-Z-

and from the gardens...

had the camera out for a day off this past friday afternoon. spent some time in and around the YuYuan Gardens in Shanghai. some shots captured there and in the surrounding neighborhood...

began walking to the caoyang lu station...

from the train passing toward zhongshan gongyuan...

Got down to the old town by the gardens and walked through some of the back alleys before we explored the gardens themselves...had a ton of fun walking around back here...

that set was from the walk around the gardens themselves...the next set was taken in the gardens...

I just found my pair, they've been hiding in a suitcase for the past month...after having been repaired at SENY...they look pretty good though, i'll have to take some pictures eventually.

Here's a bit of what I shot yesterday on my first day out with the 70-200mm...enjoy.

Thanks joel and ranon, I do get quite a few stares, but nothing too crazy, haha.

ranon they're all from my 5D with a 28mm f/1.8 edited in lightroom.

Some shots from the city over the past week or so...

A few randoms i pulled off my phone from the last week or so...

Another day at our really small, cramped business space at the Oakwood Shanghai...

Went here to play some pool and have a few beers last week...

was a tad rainy a week or so ago..

Bottle service with a bunch of friends at 88 Club, which was without a doubt the strangest place i've ever been to, but we had a hell of a time. 3 bottles of whiskey with green tea and 5 bottles of champagne later, it was a long night.

Spent the day at Shimao Riviera Garden soaking up the sun and laying in the wave pool with a Heineken...love Shanghai.

and I figured I needed a Tele for my time over here, not necessarily for street shooting, but just travel in general, since i don't have anything above 85mm in my bag. I went to an insane camera store today and found this tucked away in a used shop on the 4th floor. No use whatsoever, and I got them down to only $550...I just can't justify shelling out almost $2000 for the Canon equivalent. but having an f/2.8 tele is sweeeeeet.

i used the lens correction tools to vertically shift the image until i keystoned the straight lines, cropped out the distortion around the edges from the shift, and framed it how i wanted and that was it. pretty easy, it doesn't always work if you have to shift too far, and i had to shift this one a long way, but it ended up working out!

2nd shot is money...

also done that with the iphone?...

Thanks everybody! Its good to be back posting more around here. Hey Finn, actually i shot that from the street with my 5DII and found a shot i liked in it when i was messing around with it in photoshop...i edit everything i shoot, but not usually as much as i did with this one. wanted to save it and i'm glad there was a shot in there.

here was the original straight from the camera compared to the final piece.

here is the end of new york city...

hope to have more material to post up from over here. have fallen off a bit in terms of shooting and have done most of it with my iPhone of late...not wanting to lug my camera around given its so damn hot out. hope everyone is doing well...look forward to getting a bit more involved again.

Last week I moved from here.......

Flew over the frozen tundra of the north pole...

To here....

Going to be in Shanghai for the next 4 weeks and then i'm posted in Beijing for the foreseeable future. i've got straggling shots from NYC and a few from the first weekend in Shanghai to post up at some time. Cheers.

Spent a majority of Saturday evening at the Willy Wall, out by Ellis Island within view of the Statue of Liberty, few friends of mine were taking sailing lessons at the Manhattan Sailing School, so we were invited out to the bar. Amazing views of Manhattan. Had a few too many Heinekens, and it was a blast. Here are my iPhone shots from the weekend.

just got done with the fireworks show a bit ago as well...haven't gone through the pics yet, and took some video from the 34th floor on the Jersey side looking out at Manhattan, should be superb. Happy 4th everyone, last holiday in the USA proved to be a phenomenal one indeed!

More Hipstamatic Prints from this weekend..

Hipstamatic shots from the last few days...really like the Nike Films they added.

Went to the Lee Ufan retrospective today at the Guggenheim. I was very, very impressed with the work and the presentations.

alright here's the most recent shit from this weekend, etc.

wait, forgot this awesome dude in Chinatown...

Went to the Mermaid Parade down at Coney Island.

