In the film The Russia House, Dante, the Russian patriot and Soviet traitor, walked on the Palace Square and said to Sean Connery: “You like graveyards? Look, here is ours if we fail. Choose a monument.” Then, the camera focused on a series of sculptures on the square.
This conversation took place in 1989. I read it as the Romanov dynasty failing, these antiques became a testimony to the victory of the new era. However, Leningrad did not gain anything more proud of the advent of the new era. So, these monuments continue to attract tourists while openly mocking the status quo.
Squeezing the toothpaste
Originally, Nonna should have been lying in the lounge waiting for two leaks repair during this unusually hot summer, but overflowing sympathy made me take over Furi earlier this year, along with other endless tasks. All lifts are occupied and there is no sign of them being available in the short future. So, let me and my Nonna take some off-duty photos.
Let me first explain why Nonna and I became night travelers. Firstly, as an unpopular old relic, Nonna can only drive during peak hours 12 times a year, 5 days each time, if we apply for pass. This means that we cannot drive in town between 07:00-09:00 or 16:00-19:00 on the rest of the days. And most days of the year, sunset comes before 19:00. Secondly, my hometown, Tianjin, is located at 38°34′～40°15′N. Near the summer solstice, the sunset comes relatively late, as the sun disappears around 20:00. There is a long soft light time after the sun goes below the horizon.
Because of the second point, most of the year, sunset shots require precious passes. But I can’t invest too much opportunity to shoot, always leaving some time for my children, who love to ride in a beautiful school bus in the beautiful Fall. I have used 5 times already in the first half of 2025, there are 7 left to go. Fortunately, in June and July near the summer solstice, Nonna and I can chase the light without passes. We can start in the garage at 18:55, pass the first traffic camera at 19:01, and then go to any place that is still bright when we arrive, preferably within 30 minutes.
Anyway, I live near the city center, the evening rush hour does not stop at 19:00 as the administrative order issued many years ago did. The proliferation of EVs in recent years makes me worry that the authorities will extend the ban window in the future. In short, in half an hour, we can actually go no more than 5 km away. So I set my sights on the area near my home.
Graveyards of the Great Powers
Most of the photos I took in the past were about “getting along with nature”, where the maximum artificial element we need is the asphalt road, the rest was left to God: green grass, quiet lakes, blue skies, beautiful sunsets, whatever. After all, what else is necessary to reflect the beauty of an automobile? The fundamental motivation for me to press the shutter is that we have come to a place that is above us. Nature gave birth to everything, it is above everything.
You can say that magnificent nature is more charming than the prettiest cars, or that the beauty of cars is always elevated by the environment. When a beautiful sunset is reflected on the body paint, the car becomes sacred. The principle is quite simple, just like people are always happy to take pictures with people who are in a higher postition. So the question is, how many places in my town are above a 32-year-old but still decent, absolutely clean silver old S-Class? Due to a series of restrictions, I am going to start a series “Resonating with People”.
It’s not that I haven’t tried. Back in the Omicron winter in 2022, I took Persian Kitty around the city to try to shoot. By the way, this is a summer tourist city that freezes in winter, you think the low temperatures will drive away all pedestrians in winter – not including tourists, there are 13 million people around. This way we have more opportunities to park our cars directly in front of buildings, no shared bikes or human-powered tricycles with Brownian motion – those guys think that their chaotic riding does not affect the image of the city at all.
The core of this city is made up of two parts. The first part was founded by the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century, a city built to protect Beijing, the capital. As you know, although Beijing is still the capital 600 years later, but the Ming that needs to be protected is gone. Now Tianjin is a city competing with Beijing and has undoubtedly lost. People say that it is in decline, they are right. Because old Chinese buildings do not last long and old things are considered unworthy in the new era, the heritage from the Ming has almost all been sent away by excavators in recent years, but you can find them in Beijing. Half of the foundation of this city: the favoritism from the emperor has passed away.
