Quote:
Originally Posted by Lex
I'm wanting to photograph the gritty, industrial China.
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Don't go to Shanghai for that. I lived there several years in 00s, during that time, the government systematically cleared out older districts for new development. Almost the entire downtown is redeveloped now and a lot of the outlying areas, which had been industrial, have already been redeveloped into condos, shopping centers, etc. The industry around Shanghai is mostly light and has moved to surrounding provinces like Jiangsu and Zhejiang. For heavy industry you want to go to the coal country and places like Heilongjiang.
This aspect of Chinese life is actually hard to locate in the areas where foreigners typically go, and you may find that you encounter hostility if you try to photograph it. Chinese will assume that you are trying to photograph ugly aspects of their country in order to make negative propaganda. No, I'm not joking, they will actually think that.
You might be able to get into some heavy industry places by posing as a rich foreign businessman interested in their products; trust me, all those places love selling stuff to foreigners, but that would take some balls. If I were you I would go to an industrial area and network, meet some local people, try to find other photographers with similar interests and see if they can get you in to some likely places. Everything in China is accomplished by personal networking (guanxi).