Shanghai 1992

[JJChan]

My first overseas trip with a camera - my dad's Pentax SPII, Takumar 50mm f1.4 and Fujichrome 100
Mid winter, very low light due to time of year and the coal fired pollution
Scanned with Coolscan 5000

[HCS]

2nd and 4th one very nice. You were on to it already then!!

Nice overview of Shanghai at that time.

[Anthony]

Fascinating historical photographs of a vanished world.  Please post more if you have them.

[Frank Fremerey]

Can you reproduce the same perspectives now? I guess no one can recognize  them any more. Superb documentation. My favourites are 1,2,6!

[Akira]

The cityscape should of Shanghai should be dramatically changed today.  This series is a precious documentation of the city a quarter century ago.

[Thomas G]

Like a memory from the past. Thanks for posting!
1,2,4 are my favourites.

[armando_m]

great series
wonderful to see images of a city before it transformed
itself into the modern place it is today

[CS]

I am embarrassed to say that I don't have any of the images that I shot in Sasebo and Yokosuka, Japan in 1958. That was film, of course, and from a Taron 35mm, that I later sold in Sydney, Australia at a handsome profit, or so I thought at the time. 

[JJChan]

Thanks everyone - in fact I got it wrong and it was the winter of 1990-91 not 1992

That winter was spent on a 3 month elective in Beijing. It was not easy finding slide film there and the processing of my first 2 rolls were badly scratched. Thankfully the Coolscan and software seem to be able to correct these.

Akira, Frank & Armando - I haven't been to China since then so I can only marvel looking at Google earth and recognising only a few landmarks.
Hans - you are right - I must have had a fascination with pics of alleys and doorways - I seem to have lots of them
Carl - I still have the Pentax and use the 50mm with Sony A7II now. Sadly, the felt in SPII has fallen to bits so is not usable anymore

Anthony - more Shanghai for you.

The first pic shows the view from the steamer that I left Shanghai on to go to Hong Kong. The Pudong area is on your left!

[Anirban Halder]

JJ, this is a great series. I cannot emphasize enough how '90s Calcutta (a large metro in India) was similar to Shanghai photos of yours. The crowd, tram lines, narrow lanes are surprisingly same. Calcutta has a colony named Tangra a.k.a China Town of Calcutta - which is even more similar to these photos. "Overseas Chinese Commerce of India" is the only Chinese newspaper in India published in Tangra, Calcutta.
Carbon paper (from 3rd photo), oh how much we have used those in '90s. They are still used a lot in rural India.