125 years ago, eight powers defeated the Qing Dynasty and landed in Tianjin. Soon they entered Beijing, and the Manchu royal family fled until they knew that they could maintain their rule by selling out their people. Tianjin, as a coastal city, was injected with the second core: it would become an office of imperialism in China. In a few decades, half of Tianjin became concessions of nine countries. Among them, the French and the British built the most places, the Russians built the most mediocre places. The generous Americans gave their concessions to the British. The Germans did well, but just after entering the imperialist club, they lost all their Chinese properties because of the World War.
In the 21st century, the great powers have returned in defeat, but the colonial architecture has been partially preserved because it is more respected. These things are like the sculptures on the Palace Square, an imperialist graveyards: they came and then failed. It is a pity that nothing more decent has grown on these tombstones. After the authorities found that these rare failed monuments in the country could attract more tourists, they stopped demolishing them and began to build a series of new tombstones in a poor imitation to match them. It seems that these are the buildings that are considered the most valuable in the city.
Choose a monument
Franciscan Sacred Heart Church
In 1902, the Italians got a piece of poor land by the river. Although Italy joined the team that defeated the Qing in time, they were not ready to build a Far East colony. To be precise, Italians did not sell drugs or open banks, they were only good at selling art. So the land in the Italiano concession was quickly sold to real estate developers, then some “Italian-style” buildings were built. These buildings attracted many Chinese dignitaries to move in.
Since I have a little interest in car history, I am not completely ignorant of architecture. Colonial architecture is certainly not a pure overflow of the native school, they are like Italian cars in Latin America, people invented a decent word “eclecticism”. One such example is a Franciscan church in the Italian Concession. The church was built from 1914 to 1922, designed by architect Daniele Ruffinon, military doctor Ludovico Nicola di Giura and priest Leanetti. As you can see, this Italian church is not what it literally expresses.
In 1952, the last nuns left New China, we won. Then it became a hospital, a factory, a kindergarten, and then it was abandoned. When the subway was built in 2008, it was almost demolished, but it was protected by caring people. Then in 2024, it was restored and completed just one year later, more efficiently than I can restore a car. Since God has left, no more cross on the top. I think the kindergarten is the best destination, but it has just opened as an art museum, which is a gallery for graduates of local art universities.
The good news is that it is free for now, so there won’t be too many visitors. Anyway, put golden fence around a Fiat Palio and tell people that the Pope drives such a car in his Italian palace, the Atheists here will drive their BMWs to buy tickets and line up to visit. Behind the church is a parking lot of a newly built “Italian-style” office building. At night, it is quite quiet here and I can shoot freely from the angles I want. Of course, sunset is just a description of the time of shooting, it is difficult to witness sunset in the city.
Forgive me not to consider this church as a building above Nonna, but I accidentally found a place in the corner of the church yard that is suitable for telephoto, which can cross the entire parking lot. 150 mm is very long for the city center. After adjusting the angle several times, the side of the car faces the only opening in this corner, so the light can emphasize the roof of the car and the photo will have enough shadows. This photo accidentally creates an illusion of indoor shooting. See the new passenger side wheel of Nonna? It is probably the most suitable wheel of the three for this scene.
The church itself is not without merits, but I decided to filter out the iconic and not so iconic upper part of this church. Without the cross, it hardly looks like a church. So I parked the car in front of the base of the church and shot it again from a longer distance. There are many high rises all around this place, so don’t expect any sunset reflections on the body. Fortunately, this parking lot, like all parking lots, has a CCTV with a lighting device, that spotlight will illuminate the silver body at a certain angle without leaving a glaring reflection.
I don’t appreciate any form of fill light, photography should record the natural and real part. But since there is a camera here, let’s make good use of it. The darker the light, the more useful this spotlight is. The cost is that it can only shine evenly on the silver body at a certain angle, and a slight change of angle will turn everything into a disaster. By the way, if we drove a dark-colored car, the light pollution would be splashed on the sheet metal without reservation.
