Images shot on Kodak Pro Image 100 in the Yashica Electro 35 GSN
These photographs are over five years old, as I’m writing this. And unless you’ve read my Kodak Pro Image 100 film review, you won’t have ever seen any of them.
I can see the files were scanned in November 2019. The realisation that so much time has passed since I shot them, and that so much life has happened too, is weird.
But now, for some reason or other, it’s time to get my arse into gear and finally publish them.
The way the roll was shot means I can split this post into three distinct sections – two based on a couple of parks near where I used to live in Shanghai, and a final one of some general street shots.
We’ll start with the first of those parks. With two chaps playing chess in Minhang Sports Park.
Contents
A stroll in Minhang Sports Park
Is chess a sport, by the way?
The International Olympic Committee and 100+ countries say it is, but that means there’s a lot of countries – including my own – that don’t recognise it as such.
What even makes a sport a sport and not a game?
I’ve heard two theories.
First is that if you can play it straight after work without changing out of your office shoes or safety boots, with no detriment to your performance, it’s a game. If you need to put some other shoes on, it’s a sport.
Second is that if you can play it whilst smoking a cigarette, again without detriment to your performance, then it’s a game. If you need to have a break to smoke, it’s a sport.
Something to ponder.
With all that said, here are some images from Minhang Sports Park. A park in Minhang where you can… do sports.
Just so long as you’re not doing any on wheels.
Right, time for some actual information about this place.
It spans almost 208 acres, which is a lot, and has been open since 2004. Before it was made into the park it is today, the area was a construction waste dump. So it’s good that they did this with that, isn’t it.
The centrepiece of the park for me was always the large lake, with that boardwalk you can see in those last two images over a wetland area of it making for a nice diversion.
There are also trails for running and walking, with large parts of them planted with seasonally blossoming trees and flowers, and a 25-metre-high hill giving decent views to be found too.
And on this day when I was there shooting some Kodak Pro Image 100 film, I got photographs of very little of the above.
Instead, I more focused on the people. Young and old. And not many in between.
Grandparents looking after the grandkids is very common out there.
Elsewhere in the park is a pretty big building that houses all sorts of indoor sports. A gymnasium and a table tennis room, according to what it says in this next photograph.
I bet they had badminton courts in there too. I don’t know what else. Apart from a bowling alley in the basement.
I know that because, apart from that massive bowling pin, I went there once on my birthday and had a few games with some friends. It was a good time. Took some cans of TsingTao in with us and probably only scored about 120, at best. As is always the case.
That building made a decent backdrop for a couple of shots here, though. Especially with the steps leading up to it.
Oh and hey, it’s another older lady looking after a kid that I don’t think would have been hers.
Bowling wasn’t the only sports I did in Minhang Sports Park, though.
Is bowling a sport? I suppose you can do it whilst smoking. But on the other hand, you do have to change your shoes. That’s a fundamental rule of bowling. So maybe it is a sport after all.
Regardless, I remember running around the tracks around the lake here a couple of times. Back then, I would struggle to even do 5k. It wasn’t the healthiest time of my life.
I recall going on a pedal boat on the lake once, too. Not a sport. Not even a game. Light exercise at best. And we took some cans of TsingTao with us then too.
To reiterate, not the healthiest time of my life.
With that in mind, it’s time to wrap up from the sports park. Let’s begin this final set of images from it with something I didn’t do often with the Yashica Electro. Not successfully, at least.
A close-up shot with shallow depth of field.
A canter in Minhang Cultural Park
The second park I went to on this day, with both of them being within walking distance to my old place in Qibao, was Minhang Cultural Park.
That’s right. We’ve done the sport. Now it’s time for some culture.
And also some horses. Lots of horses.
Culture is a broad term. But I think the eponymous – heh, eponymous – ‘culture’ in this park is mostly to do with art.
Works of art, art museums. That sort of thing.
The park only opened fully to the public in 2018, and it still looked quite far from being fully finished in places when I was there the year after.
