I managed to travel to China in mid-March at a fortunate time – China had become a safe harbor as the US was dealing with the explosive growth of the COVID-19 virus pandemic. The only downside of the trip was a government-mandated 14-day quarantine in a Ningbo hotel. The trip from Shanghai to Ningbo was documented by a YouTuber that I met on the bus trip. Matt did a great job of capturing the odyssey with his family, who live in Ningbo. I appear in the video after the 20:00 mark.

We were all confined to our hotel rooms for 2 weeks and could not step beyond the threshold of our doorways. I had food brought in and was able to work with factories (via phone and WeChat) during my stay. I treated the 2 weeks as an opportunity to lose some more weight. I only had a salad delivered for lunch and then ate fruit and granola for the other meals. I lost 4 pounds.

To maintain my sanity during the confinement period, I decided to take street photos from my 12th-floor window that overlooked a major intersection. I was fortunate to get a room on the “good” side of the hotel. The backside was not as sunny and didn’t have much of a view.

There are two types of street photographers in the world – Hunters and Fishermen. I belong to the Hunter group. I’m always on the move looking for good photos that have interesting subjects, light, and composition. The other school of street photography involves staying in a single location and patiently wait for your “fish” to arrive. For two weeks I fished from the 12th floor with a 230mm lens. Some days there was amazing light and shadows, but towards the end of my stay in the quarantine hotel the weather turned cloudy and rainy, and the umbrellas popped up. One day I decided to take a break from street photos and shoot a selfie with my two-week beard. I decided it looked awful and shaved it off the next day. Now I have a photo to remind me to never grow a beard again.

I took most of these photos in the morning and then reviewed and processed them in the afternoon. I took a total of 1,205 photos during the 2 weeks. It was a great opportunity for me to understand the “Fisherman” mentality of street photography, but I think I’ll probably stick with the Hunter style. You get more exercise when you hunt.

All of these photos were shot through a window with the Fuji XT-3 and the Fuji XC 50-230mm zoom lens (an inexpensive and under-rated lens). Many of these photos were cropped square for Instagram.