The Astor Hotel
The British were the first to defeat the Qing and got their concession in Tianjin in 1860. It soon replaced old Tianjin as the busiest place in China. The British set up government, apartments, villas and of course hotels here. The Astor Hotel was built in 1863 by John Innocent, a British Methodist missionary, and expanded to become the largest hotel in China in 1886, the year the automobile was patented by Carl Benz.
It has housed the most prominent people, artists, politicians, including the last emperor, several presidents, even president of the US. In 1949, the hotel and the concession were taken over by the new China, and reopened in 1987 with investment from Hong Kong. Today, it is still a hotel, but it is not so unattainable, $1,000 car is allowed to drive into the parking lot. However, like other carefully “restored” buildings, there is a bit of “baroque”. But I have my own description, they are “undertaker”.
As I said, these are colonial buildings. Pick a random 19th century hotel in the UK and you’ll realise this one wasn’t that beautiful when it was new. This is obviously not acceptable to the authorities who want to attract tourists. They want people to believe that black and white photos underestimate the grandeur of these buildings, rather than the fact that the facades of these buildings were originally like the walls of a park. So they have been over-restored to pretentious specifications, like water-transferring carbon fiber onto cracked burl wood trim.
I chose the back side that was despised by the undertaker, which is a bar on another road. This was actually the front of the hotel. I was not interested in this hotel at first, but there was always a photo in the brochure that lingered in my mind. This photo in the facelift brochure should also be taken in Los Angeles. It is parked in front of a hotel with hazard lights on. The tone is cold, such style requires not too many warm street lights. In actual recon, it was found that the street lights would be lit at 19:35, so it was necessary to wait until it was dark enough to emphasize the lights on the background wall, and at the mean time, there should be no light pollution from the street lights.
This window is short. I wanted to take a long exposure, but the annoying street lights came on a few minutes after we started. Finally, there were too many obstacles on my side, with lamp posts, billboards, and trash cans everywhere, there was not enough focal length to cross these obstacles. Therefore, we focused closer than the brochure, and therefore put the eye-level line at the middle of the height of the body to avoid distortion, rather than the height close to the roof as in the brochure. Because there was not enough exposure time, the hazard lights did not have enough flare. When the exposure time is longer than 1 second, car lights or pedestrians will enter.
There is always competition for space. A common sight is a young girl walking casually through the streets with ten retired old daddy holding cameras. This way, the girls can get tons of free photos to post on social media to attract boys. The old men can get free photos of the ladies to post on social media to attract more girls who want free photos. Maybe they continue other transactions after dark, but since I had just finished dinner, I shouldn’t continue to imagine.
Anglican “Art Center”
A graveyard of the British Empire. It was also originally a church, first built in 1903 by the SPG-North China Mission, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Part. The first version was unfortunately destroyed in a fire in 1935, and the current building is the second version built again in 1936. Unfortunately again, just 5 years later, the British concession was occupied by Japan and the British priests were driven out. Although they regained it in 1945 after Japan swallowed the atomic gift.
New China is fair to Protestants and Catholics: theists are not friends, British priests returned in 1951. This place has experienced countless functional uses, including but not limited to drainage departments, coal plants, candle factories, radio factories, water houses, barracks, health stations, and dance halls. Among them, the leadership of the radio factory removed the original tiles and used them on the house in his hometown. This place has been abandoned for a while. I often come here when there was no wall. There was originally a wall here, but it was demolished for the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay that passed by here in 2008. This is a Gothic church with difficulty, which is one of the few Gothic buildings in the entire city.
A year ago, the place was rebuilt with the help of new investors and officially no longer called a church, but an “art center”. It is said that a huge amount of money has been spread in restoration, but I have never been in because I do not appreciate the symbolic significance of this art center. You need to make an appointment and take a taxi there. There is no parking nearby. There are many young plastic surgery women whose skirts are shorter than their underwear, which is a truly visual sexual harassment. They will order a cup of coffee and sit on the chair to take pictures to declare that they have got art. In this place named after art, everything is for art, but art itself is not.
