On the night
When you arrive
No ticket, no line. Three things, then you're walking.
- Check in, make a name tag, and pick up a tiny toy for the warm-up.
- Pick your route, and find the others walking it.
- Say hello to someone you don't know. That's most of the point.
6:30 – 7:00 · in the square
The warm-up
Pick one of the tiny toys at the check-in table and use it as your photo subject around the square. Return it before your group leaves.
- Put the toy on the ground and shoot from its eye level, not yours.
- Frame it through something — a railing, a gap in a bench, a doorway.
- Get close enough that it fills the frame and the square goes soft behind it.
- Find a hard shadow and put the toy on the edge of it.
- Use the stairs. Shoot up the steps so the toy looks like it's climbing.
- Put something large behind it — a building, a tree — and let the scale lie.
Everything you just tried works throughout Chinatown. Change your angle. Get closer. Look up.