The Mega-Buddha of Harbin, China

Harbin, China

you were lucky to get that dark sky-it really brings out the Buddha! cb

Well taken! Superb composition, you got in from a very good angle and the colors are very good!

Regards

Daniella

Nicely balanced composition and yes, the dark sky makes for a great back ground. Just curious - what are the red canisters, and why the boxes on the bench? Do you know? :)

The red canisters are fire extinguishers. I think the bowls and boxes on the bench have something to do with the floral offerings left for the Buddha - perhaps trash boxes for the wrappings on the flowers and water for the stems - but this is idle speculation on my part. I didn't go look at them up close. I gave some thought to moving the fire extinguishers but the guard was already giving me suspicious looks because of my tripod and I didn't think I could communicate to him why I wanted to move them. This place is off the beaten tourist track for westerners. The only pale faces I saw during my 3 days here were a few vacationing Russians. In February there is an ice sculpture festival that is supposedly the granddaddy of all ice festivals. Thousands of visitors come from tropical Asian country because they have never seen ice or snow.

Magnificent!!!