Looking down
Part of the trip this summer were a couple of days spent in Beijing. This was my second time there and although the weather (actually the smog) was terrible this year I did enjoy revisiting some of the places I’ve been to last year and trying to photograph them from a different angle. One of my favourite things while in Beijing last year was the 10km walk along the Great Wall of China from Jinshanling to Simatai. So we went and did again this year! It’s not an easy hike, but it’s not a very difficult one either. There are sections of the wall that are quite steep, but then again nobody is forcing you to do it fast, so you can rest as much as you like.
The best way to do this is to take a bus from Beijing to Miyun and then organise a taxi from there to drop you in Jinshanling and pick you up from Simatai. Some of the taxi drivers on this route are slightly crazy, driving like maniacs. Our driver spent half of the way overtaking on the inside shoulder! He did however have karaoke in the car for us!
As for the photograph, it was taken towards the end of the 10km hike, just before one of the last descents. It’s an HDR made out of 7 exposures, tone-mapped and then blended manually with a couple of the original exposures.