I parked the Nonna between the bicycle lane and the car lane where it was not obstructive, and turned on the hazard lights on for safety like I did next to the hotel. Relying on high-speed continuous shooting, you can filter out photos with the turn signal off. I came here twice. The first time I wasted a precious opportunity to pass because I decided to arrive earlier to leave time to adjust my position. I found that the surrounding environment has become much more messy than ten years ago. The most obvious change is the ground. There are now more lane markings. Due to the limited focal length and angle, they are difficult to be cut out. I immediately went to buy a row of red artificial flowers and planned to use these flowers to block some white ground markings.
This place looks easy, but it is actually tough. Also, the harsh street lights will be on at 19:27, so I only have about 10 minutes to shoot. Unfortunately, the wind picked up the second time I came here, and the fake flowers kept blowing down. Don’t cheat unless necessary, but I couldn’t think of a way to make this place more valuable. Forgive me. In the end, I thought that turning off the lights and turning on the hazard lights would make the picture more peaceful. I took at least 30 photos at each location, so that I could choose a less bad one when I didn’t meet the object.
These photos have no religious meaning, which is an advantage. Even because only part of the church is in the photo, it is not immediately recognizable as a church. I weakened the presence of the wall by lowering the perspective, and in one version, the roof spotlight moved the center of gravity of the background upwards. This was achieved by chance, but it is very rare: a dark enough sky, a lit roof light, and a street lamp that has not been lit. And maybe, just the right hint of red flower beds.
Kailuan Mining Bureau
In the 1860s, the Qing was defeated by Britain twice in a row and almost lost the civil war, too. They finally admitted the gap and decided to introduce advanced Western technology to continue the dynasty’s breath. Kaiping Coal Mine was China’s first modern technology mining enterprise. Its headquarters was located in Tianjin like many similar Western-style enterprises. Such companies employed a large number of foreign engineers.
Herbert Hoover, who later became the 31st President of the United States, was one of them. He handed over the control of this enterprise to the British in an almost fraudulent way. After repeated resistance from the Chinese authorities, the British agreed to jointly establish a new mining bureau with China. The headquarters of the new mining bureau in Tianjin was built from 1919 to 1921 and was jointly designed by American engineers Edison and Dallas from the British company. It can be regarded as a Renaissance building, with 14 Ionic columns over 10 meters on the front, which is quite impressive.
These columns immediately reminded me of the first ad for the North American market. This ad was shot in New Bedford, those columns belonged to the Double Bank, a building completed in 1831 and once the financial center of the US. The facade of Double Bank is also supported by Ionic columns, with 8 in total. In fact, our Mining Bureau is much superior than the temple-like Double Bank, it is unfortunately blocked by trees today like other buildings. The larger volume actually puts higher requirements on shooting, and distance must be maintained to fit the building into the frame as much as possible. But the farther away, the more obstacles there are between the lens and the building.
I did two pre-recon. The first time, walking here with my wife, I identified several potential angles and was going to shoot from the ramp in front of the gate. The second time, I was passing by here to test the security while shooting the Anglican Church. After 1 minute, the security guard came over, which was about the time from the guardhouse. “This is a historical building, you can’t park”. Well, I was not surprised and had no intention of breaking the rules, although I often drove other cars here in the past. Forced, I moved to a farther position, which was also the last position.
Sometimes there was a taxi parked here, so on the shooting day I spent another pass and waited here half an hour in advance. Just as I was about to shoot, a taxi came and backed into the back of Nonna with superb driving skills. Well, no problem, we had a pleasant conversation and he changed places. Then, I received a call from the number of the authorities’ switching center. I thought the CCTV above caught me, and then a lady’s voice. “Is this your gray Mercedes? You forgot to turn off your headlights.” The lady was standing in front of Nonna at this moment, you have to appreciate those who have light in their hearts.
