{"id":2530,"date":"2024-02-12T16:04:16","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T15:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/urban-stories\/trip-to-the-east\/"},"modified":"2024-02-20T10:51:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T09:51:59","slug":"trip-to-the-east","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/urban-stories\/trip-to-the-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Trip to the East"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1707751863459{margin-right: 50px !important;}”]Where do you start documenting places and people you’ve never seen or met before? I don’t think there is a rule to follow. It was worth what I encountered along the way; the one that most struck my curiosity, aesthetics and emotion at the moment of the “click<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

It was in spring of 2019 that I undertook the trip to the Far East. Unaware that a few months later the world would experience one of the most serious pandemic crises in modern history. So, for me as a Westerner, it was quite surprising to encounter unusual lifestyles beforehand. Which would soon forcefully enter our way of living, upsetting our most common habits and our relationships.<\/p>\n

Since my point of view (of photography) is mainly anthropological, the first meeting I had with those populations, what intrigued me the most was their intransigent posture in habitually wearing masks on their faces. For their own protection and for others\u2019. But I linked the most plausible justification to the critical conditions of air pollution, the common denominator of the metropolises I visited: Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok.<\/p>\n

I remember well when on the morning of April 16th in Beijing, at 5.43am, the pollution index (US AQI=180) was “red alarm-Unhealthy<\/em>“. I woke up early to capture the sunrise over the skyline of the Chinese capital; from the eighth floor where the hotel room was, I imagined an amazing view. I moved the curtain aside and looked outside to take the photograph: a surreal scenario appeared to me.<\/p>\n

The air was dense, reddish in colour, just like the iconic setting of the film Blade Runner<\/em>. A blanket of reddish fog that would never clear. Not even when I climbed the Great Wall eighty kilometers north of Beijing. In fact, I was very disappointed when, on my return, in the reportage<\/em> I didn’t find any photographs that gave the right scenic relevance of the UNESCO heritage site.[\/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”Back” color=”black” i_icon_fontawesome=”fas fa-arrow-alt-circle-left” add_icon=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.andreacalestani.it%2Fen%2Furban-stories%2F|title:Urban%20stories|”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1697117854328{padding-right: 20px !important;}”][image_swap image_id=”2515″ caption_url=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.andreacalestani.it%2Furban-stories%2Ftrip-to-the-east%2Fnumb%2F|title:Numb” border_width=”3″ border_color=”#ffffff” image_id2=”2527″][image_swap image_id=”2509″ caption_url=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.andreacalestani.it%2Furban-stories%2Ftrip-to-the-east%2Fskyscrapers%2F|title:Skyscrapers” border_width=”3″ border_color=”#ffffff” image_id2=”2521″][image_swap image_id=”2513″ caption_url=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.andreacalestani.it%2Furban-stories%2Ftrip-to-the-east%2Ftaking-pictures%2F|title:Istanbul” border_width=”3″ border_color=”#ffffff” image_id2=”2525″ caption_urls=””][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1697117868951{padding-left: 20px !important;}”][image_swap image_id=”2517″ caption_url=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.andreacalestani.it%2Furban-stories%2Ftrip-to-the-east%2Fshanghai-roads%2F|title:Shanghai%20Roads” border_width=”3″ border_color=”#ffffff” image_id2=”2519″][image_swap image_id=”2511″ caption_url=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.andreacalestani.it%2Furban-stories%2Ftrip-to-the-east%2Fstreet-vendors%2F|title:Street%20vendors” border_width=”3″ border_color=”#ffffff” image_id2=”2523″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1707751863459{margin-right: 50px !important;}”]Where do you start documenting places and people you’ve never seen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3102,"parent":2071,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2530","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2530\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}