Every night, the first show starts at 7pm with a duration of about 10-15 minutes each. The show repeats every 30 minutes, some songs are repeated, and some aren't.
Wanted so much to take pictures of the fountain, I went to area at around 620pm, and I was surprised that the place was already full. All the seats were occupied, but anyway, I had no intention of sitting down. I found an ideal location for photography and I setup my tripod there. I happened to the first in that area, and slowly the crowd gathered and there are more and more people crowding behind me. Some didn't know why there was such a crowd there. And many of these curious tourists will ask, because I seemed to know the answers to their query. Quite obvious, right? A photographer with a tripod being setup.
I was actually snapping the photographs like cerazy! Well, that was the good thing about digital photography, I don't need to be too much concern about wasting money on rolls of films, developing charges, and printing fees, just SNAPPED! I enjoyed the "water" shows, and I stayed there from 630pm to 845pm when all the shows were over! There were some repetition of songs, but it was alright, I don't mind watching it again and again.
There was a young man (from Jingzhou 荆州) who was with me throughout the entire durations. We made friends with each other and chatting, somehow we felt attached to each other, due to the virtue fact that we both were from Hubei 湖北.
But anyway, throughout the duration, in addition to taking photographs, and answering queries to some curious traveller, and chatting with this guy, the commonest thing I did was helping some other tourists (generally ladies, hehe) in setting their cameras, or take pictures for them. Well, I could have setup a small little stall there to earn some money, by helping other tourists to take pictures, or guide them on how to use their camera.
Strange hor? People don't know how to use their own camera? The classic example was this lady (a tourist from Shanghai, I think), not bad looking, quite attractive. She asked me to help her to adjust the settings in her camera, because her camera didn't manage to capture night scene properly. I believe it had something to do with the exposure (which means the shutter speed or aperture or ISO setting). Well, it was not a normal brand, the user interface was in Chinese (of course!). After spending 5 minutes or so, I couldn't figure where to make the correct settings, it was not easy. I have no choice but to pass the camera back to her, and said "Sorry, I have no idea how to set your camera", or something like that. And you know what? She started to show me that impatient look and sarcastic face, and uttered something like "Why you didn't know how? You were a professional photographer, right? Why don't know? Why? Why? Why!" I was like taken by surprise and wouldn't know how to react to her "nonsense"! In my heart, I was saying "Well, you came to me to ask for help, I offered my help to take a look, I tried, but I couldn't help, sorry! Was it my fault?". I felt so "委屈". Haha! Anyway, this little incident didn't manage to spoil my mood on enjoying the beautiful scene in front of me.
Most of the pictures were taken with the following settings:
Aperture: F4.5 to F5
Shutter Speed: 0.5 seconds to 2 seconds
ISO: 100 to 800 (depending, I was exploring different options)
Sometimes, I purposely set my aperture to be smaller, so as to make the shutter speed slower, to explore. Anyway, that was the spirit, EXPLORE, and you will learn! It is same in doing other things in your life. EXPLORE!
Please enjoy some of the pictures here:
Laser on Water Screen
From another angle
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