John M. Lund asked:


The Guest House at the base of the Simatai section of The Great Wall was typically rural Chinese in its bare and no-frills atmosphere.  I had been sicker than a dog for a week now and really was looking forward to a nice hot shower.  It was March and here in Simitai it was freezing cold and windy.  I checked into my room and turned on the shower.  I let the water run a very long time but it didn’t seem to be getting any warmer.  I checked at the front desk and the clerk dispatched a man to my room to see about the hot water.  He told not to worry there would be plenty of hot water in the morning.  Swell.  The hot shower would have to wait.

The next morning (which at 4:00am came all too quickly), I turned on the water and surprise, no water.  Not even any cold water!  Oh well.  I bundled up, grabbed my camera gear and headed to the lobby to meet my traveling companion, Ginna Fleming, and our guide.  We needed our early start so that we could be well up on the wall and in place to shoot the sunrise.  I have learned from years of travel, stock and assignment photography that there is no such thing as “too early” but “too late” comes in a hurry!

It was a short walk to the wall.  It was too soon for anyone to be around; just the two of us and our local Chinese guide.  She was a villager from nearby.  She explained to us that the village had once been located here, but that when the wells went dry the village had to move about 4 kilometers away where they could find more water.  She told us that village life was very difficult and guiding tourists was much easier.

We began to walk up the wall, which climbed the side of the mountain at a fairly steep incline.  The top of the wall was, in effect, a stone staircase and we walk up from watchtower to watchtower one step at a time.  We climbed the “staircase” for almost two hours before the sun began it’s own climb into the sky. 

 

We passed beyond the portion of wall that tourists normally stop and past warning signs prohibiting us to go further…but it was early and in the winter and there was no one there to stop us. 

Here the wall had not been reconstructed and was in ragged disrepair.  Our guide pointed out graffiti that the men and women who built the wall so many years earlier had left behind.  The stones were loose and crumbling and we had to be careful as we hiked up the structure.  As the light began to spread across the landscape we set up our tripods and framed a distant section of wall that spread out below us like a gigantic snake undulating up and down the brown and barren ridges and hills.

For me it was one of those peak experiences, one of the primary reasons I travel.  The sense of history was almost palpable; the only sound the chirping of a few birds.  No tourists, no one hawking guidebooks.  Just this ancient wall, a grand vista of the Chinese landscape, and the cold wind pressing on us as the sun struggled through the morning mist.  When its rays finally reached the valley below us and etched the details of the wall in it’s warm light I knew the photos too would be the effort.  While I was there to create adventure and travel stock photography, I was also there for the experience and spent several hours in mostly quiet reverence. It wasn’t until we were well on our way down that we came across anther person who passed quietly by us on her own journey up the Great Wall.

Started under Qin Shi Huang circa 220 B.C., the first 3,000-mile section of the Wall required the efforts of 70% of China’s population…over a million peasants, prisoners and soldiers.

There are over 10,000 watchtowers and beacon towers on the Great Wall.

There really is no “single” wall, but rather a series of walls, some brick and some earthen and built over a span of 2000 years.

The stone and bricks from the Ming dynasty portion of the wall would be enough to circle the earth five feet high!

Our guide told us that the wall had never stopped any incursions. The intruders simply went around the wall or bribed the guards to let them through.

Neil J Bradford asked:


United Independent Photographers from around the world unite to form an affordable Royalty Free and Rights Managed Stock Photography Library.

At last, a stock photos library offering the highest quality stock photography royalty free stock photos, rights managed stock photos at one flat rate, low price and the actual artist receiving all the payment… No agency commission!

Beginning with a royalty free stock photography photo library called www.Flower-Photos.co.uk back in 2002, you may guess correctly that it was focussed (no pun intended, honest!) on flowers, plants and tree with some really high quality close-ups that made me feel as though I was entering another world.

As the art director, graphic designer and website designer of a garden centre, garden center to our American cousins, which was the flag ship of our group and our group belonging to the UK’s largest chain of independent garden centres, I was in the perfect location to photograph flowers, plants, shrubs and trees at the drop of a hat.

The website really took off, paying for its self, the film and processing including scans from Fuji Labs UK and then began making a profit. Not a huge profit but enough to plough back in and expand the library.

I was contacted from a number of horticultural photographers over the first few years but declined their portfolios as I simply didn’t have the time to manage a team of photographers and their work.

Over the years however, I couldn’t ignore some of the quality of work being submitted and it wasn’t just flower photography, it was every theme imagineable.

In 2004, with many of my own photographs, all the photos from www.Flower-Photos.co.uk and the sister site www.My-Flower-images.com I launched an all subject royalty free and rights managed stock photography website and image library called: www.Photo-Image-Stock.com or www.BuyRoyaltyFreeStockPhotography.com with 6 other photographers from around the world contributing a wide spectrum of themes from food photos and cuisine to motorbikes to landscapes and seascapes… it grew and grew and now in June 2005, there are 20,000 photos up on the site and that’s only a small percentage of what I still have waiting to be sent up with more being submitted every week!

I and the library don’t take a penny or any commission from sales. The payments go directly to the photographer, I get a larger viewership as there’s more to see and hopefully broaden my chances of actually selling some of my own photos!

I was sick of paying $200 for an image from stock photo libraries and then as I went through the online form and entering where the image was to be used and how many issues were to be printed, the price soar to $1,500 or more!

I thought it was about time someone started a library offering really high quality stock photography at a flat low cost price that didn’t get higher the more editions or posters were being printed, where it didn’t matter if the photo was being used on an inside page of a magazine or the front cover, where you could use the image over and over again with no additional charges…. www.Photo-Image-Stock.com provides just that – One flat rate of $77.00 / £40.00 / €58.00 for a single image and discounts for multiple image purchases as below:

2-4 images (10% discount): $69.00 / £36.00 / €52.00 per image

5-9 images (20% discount): $61.00 / £32.00 / €47.00 pi

10-19 images (30% discount): $54.00 / £28.00 / €41.00 pi

20-40 images (40% discount): $46.00 / £24.00 / €35.00 pi

The majority of stock photos are taken using slide / positive film but where digital cameras have been used, only the highest quality digital images have been accepted.

The slide film used is either Fuji Velvia or Sensia at ASA50 or ASA100, then the film is processed at FujiLab UK and scanned to CD at 450dpi and a physical size of 20cm x 13.5cm (8″ x 5.5″)

which is higher than the industry standard requirement of 300dpi but means that these images are crystal clear if used as a front cover of a glossy magazine.

There’s also a second option for web designers or for those with low budgets so low they can’t even afford our low rates, subscibing to our service for a low monthly or annual rate and downloading almost an indefinite number of medium res’ photos high enough res’ to be used on printed material if reduced in physical size but easily high enough res’ to be used for in-house posters or on web pages.

I set out to provide excellent quality stock photography at a very low and affordable price that would enable graphic designers, web site designers, art directors, picture desks and anybody else, to stretch their budgets further and not choke every time they ordered a photograph from an stock photography library…. I hope I have accomplished this in some small way.

Anybody wishing to purchase our images can visit us at the websites above and any keen photographers with quality work wishing to submit their work can also find a submissions page with further information on our website also.