A few a years ago, I traveled to China regularly and  spent a fair amount of time in Beijing.  Some of my friends in Beijing took me a restaurant that put on a variety show every evening – the locals referred to as “Chinese Opera”.  The shows that I saw usually included a martial arts presentation, a magician, a juggler and a performance of Sichuan “Bian Lian”, a most wonderful art where the performer changes dramatically painted face-masks in what seems like milliseconds, right there, in front of the audience, without any use of their hands.  It’s  like magic!  In one performance that I witnessed, the artist changed 10-12 masks in the space of a minute or so, all without any of us in the audience figuring out how it was done!

This image was made at one of these shows.  The light on stage for these performances is constantly changing – both in intensity and color, and the performers are usually moving rapidly, making photography a bit challenging.  This one was shot with the Nikon D3 and  the Nikkor 70-200 VRI lens. RAW conversion in Aperture.

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I came across this beached dory in the town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia a while ago and the witch-pastel colors caught my eye (why witch-pastels?  Because I think a modern witch would favor these shades, in such a combination, together. )

What do you think?

Nikon D3 + Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VRI

Clicking on the image will open up a larger image, for your viewing pleasure: