IAN LIPTON

After traveling traveling around western China for nearly a month, this was one of the last photos I took. I decided it was a good idea to strap myself in and go for a walk on some wooden planks attached to the side of a mountain 3,000 feet above nothing. How did I get to this point you ask? Well, let's go back...to the day before. We left our little apartment in Xi'an and headed to the train station where we got on the first train to the town of Huashan. The town sits at the

We got on a bus to leave Rebkong and insodoing left the last small town on our journey through the Amdo region (don't worry, not the last stop on this trip). Our destination was Xining (she-ning) [MAP] the capital of Qinghai province. We didn't stick around in Xining for too long this time because our next destination was the town of Zhangye (jang-yuh). Why Zhangye, you ask? Because just outside of this town is something called the rainbow mountains (google it, or better yet,

After leaving Xiahe probably a bit too early, our next stop on the journey was Rebkong (also known as Tongren). This brought us to our third province on the trip (Qinghai [ching-hī]) and the last stop before we would get to a major city for the first time since leaving Chengdu. The major draw of Rebkong was not necessarily the beautiful monastery, but festival just outside of town. The Klurol (Lurol) festival lasts for three days and seeks to appease the mountain gods and to

Before we get started today, I just wanted to announce that we are on the back stretch of this series! Hey, maybe that means that sometime soon I will post something about somewhere other than China. For those of you who have missed any of the parts in the series you can go HERE to check them all out. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. --------- After what felt like a lifetime we finally said goodbye to Langmusi. Our next destination was Xiahe in Gansu Provinc

After a good night's sleep, much needed after the excitement of the day before, we woke up and prepared to head back to "civilization." Our host had to go round up the horses so in the meantime Tali, Jana and I hiked up to the top of the ridge near the tent. The view was spectacular but for some reason I chose not to bring my camera on this one so you all will just have to take my word for it (note to everyone: Never don't take your camera with you!). As we were coming back d

Links to all of the installments of the Month in China series. Part 1 Part 2: Chengdu Part 3: Jiuzhaigou - Songpan Part 4: Zoige and HuaHu Part 5: Trekking With Nomads (Day 1) Part 6: The Home God Festival Part 8: Labrang Monastery Part 9: Klurol Festival Part 10: Zhangye and Xining Part 11: Xi'an Part 12: Huashan Also don't forget, you can find prints for sale from all of these posts HERE. #China #beijing #Sichuan #Jiuzhaigou #Songpan #Zoige #HuaHu #HorseTrek #Nomads #Tibet

We left HuaHu, got back in the car with our new friend and rode up the road to the small town of Langmusi. Langmusi sits on the border of Sichuan and Gansu provinces. In fact, the story goes that the border was drawn to separate two feuding monasteries. Both of these monasteries still exist to this day and make up ~50% of the population of the town. It is really interesting to walk around basically surrounded by monks of all ages, some driving cars, some buying sneakers and s

Just in case you've missed any of the earlier installments you can check them out here: Part 1 Part 2: Chengdu Part 3: Jiuzhaigou - Songpan When we last left off we were spending some quality time hiking around the hills of Songpan in Sichuan Province. Our next stop on the journey was a small stopover town called Zoige (Ruo’ergai in Tibetan). Wrapped up in here is a story about how we almost got stranded in the middle of nowhere with no money because ATMs out in the aforement

Before we get started, if this is your first time, check out parts 1 and 2 here: A Month In China Part 1 A Month in China Part 2: Chengdu On our last morning in Chengdu, we woke up early and took a cab to the bus station to buy tickets for Jiuzhaigou [MAP] (pronounced jew-jĪ-go). Jiuzhaigou is a national park in northern Sichuan Province known for its beautiful blue-green lakes. If you Google around and try to find places to photograph in China you'd be hard pressed not to no

When we last left off our heroes were hopping a flight from Beijing to Chengdu. For those of you who aren't super familiar with Chinese geography, Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province (if you're from the States you've probably eaten food that claims to be Sichuan or Sechuan but trust me it's not even close). Map courtesy of Ice climbing in Shuangqiao Valley, Sichuan, China Sichuan province is famous for a few things. For one, the food! Of all of the cuisines I tried liv

I spent almost all of 2014 living in Shanghai, China. My girlfriend (Tali) decided to do a study abroad as part of her master's degree and I decided this would be my last chance to pretend like I'm not an adult so I up and went with her. We promised ourselves that while we were in China we would take full advantage and travel as much as possible. This was harder, but not impossible, to do while she was actively taking classes, but we wanted to take full advantage of the fact

So I had this really unique idea a couple months ago and it went a little something like this: What if I created a blog so I can write things down about the photos I take? Well, here we are a couple months later and it still doesn't sound like a terrible idea so here goes nothing. So for my first post I wanted to give everyone a little background on who I am as a photographer. I figure why would you come back and read more of my gibberish if you don't know a bit about me righ