Fortunately though, this ambitious equine installation was already there.
Produced by the artist 马兴文, or Ma Xingwen if you prefer, its name according to this video on the artist’s Instagram account is 1000 Galloping Horses.
However. The Chinese name for the piece is 万马奔腾, and the number in that is literally 10,000.
I asked a real Chinese person – my missus – to clarify. She said that while the character means 10,000, they really take it to mean loads of, and 1000 would also constitute loads of, so in this case they kind of think of it as 1000, but really just… loads of.
When I said I asked her to clarify, I wouldn’t say I left with 100% clarity on what she meant and why 10,000 means 1000, but I think it’s enough to just say this is… loads of horses galloping.
70, to be precise. To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
Moving on from the 10,000 1000 70 horses and further into Minhang Cultural Park, I found a whole lot of emptiness in the middle areas, with a lot of things still unfinished.
I remember the blue house you can see on this page was just a bare concrete shell, and there was just generally nothing much worth taking photographs of.
Reaching the northern end however, I found some more signs of life. Chinese park life.
Parklife!
A bloke in a trilby and Frank Butcher glasses smoking.
Another bloke playing a saxophone. And that wasn’t uncommon.
You could almost guarantee there’d be someone playing some musical instrument every time you went in a park in Shanghai, and it was in my experience often a saxophone.
And a few from the streets too
I didn’t shoot this whole roll of Kodak Pro Image 100 in those two parks, though. There was some walking the streets before, between, and after them, so I got some images from those environs also.
These are the kind of images I mostly shot when I was living in Shanghai. Just people going about their business. Sometimes they’d notice and interact, like the chap on the bicycle below.
It always felt nice when that happened. Especially when I got my scans back and saw I’d got the timing and focus on the shot good enough too.
The next one, the focus is less good. It seems to be more on the pagoda than the man. But not every shot from your roll is going to be a keeper.
Obviously this one was, technically speaking, because I’ve kept it. But they’re not all going to be perfectly executed.
And for a call-back to something mentioned earlier in this post, how about another presumed grandparent taking care of the young one.
The expression on her face looks like she wasn’t impressed with something.
We’re reaching the end of what I got from this roll of Pro Image 100 now and the next shot is again, to me, very China.
And no, I don’t mean very Chinese. I mean, very China.
I’m not being negative. But every day you’d see something and think… alright. Like a man using a shopping bag for a sun hat. Honestly, it’s a good idea. If you want to keep the sun off your head and all you have is your shopping bag, it’s a good idea.
The chin straps are a bit loose, though.
Housewife and baby is a great business name too.
An ayi service, again according to my missus. Professional nannies. Clean your house, look after your kids.
That kind of thing, if that’s your kind of thing.
Sitting outside your shop seems to have been the main activity of that day for most of the people in these last few shots, which was fair enough because I do remember it was a nice day. The light in these images tells you that too.
And if you don’t have a shop because you’re lucky enough to have gotten old enough to retire, how about a nice game of chess with your mates instead?
At that age you’re not going to care if it’s a sport or a game.
Final words on this walk around two Minhang parks
As I sit here and write these words, it’s hard for me to believe how long ago it was that I took these photographs.
For a few reasons.
First, because I remember being there and walking around the Minhang parks with this Pro Image 100 in my Yashica Electro that day like it was yesterday.
And second, because I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get a blog post written up so that I can get them published on here.
In a way though, it’s nice that it’s taken so long, because viewing them and thinking about them again has been a nice reminder for me of my time spent living in Shanghai.
A magical and significant part of my life, and one which once every photograph from then has been posted, it will be easy to find myself not looking back on them as much as I could or should.
I know you can’t live in the past. But if it was good, you can’t allow yourself to forget it either. 🙂
If you liked that account of walking around two Minhang parks shooting some Kodak Pro Image 100 and want to read some more essays illustrated with film photography, why not have a look at some of these:
And if you think others will find this post worth a read, help them find it by giving it a share 😀
