese toilet?
The level of fighting: High.....all the times with driver and his son request them not to smoke in the car.
The best body benefit : Every one lost two kilos.
The best scam of the trip: the caterpillar fungus A.K.A. The plant worm.
The survival food: The boil eggs, and the packet tea eggs.

......the list is still coming....I will come back to add it up if I recall other situation.

It might be a torture for me on some locations but generally, I enjoyed the city time off and never a day goes by without shooting!......

By KanJANA