.Mythmaker

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The Shanghai World Finance Tower was briefly the tallest building on the planet, it still has the highest public observation platforms, which is where this shot was taken from. The large white flower of light is the tower that was the world's tallest until the SWFT surpassed it. To the left, where you cannot see it, is the rising core of what will soon be the newest tallest building on the planet. All of that built on a former swamp! I went up the tower, one of those deals where you have to wait in line, then get a ride in one of coolest lifts you'll ever use, only to discover that there is another several floors, another line to get the lift up to that, or two hundred odd steps you can take. I took the steps and almost killed myself. he he. Then you get to the top observation tower, a privelege you pay extra for and discover there are no seats and a mass of eager souls hogging all the windows. If that's not enough, I went up at 5pm so I'd have plenty of time to catch some great sunset shots of Shanghai from the highest observation deck on the planet. It didn't happen, the smog is so bad in Shanghai the sun disappeared from view a full forty minutes before it reached the horizon and there was no colour, no nothing, just murky darkness getting darker and darker. I only got this shot because I stayed in the tower until 10 pm and I had my Gorillapod SLR to do a time exposure with the camera gripping a hand rail and I used my jacket to block all the reflected light from inside the building onto the window glass. The final moment of "you gotta be kidding me" was half an hour later, as I had walked from the base of SWFT over to the base of the Oriental Pearl and was setting up my gorillapod to get a "looking straight up" shot of that gorgeous building and I as I knelt down to sight my shot thru the Pentax, the bloody lights went out!!! HuH?!! Yep, the Oriental Pearl and all the other buildings on the skyline go dark at 10:30. SO close, yet so far....] Oh well, an experience worth having is not always worth having because it was an untrammeled success.

Enjoy.

Mikel.