So, what seems like a long time ago (it was) my parents came over to China to visit! 🙂 I think they had a great time, and I certainly enjoyed having them! I tried to show them what my every day life is like, as oppose to just doing a bunch of touristy things, as such… the photos may not be the most interesting ever, but they’re certainly great memories for me…

Finally, here’s a meaty, ‘real’ post for you to get your eyes into. So, way back on July 5th, myself, Vicky, and B all took a trip to An’kang. This was my second trip to B’s hometown, and although not as long as the last, it was just as fun…

In my on-going, futile attempt to catch up with my blog posting, here are some photos taken way back ON MY BIRTHDAY. It was my present from Beryl; a cup that looks like a camera lens! Perfect for a camera geek like me. Again, sorry, sorry, sorry for the lack of updates. Been busy lately with the new job and the start of term. I will catch up one day… maybe…Here are some more pictures of the lens mug…

My photography buddy Bill called me up and asked if I wanted to go take photos of water lilies. Not really my thing, but I said yes and off we went on his motorbike (with no helmet or special clothing, of course). Well, we were a bit too early for the water lilies so we went to get some beer instead. A good trade I think. Anyway, while drinking we noticed the sun was setting quite beautifully, so we downed our beers and went off again on his motorbike in search of a good place to shoot from. It was actually my first time on the back of a motorbike, at earlier in the day I thought he’d been driving very sedately, apparently the beer cured this, and 60mph on the back of that thing was more scary than 150mph in a road car. Not that I’ve ever been 150mph on public roads, officer.

Wow, tomorrow would be the one-month anniversary of having no posts on the blog. Oops. So, why the long silence? Well, busy, busy, busy! I have 1800 photos worth of blog posts on their way, highlights include heading to B’s hometown again, my parents visiting, and, oh yeah — I got engaged! 🙂
However, let’s kick things off with something that happened months ago; the last day of Beitang! Beitang is the primary school where we teach for half the year, it was the last day of class so I took in my camera, and it was fun all round…

My good skating friend Dwayne held a skating competition to promote his skating school. I mainly went to take photos (which will follow in a later post) but I also shot a little bit of video, then threw together this film. Enjoy.

BBQ Street is probably my favourite street in Weinan. Well, it’s not called BBQ street, it’s called 西二路。 “Xi er lu” or, “West 2nd Street.” But, every night this street comes alive as a street of BBQ grilles are fired up and the smell of burning meat fills the air…

So, a while back, Max (the owner of our school) invited us to a tea festival he was hosting. Max owns a few tea houses around town (as well as other business) and he threw together a tea festival to promote them. It was basically a night of (mostly) traditional Chinese entertainment, and entertaining it was…

To try out the new camera, I first walked home from work with it. Usually when I don’t have my camera, I see loads of interesting things… however, Murphy’s law prevailed, and I didn’t really see anything interesting, so later that evening I headed to the park with my Weinan photo club friends, here are some photos from the new camera. Still getting used to it!

Weinan Hot Wheels Skating Club – Slalom Skating from Joe Whittingham on Vimeo.

Now I have my new shiny Canon 5D Mark ii with it’s full HD 1080p video feature, I intend to get back into videography a bit more. The 5D isn’t a perfect video camera, as holding it steady is a bit tough due to it’s compact size, but the video is more of a party piece anyway. But, I paid for the camera, and I paid for all my lenses – may as well use them! This is my first video, just shot over a few hours of skating with my friends. For the most part, I wasn’t really directing them, just observing and recording. Anyway, you can hit play above to check out the video in wishy-washy quality, or you can CLICK HERE to go view it in HD (which I recommend!)