Shi Jiu Yong Fisherman's Wharf

Shi Jiu Yong Fisherman's Wharf (十九涌海鲜市场) in Nansha (南沙), China.

Before I start, I know. "What's with the funny aspect ratio?" you say. Well, originally I'd posted the 3:2 and they all seemed kind of meh. There was too much pointless whitespace in all of photos in this post. I tried cropping them and retaining the aspect ratio, but it really did nothing for me, these just seemed to work much better at 16:9. I've included a gallery of the originals at the bottom of this post for comparison.

Funny aspect ratios are meant to be the devil, but if it means these need to go in a special place by themselves to avoid being sin-binned for blandness, I'm cool with that.

But I digress.

Tightly packed, colourful and cluttered. Do I care that there's overlap with the boat behind? Probably not. It's cluttered anyway and extra spacing may not really contribute much to the overall feel. I like that the hulls are a dark colour, as it makes the stuff on top stand out more.

I originally didn't flag this photo for inclusion in this post, but I found a [Storehouse post](https://www.storehouse.co/stories/y0gk-shi-jiu-yong-fisherman-s-wharf ""Shi Jiu Yong Fisherman's Wharf" on Storehouse") I did for the wharf where I cropped the top and bottom like a pano postcard format and it seemed to look a bit more interesting. This is what prompted the Great Aspect Ratio Movement of 2014this post.

The little boat behind is a little distracting, but at this angle, I'd have had to be waiting a while for it to move out of frame, and the other boat to the right might have ended up in the same spot. Or it might have been stationary, and I wouldn't have been able to get a similarly pleasing angle of the boat.

There's an awful lot of space here, but I quite like this one. The minimalist simplicity of it is just satisfying. I might look even better as a much narrower pano postcard, but that's more whimsy than actual technique.

I suppose the moral of this story is that I need to get closer to eliminate the unnecessary space. On the other hand, with a 35mm I'd have to have been swimming to achieve that here. Secondary moral, while changing aspect ratio of an image can serve a purpose, it's not something you can depend on. Better to frame it right from the outset (or get a zoom).

The originals as promised:

Addendum: I'm now somewhat conflicted about this. I keep changing my mind about whether I like the original aspect ratios or not based on the time of day, and seemingly, phase of moon.