Shanghai Skyline 26 Nov 2010

Whenever we travel our digital cameras always go with us. The same with our cell phones and in most cases cell phones include digital cameras. It is safe to say we never take our sketchbook with us! Sketchbook, what’s that? Yet when someone sees a sketch that I am doing on site, they want to see the finished product. They would never ask to see the photo that I snapped with my digital camera! Obviously rarely do we see someone sketching and so people are naturally interested.

Sketching adds a character to the view that the digital cameras today are incapable of making. However I will not rule out the likelihood that digital cameras will soon include such features. My digital camera can capture a 360 degrees view. I think pretty soon digital cameras will include filters that will make your photo seem like a free-hand sketch, watercolor painting, or a simulated artistic feature! Then perhaps we may want to compare our photos!

While doing this Shanghai skyline from the upper floor of the City Planning Exhibition Centre, I did have a few people watching my progress. I think they perhaps say to themselves “That must be difficult”. But essentially I am going through the same process that they are observing: capture the essential elements, such as the tops of the towers; the mass and scale of the buildings; the elements of the low buildings; the elevated highway with cars; and the surrounding trees and vegetation. Nice and easy to say, but if you look carefully you will see that the sketch is a personal impression of what I see and is not a copy of the photograph.