Nice shot of a boy just sleeping under the stars, his dreams behind him.
China of today.

do you edit your pictures at all? like.. PS or something? or is the secret of this amazing quality just RAW and a good camera?

silver: RAW and a good camera help, but PS is essential. RAW files are digital negatives, and as such they're not all that impressive straight out of the camera – flat, desaturated, and so on. Photoshop is the darkroom.

Yep...well said Dave...Its true....99% of the pictures straight out of camera do not make any impression niether does it make justice to the capture.
This is an excellent picture...and ligting is perfect...

David: Are yoy thinking on writting a book or a tutorial to share this PS knowledge with other people?. It would be wonderful for me just be near to this neverseen and incredible quality!!!

Xavier

This is a wonderful picture at multiple level. First technically, it's amazing ! The color are so subtle and the tone are perfect for this picture ! Not too punchy, not too light. I don't know how you did it ... I would be interested to learn about it. Then the content is great ... This poor guy (I'm assuming poor, but he might be only tired ... But I see a poor guy ...) and all the ads for luxury product ... Nice contrast. Sad ...

One of your best in a while !!!! Thanks for sharing.

Fred @ 400iso.com

Great stuff ... such an interesting culture ... just has a different feel.

Nice documentary. At 5.6,1/1000,ISO100 .. I'd like to know how he got to sleep in all that light!! Curious about where it's coming from, too.

I like the shot in itself...just the material. I agree with the first comment. The color is nice too.

The abstract comparison between the rich and the poor in Dalian is inevitable; you have shown it nicely here in this photo.

This is a wonderful shot. The light though is intriguing. What time of day was this, and what sort of lighting is illuminating his jeans so strongly?
Compositionally, I think it's really good, and the pp is first class. I can't imagine why this one didn't get an airing before this. It's probably my favourite of all the China shots. Good stuff!

This unfortunately is such a common contrast, you've found a really great shot.
Of all things, what I like most about this is the way the light reflects off the posters behind the boy and hit the ground in front of him, leaving a slight silhouette.

I've admired your work for a few months now and I've noticed a change... your most recent photos have been on the "dark side" compared to your old stuff. Is there a reason or is it something only I noticed?

woah. i didn't even see the guy there until my eyes wandered over the shot for a minute. great photo.

That's great. I love the colour.
I think you do highly saturated photos really well.

Great. Love it. Feel bad for the sleepy guy though. He doesn't look comfortable.

Sweet dreams, for sure ;-)

a beautiful shot. The colors are so vivid and live - the lazy guy adds a new angle to the picture.

What a great picture. It's awful to think this one might never have been shown.

Amazing color

The atmosphere of this photograph is great.

A saddening image made less so by the beautifully rich colours. Very rich tones. The brutality of life agaist the gloss of advertsing.

Life is unfair.

I haven't given a comment for a long long time. But this one..... is shocking! The colours are so rich and amazing! Well done!

I think photographers often work best when thrust into a foreign environment - everything becomes new, and your eye has to take it all in, and filter out what you think is important. I am for some reason surprised by the very Western feel to the ads, but then again there is a new middle class population in China, complete with disposable income! The photo is definitely much more powerful with all of the faces (better than ads with just products) - a face of the rich and a face of the streets. Well done!

BTW, if you haven't checked out Edward Burtynsky's latest series from China - he does a lot of industrial shots - quite quite interesting: http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/

Hi David,My name is Nemo and i come from China.
This my E-mail:enemo@hotmail.com
I like ur foto very much .
If you go to Wuhan ,you can connect with me.

As well as being beautifully lit, this one works on so many levels.

What I think alot of us would like to see is how the original photograph looks directly from the RAW file taken from the D20. The after and before is what I really want to see. It's amazing how great your PS techniques are in achieving breathtaking shots like the one showcased here. If you don't mind, could you please do that on one post... the PS'ed pic above and the original below. I think everyone would get a kick out of seeing how amazing a shot can look with great PS skills. Have a great one!

Just for info, I think the add on the far right is for skin bleaching. Asians have this thing for white pale skin on women, and as such, there are tons of products that offer whiter skin and such.

Xavier (and ninu): people have mentioned I should write a book about PS, and it's something I'll consider if I ever get the time. What I do intend to do though (but again this require a bit more time than I have at the moment) is put up some tutorial examples on chromasia.

Geoff: it was mid-morning. As for the light on his jeans: I did lighten that area of the shot.

Juliet: yes, I've noticed that my shots have been a bit darker of late. I'm not sure of the reason other than that I process my shots until they look right – perhaps I'm just going through a 'dark' phase.

josh: thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

Nemo: thanks, if I'm over that way again I'll look you up.

this one seems to have good point and counterpoint but IMHO it would be a better image if the guy sleeping was more decrepit-he looks sorta trendy and so the thematic contrast between him and the adverts is not enough. in other words, i think the image could say a lot more to me than it does as is.

Interesting - In processing my China photos, most beckoned for monotone as well. Also, I found myself gravitating to east vs. west themes.

This is just fantastic

would work better in B/W

Not too impressed with this. No offense, but the real art I see here is that of the advertisers, not your camera skills. Try to make the camera sing, make your work glow right from the moment of exposure. Catching a scene like this, a contrast of "rich and poor" is good content, but there are more artful ways to portray it. Rather than use a snapshot style picture, perhaps have the "rich and poor" elements in different parts of the composition. Focus, difference in lighting (natural, not dodge and burn), and abstract composition are all good tools to use to express your ideas. Don't have the camera and photoshop work for you, work for the image. You can see millions of shapshots and not catch an impression, even with rich color and detail like yours, but what really make notable photograhs are good "elemental" skills. And by that, I don't mean Photoshop Elements.

And if you are getting poor colors and low saturation from the camera back, then try using an external light meter and a polarizer. If you study the highlights and shadows of a picture, and fliter things right, you can nail gorgeous colors and/or the exposure you want. It's all in the mechanics of light.

Hope any of that helps, 'luck with your art.

-analog

amazing as usual. I only wish i could take pictures like these.