Tag Archives: chinese festivals

Firewalkers

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The Nine Emperor Gods Festival culminates tonight with a fire-walking ritual to send off the gods (and the rain). Devotees will walk on a bed of hot burning charcoal (embers) in what they believe is a supernatural feat of faith. There is science behind it and the science is sometimes integrated into modern corporate team-building exercises.

There is a little science to apply in photographing the event, too. In this picture from a previous ceremony, I used a slow shutter combined with 2nd curtain flash sync. Because of smoke and range, the flash could only reach the foreground walkers as soft fill light. Slight motion blur of distant background added the element of urgency. Whoever slows down, gets burnt.

Firewalkers

Splitting Image

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To photograph the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, you really need to spend at least half a day there. Go in the afternoon, stay there until night. Twilight hour is magical when sunlight and artificial light mix. Add rain to it and you have plenty of unique photo opportunities such as this puddle of rainwater on a table.

This is the 9th post of the 9-day Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2012. Thank you for the 900 odd likes on Instagram. Hope you enjoyed the series and found some of the photography tips useful.

Back to regular eclectic programming after this.

Splitting Image

Backstage At The Opera

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Guess what? Backstage at the Chinese opera is like a typical family outing nowadays. Everyone was busy with their phones and no one was talking or looking at one another. This Taiwanese actor is one of several performers joining the troupe this year. The Hokkien Opera, a fascinating component of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival is underrated and under-appreciated.

Remember what I said about making friends while taking pictures on the street? I met several members of the opera while walking with the parade on the first day. They invited me backstage for an intimate look and an explanation of their roles.

For this portrait in the dim dressing area, I used the Pana-Leica Summilux 25mm f1.4 lens. A Manfrotto ML240 LED Panel was mounted above the OM-D to create the catchlights in the eyes. The fine lens captured some light from the phone screen as well.

Backstage At The Opera