Autumn time is the best time of the year for taking cityscapes in Shanghai. I think so anyway. It's not too hot and humid and generally the pollution seems lower leading to clear sky's helping buildings to really stand out. Last week we had some lovely days and I was out late in the afternoon taking pictures over in Lujiazui the new financial district of Shanghai, I say new but it's been around for some time now and it is the home of some of the worlds tallest buildings including the new Shanghai Tower which will open next year at 632M.
Lujiazui has a lot of elevated walkways and I was working light using a simple clamp to fix my camera to the handrails of the walkways rather than lugging around a big tripod. As the sun set and all the lights came on I was using long exposures to remove as many people from the shots as possible. Lujiazui is very busy and I was trying to capture some shots where the city looked empty. When people move during a long exposure they generally disappear or at most leave a slight blur. I took a number of shots waiting for people who were standing still to move hoping to get a shot where everyone was moving with nobody standing around. In the above shot at the time I was aware of the person sitting at the subway entrance and I expected that during such a long exposure they would move around and later I would probably have to Photoshop them out. But as luck would have it they remained still and the result was a picture I had not expected or considered at the time. A single person alone in the city. One of my favourite shots this year.