Our intentions never matter in photography, Kal. It is what the viewer sees and feels and cares about that matters. You were playing with form, and I see only content. For me, this is a very expressive image. And for you it is a lesson. Form for its own sake can cut both ways. It can produce an image empty of meaning. Or as they do here, the blurred curves express, to me, at least, the essence of Shanghai.
You are wonderful at seeing things in images Phil. The pattern is deliberate (I shook the camera), but it was for form Phil, not content. What you see pleases me, though it was unintentional, because it makes this image so much more expressive now to me. This was meant to be Night Life in Shanghai, the bright lights, the dark corners, the old and new transport, and the haze of it all. The fact that you see something Chinese in it too, has delighted me.
This is a mores successful pan shot, because the people remain abstracted. The city vibrates with action, and you have even added a symbolic motif of traditional Chinese architecture here with the curved streaks of light resembling the curves on the corners of pagoda-like buildings. They even extend to the curved reflections on the wheels of the bikes. Unlike the "Breeze" image, which proved to be a contradiction in terms, "Night Life" is what this image is all about. It is abstract, incongruous, and certainly humane. There is no sign of nature here at all -- everything in this shot is man made, including the energy it expresses.
