Photo Monday_ Framing Nature

This past weekend I took a daytrip to Hangzhou, a beautiful city in the Zheijang province and less than a 2 hour train ride from Shanghai.

After a crazy ride on the back of a moped to the lake, I arrived at xi hu (shee- who) i.e. West Lake--truly nature in its most idyllic form. From there I walked the several-mile path (one of many) around Hangzhou's West Lake--a meandering journey through varied gardens, temples, old mansions, pagodas, museums, and most importantly, fields and fields of huge lily-pads.

This experience was new to me-- it seemed that I was one of the only foreigners enjoying the lake for the day, and as I quietly took pictures (while trying to avoid the mini tour-bus vehicles that continuously circle the lake while playing shrill traditional Chinese music... not exactly the zen experience I was anticipating), I received so many stares I wasn't sure if I, infact, was the tourist attraction. Regardless, the day was seamless and a much needed escape to nature from Shanghai's busy streets and hot pavement.

In this entry I've included photographs that deal with the issue of framing. Each outdoor pavilion structure managed to capture and compose its surroundings in a different way-- ranging from manipulation of view through depth of perspective, column repetition, site placement, structural pattern/ornament, or natural surrounding landscape. Below are a few of these structures and the views they produced... (and note, perhaps my favorite frame was nature itself...)