Do the talking so your camera can do the shooting

Taking photographs of people is never easy. The camera's lens is a large, scrutinizing eye that can make some feel self-conscious and uncomfortable. If you want to snap Chinese people as they go about their daily lives, it is a matter of respect to try to understand how they think and not breach etiquette. Tactics, in other words.

The most obvious cultural difference between Chinese and Western photographers is in what subject matter they find interesting. A photographer friend of mine living in Shanghai gave me perhaps the clearest example: On the city's famous Bund, Chinese shutterbugs jostle to shoot the modern skyline east, dominated as it is by the futuristic Pearl Oriental Tower and the pagoda-like Jin Mao Tower; while foreign visitors make a beeline west to capture the old part of town with its colonial-era buildings and historical sights.

The main reason for this discrepancy is that Chinese people are proud of the rapid modernization of their country in recent years and have an interest in the new that borders on obsession. For Western observers, a foreign-designed office building such as the Jin Mao is of little interest. They seek out the unique and unfamiliar which in this global village is usually found in the past.