Fortress Wall of the Forbidden City

A recent trip to Beijing resulted in a few hours to walk around the Forbidden City.  The smog was almost unbearable – I didn’t recover for weeks after returning to the US.  But, I did manage to capture a handful of images that I liked.  This one of the fortress wall around the Forbidden City is interesting.  I used Photoshop and Lightroom to work with what I had – the smog was amazingly dense and when I looked at the image on my MAC looked like a foggy day so I went with it.  The result is here.

I love the image but it makes my heart hurt every time I look at it because I know the truth about what the people in the city are living with.  The good news is economic development in China is creating an enormous working-class and eventually middle-class.  The bad news is nothing in life is free and this is part of the price.