Capturing images of Beijing over the last 30 years
I have witnessed all of these technological advances through my 32 years since first coming to Beijing. Having mostly lived and worked in southern China, I first made a solo visit to the city in 1994. Again it was through the help and suggestions of a Chinese friend in my Scottish home city of Glasgow that I was not only encouraged to visit Beijing but directed to a hotel located within a hutong near Beixinqiao. Had that not happened, I would probably never have become so involved with the city. Simply living for a while within an older area near the Lama Temple (Yonghegong) was a real travel eye-opener. It proved to be the start of many return visits, each time discovering more -- always with a camera in hand, of course!
Over subsequent years, Beijing became a starting point for onward China travels. However, as I learned more about the city, my knowledge and photo archive increased. Eventually, in the early 2000s, I was writing monthly travel features for Beijing This Month and went onto to have 12 years creating daily radio items for RBC AM774 under my beloved heading, Bruce in Beijing! Photography naturally went alongside such media activities.
However, with a city of its size, there is always the challenge of how to document a place so diverse and complex as Beijing either digitally or by film. Regularly back in Scotland I would be asked to organize photo displays of Beijing, for example at the Chinese New Year celebrations in Glasgow or even in Beijing recently at one of its leading hotels. How to present a city with an ancient heritage but also one so modern today? I quickly appreciated its vastness. This was particularly noticeable in those earlier days when metro infrastructure was relatively basic in comparison to the current vast network. Recently, images in a monochrome format have helped me display its facets maybe more dramatically than using color, as some people prefer monochrome.