I've never been to Nathan's, so we had to get a dog, but the traditional with kraut, and a stupid huge beer which was only like $5.25 what a way to start an evening out on the town.

Train ride back across the Manhattan bridge.

This place Epistrophy is by far one of my favorite wine bars in the city, the prices are great, the guys who run the place are legit, and they have amazing cheese boards, saturday night we got the fruit and cheese board and a bottle of Rose, which was perfect in the almost 90 degree heat.

the cheese and fruit goodnesss....

Sunday morning went down to the high line for a little walk, it was super crowded so it wasn't that much fun, but i always like it down in the meatpacking district. went to a shindig at the Standard a few saturdays ago, and that place is amazing as well I have to admit.

walked back across the island Sunday to meet up with another friend and head up to midtown and do some shopping, for her.

I'll end with last night's dinner at Public, I have to admit, I wasn't sure what to expect but I was really blown away with the quality of the meats they served, the Kangaroo was particularly good, as well as the pork loin / belly entree which I got. The duck was also fantastic. wine pairings were very well chosen by our server, it was one of the best meals i've had in town.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed my massive iPhone update, it has been fun having it around since I rarely take my 5D at the moment with how busy i've been, not wanting to lug it around until the late hours of the evening and such.

Went down the shore for Memorial day....were very prepared.

Heading out to the Turnpike and down the shore to Manasquan...

Had a damn good time...not much else from that weekend, was a bit unreal.

Rode around on this sailboat from south street seaport around the island for a booze cruise...had an amazing time, no pics though..

Now fast forward to last week, headed out to Chinatown for lunch from TriBeCa, snapped a bunch while we were out there.

went to a bookstore with some really great stuff...Barak Obama comic? Hell YEA!

SIC table tennis skills, FTW

Chinatown fish market

one more post...then i'll be done.

Haven't been checking sufu much in the past month, but i figured i'd get back in the game tonight. At home with some nasty allergies eating chinese food crushing some supplementary Mandarin material.

Just dumped everything off my iPhone since I arrived in NYC back in April...lets start at the beginning and work up to today, yea?

Heading across the midwest on my way into Newark...actually this is really the only picture from back then so lets jump forward about a month.

At the Chinese Consulate getting my Visa stamp, pretty smooth process, just a 3 hour line to get in and drop off my documents for 30 seconds, then come back and do it all over again for the pick up later in the week. fuuuuuck.

Where I drink my coffee every morning before I take the PATH into mandarin class / work.

bathroom at Diablo Royale in the Village...right next to my buddies place so we're here for Ricky's about twice a week..

not a big fan of sweets, but some of the ladies that are heading to China with me love this place, thought i'd tag along and check it out...pretty good cupcakes, and the key lime tart was great too..

A little central park action

and the back side of the egyptian art exhibition at the Met

Chicken Katsu sandwich at Takahachi Bakery in TriBeCa...go here once a week or so for lunch.

did a bit of bottle service up on the roof at 230 5th...definitely worth it for a great view on a nice night.

and of course a little Shake Shack burger is always a good idea..came on a Sunday and the line was only about 10 minutes.

alright, so lets move on to some more recent events...

...some from last weekend round midtown central park and newport, nj.

Tonight I walked along the water opposite Manhattan on the way to grab a drink with a friend..it was an eerie evening. Here is what I saw as I walked there and back.

Forbidden...you have no idea how excited those pics make me...I'm going to be living out in 798 district (or near by) and its great to see some of what the area has to offer!!!!

laxlife what were you doing up near St. Marks on Bowery? my favorite bar is across the street from that building (McSorley's Old Alehouse), and I was on the next street up doing karaoke at like 2 AM saturday morning...Ippudo is up a ways as well and has very good Japanese food.

great shots everybody! Riff you're the man!

Birthday fit last night...here's to surviving the rapture and to another year!

nice pairs all around everyone. just (finally) picked mine up from SENY this afternoon, but left them at a friends place so won't get pics up until tomorrow evening. they did a hell of a nice repair job, crotch feels so much more sturdy now.