In addition to the analogue of the ad before the street lamp was lit, I eventually kept a version with the street lamp lit. A large number of lighting fixtures will pollute the body, but it is not so messy when viewed at an angle almost perpendicular to the side. As a meaningful one in this series, I made it into a Chinese advertisement. This place has experienced feudal society, capitalism, imperialism, and finally became the grave of all non-communist ideologies.
The Fake Antique
Originally I wanted to shoot a side shot of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate, which was still ideal when I scouted in early June. However, in July, students welcomed the summer vacation and it was crowded with tourists. We moved to an unknown building next to the Austro-Hungarian Consulate. I don’t know what it is used for, and there is no information on the map. It looks like a church, but definitely not a church. It has been vacant for years and there is not even an entrance. It looks like it is just a pseudo-colonial building built across the street from the Italian Concession to make the neighborhood look more consistent. I will call it a fake antique for the time being, and there are many such things in this city.
The building has good lighting, I was going to take a telephoto shot across the wide street, but I couldn’t even find a chance for Nonna to be blocked by pedestrians. A few years ago, the city had a kind of psoriasis: a kind of motorized tricycles like tuk-tuks infected the Italian Concession. Not only did they run rampant and bring danger, but they also made the Italian Concession look like the Indian Concession. The authorities once tried to control, then they found that there was a reason behind every phenomenon. People would say that this provides employment. But the fact is that these tuk-tuk drivers are rural farmers , they need more income to survive.
In tourist areas, traffic is out of order. People joke that crossing the streets in China depends on how many people are with you. The more companions you have, the braver you are to ignore the traffic lights and cut off the traffic flow. No matter what the pedestrians did wrong, as long as the car hits them, the car must be responsible. In order to have as few people as possible in the shot, I chose to stand at the junction of the bicycle lane and the car lane and blindly took a lot of photos. Here I brought a friend who helped me to divert the traffic so that we could turn the car to shoot two different rims. In short, a lot of random shots and forced photoshop: I removed the CCTV reflection on the side window.
I think this view is a nice summer zephyr, the building behind is not necessarily above Nonna, but the two together lift each other up. A cyclist stopped and asked “Can I take a few pictures?”. He’s the only one who was interested in Nonna in the few shots. Last winter, there was a “classic car parade” held here by the city hall, some 90s Rolls Royces in Hong Kong’s junkyard condition attracted tens of thousands of visitors. The reason was that they were wrapped in golden fences and red carpets. Cars approved by authorities are above all of us.
Almost a month after the summer solstice, the sunsets are noticeably earlier. No matter how clear the weather is, we no longer have enough light hours for more shooting. More tourist, more heat. The annoying mosquitoes also appeared, so this series ends here.
The End
The day after the shooting at the Anglican church, a friend passed by and found Stelato shooting their S9. Huawei, the company that developed this car, is considered one of the most patriotic enterprises in China, but it seems that they also convinced that the proudest product will look more premuim when placed in front of the tombstone of the invader. In fact, they even built a 1.4 million m² European town in Dongguan. Don’t we have buildings to be proud of? Since they have the ability to design cars and reproduce buildings, why don’t they design some beautiful Chinese buildings? Before no one has moved into a beautiful house, people say that architectural design has become a sunset industry in China.
There is a saying in China: Westerners live with masks, they say hello to everyone hypocritically, but there is no trust between each other, their religion is deceptive. In contrast, there are no drugs in our alleys and no homeless people on the road. These might are all facts. But I feel uneasy taking pictures in the buildings that are considered the most beautiful in China. Everyone is talking about the progress of Chinese cars, people in the industry sounds to be bunch of car design yodas, but people still worship the Fiat Palio-style colonial tombstones and park the proudest patriotic cars in front of them to take pictures.
Talking about cutting-edge auto design before others find your no-confidence-design apartment….Are cars not our masks?