Snapshots of old town

In September when the temperatures start to drop to a bearable level it is also time to get the camera out and explore the city. So just before the one week Chinese autum festival next week (and we take the opportuntiy to  go holiday)  I would like to share with you some snap shots taken in old town a couple earlier this month.

More to come via Angelika Lincoln Photography when we are back in two weeks time  :-)

 

 

 

 

"Kick off" for Angelika Lincoln PHOTOGRAPY

The problem which I mentioned in my last post was finally solved. And the solution was surprisingly simple: There was no virtual great wall in this case: The problem was caused by the domain provider in the US!! I´m very sorry, China, it´s become such a habbit to blame everything going wrong on you.

So finally I´m, ready to present my new (self built!) website, hooray! It is going to the new publishing platform for my "professional" pictures.

You might think: "Sure, there is plenty of fish in the photographer-sea already, why do you bother?" : My answer is simple: I feel like I should be doing this. Ever since I decided to move to China doors opened letting me walk in this direction.

Many of you know it has been my dream I have been going for and I will make it work. Future will decide where it will take me. But if I don´t try it out I will never know what "could have been". And life is too short to not find out.  

Therefore I warmly invite you to follow my first steps on this new path. Make sure to check out the new BLOG on the site which will tell you a little more about the actual story behind my photos. In the ABOUT section I desribe my key portfolio and talk a bit about this crazy person behind the lens :-)

Everything big starts small one day - here is my exciting little start:

Angelika Lincoln Photography

ENTER HERE

The VIRTUAL Great Wall

 

China used to be surrounded by  a great brick wall, stretching  for thousands of kilometers  across the northern east of the country. It´s  purpose twas o protect the country from evil enemies trying to come in. All that is left from this  great wonder are sections of  ruins, fulfilling a much happier purpose these days: Tourist attractions and theme parks.

But the middle kingdom of the 21st century  has a new great wall - a virtual one , endless high and well protected  saving country from false information coming in. You can not see it, but it is still there: On the internet and is called censorship.

It is usually no big deal for us, but today I feel the urge of writing about it because today I was personally affected by it: After weeks of preparation I noticed that I built a a webiste behind the walls of China - and my Shanghai based clients can not access it.

The control of information coming  in to  China is something well discussed in the rest of the world. Particularely now. And yes it is true,  this country has it´ s virtual eyes everywhere. Mostly we don´ t notice it.  We can google, we can listen to our favourite radio stations abroad and  we can watch international TV - but the information you are getting is filtered. Depending on how much it is filtered the web is every day  a little bit faster or slower.
Some friends have told me that sometimes  even when watching TV and there is critical talk about China, the screen goes black for a few seconds.

So how come I can freely write this blog (this site  is actually banned in China)  you can find me  in Facebook and can access no censored news? The answer is quite simple: We dig a tunnel underneath that virtual wall and get out the country.

It is part of my every day procedure. Along with switching on the computer I open up my VPN and dive through an electronic "tunnel" to Europe. So despite me sitting here in China, I´m writing this blog  actually out of the UK which is the other end of the line.

There is nothing wrong in this. A lot of foreigners (and you can be sure a lot of Chinese, too) do this. The only thing that can happen is that the "eyes" find  your tunnel and shut it down… which is when you start looking for another tunnel and life goes on as normal.
So despite an extra click on the computer we are not really affected - until today:

For many, many weeks I have been working on my new photography website. Sunday was going to be the big day when I wanted to publish it. After good 9 hours of work I looked at the rebuilt website and phoned Paul proudly to take a look at it for reviewing on his Ipad which does not acces a VPN.

A couple of minutes later he called me back and said: “What have you done? Your page is not loading any more. It is blocked!!”…It took me a moment to realize- without thinking I had introduced a  new blog into my website which was going to be my publishing platform for new photographs.

The word “Blog” and “Censorship” basically go hand in had here. But because I had been working with the VPN switched on all the time  I had not noticed that my proud work was not acessable to anyone within the "great Wall" .
I rarely get frustrated, but when In noticed what I had done I felt like it BIG TIME!

But I have also lived here long enough now to having established  a network support who I know can help me to fix the problem. There is always a way round.

And I assure you, we will find it!