Other Camera China 1981

[TomF162]

In July of 1981, I and a small group of friends traveled to China for two weeks. This was shorty after travelers from the US were allowed. I brought with me my Mamiya/Sekor 1000DTL, several lenses and 40 rolls of Kodachrome 25. A couple of years ago I scanned close to 500 slides using a Microtek scanner and VueScan software. Here are a few of these. One town we visited probably had never seen a blond haired blue eyed person before. That is what I tried to capture in the shot of the men staring at me. The last shot shows me 43 years ago.

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[FowlersFreeTime]

Very cool, thanks for sharing!
I went to China before getting into photography, I can only hope I get to go back in this lifetime.

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

This is a very cool post. That is the real China, as we perceived it back then, not as it is now.

 

[Richard A]

You haven’t changed a bit!

But seriously, like @Uncle Kevriano said above, this is a piece of history. Also, these are great travel shots & you have done a brilliant job with the scanning. Kodachrome is notoriously difficult to scan well. What camera were you using back then?

 

[alexpler]

Cool shots. I like the keyhole, metal dragon and Great Wall shots the best. A nostalgic, documentary vibe, but very real and down to earth too.

 

[TomF162]

What camera were you using back then?

I had a Mamiya/Sekor 1000DTL. I brought along a 28mm wide, 50mm, and a 80-205 zoom. I still have the camera and lenses. They are probably not worth much anymore.

I went to China before getting into photography, I can only hope I get to go back in this lifetime.

That is the real China, as we perceived it back then, not as it is now.

I have not been back since. I'm glad I got to see the ancient marvels when I did. From what I've seen these are now quite touristy. There were no 5 star hotels at the time. The best was probably a 3 star. In Nanjing we stayed at an ex-British consulate the government confiscated and turned into something like a hostel. One thing that my photos show is the lack of crowds. The photos of Tianamen Square I took show a mostly empty place. This was 8 years before the massacre.

The rest of this trip was an addition two weeks spent between Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Bali.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

I had a Mamiya/Sekor 1000DTL. I brought along a 28mm wide, 50mm, and a 80-205 zoom. I still have the camera and lenses. They are probably not worth much anymore.




I have not been back since. I'm glad I got to see the ancient marvels when I did. From what I've seen these are now quite touristy. There were no 5 star hotels at the time. The best was probably a 3 star. In Nanjing we stayed at an ex-British consulate the government confiscated and turned into something like a hostel. One thing that my photos show is the lack of crowds. The photos of Tianamen Square I took show a mostly empty place. This was 8 years before the massacre.

The rest of this trip was an addition two weeks spent between Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Bali.

You also would have been there before their air pollution got disastrously bad. It got so severe they had to restrict traffic when they were hosting the Olympics.