The great Wall......

Since childhood I have been awe of China.....the art, ceramics, silk painting, and all the rest. In 1987 I was invited to join a group with Eastman Kodak to travel the country for a month meeting with  Chinese Professional Photographers. It was remarkable in the sense that I had applied to AFS to travel to China and teach English at the same time learning conversational Chinese. I wanted to do this to essentially kill two birds with one stone. See the country and learn the language. I thought that the ability to think like an American businessman and know the language could open a lot of commercial windows for me, however, I was turned down by AFS.

I was in the studio on a Saturday morning and the phone rang, it was December 1986. It was Paul Ness, an old friend, and a wheel at Kodak. He asked me what I was doing the month of July of 1987. Looking at my schedule I said "Nothing". I had no weddings booked as yet for July. He asked me to join with him and several other Professional Photographers to travel throughout The Peoples Republic. I thought about it for a few seconds and I said YES !! He said he would send more information. I was on the trip and I almost jumped out of my skin. CHINA !! At Last !!!! Then reality set in.

A month with the studio closed. Senior portraits would be beginning to be booked, probably a few weddings...I must be nuts. The professional photography business is hard. I was working as much as I could and and was getting pretty worn out. I did need a break, but a month.......stark raving mad...but what an opportunity. I left on the trip with reservation.

While in China I saw a third world country that I didn't expect. The rural areas had not changed with any technology, Buffalo carts, human energy spent on what we did with machines. But...the colors, and country defy explanation. I would look at a mountain covered with stair steps of greens going from yellow to deep emerald colors from the rice in varying phases of growth. I saw an extremely hard working group of people that in many ways are exactly like us. I also found myself relaxing and beginning to realize that there were things and vision I could change in the business.
I was really changing how I looked at my overall view of my vision and direction I was moving photographicly. It was a really astounding revelation.

We were on the great wall towards the end of the trip. A Monument of proportions you can't imagine unless you are there. This image had never been published and for me tells the visual story of the wall. It was shot with my Linholf 4 x 5 on Ektachrome film. Enjoy.

I will follow up with a few more images soon...........spread the word.