Shenzhen Metro Line 8

On the 28th October, the 11'th Metro line, called Line 8, opened in Shenzhen, bringing the total track distance of the Shenzhen metro system to 411km with 283 stations. The metro system is just one example of what is called "Shenzhen Speed", as the first line was opened only 16 years ago. What is more impressive is that their expansion plan is to have 8 express and 24 non-express lines totalling 1142 kilometres of trackage by 2030!

So, on 31 October we set off to explore the new Line 8. The most important part for us was that it goes east to end at Yantian road at the sea - not very far from the popular Da Mei Sha beach.

We decided to start our exploration at Yantai Road.

Yantai is known for its huge container Container Harbour, so, our first mission was to find a good vantage point to get a good view of the container harbour.

I decided to take only my infrared camera as my previous endeavours on the subway with the infrared camera - set to monochrome - resulted in amazing monochrome photos.

After lunch at one of the seafront seafood restaurants, we headed back to the station to explore another area around Haishan station.

This area has a beautiful boardwalk, looking out over the eastern islands of Hong Kong. The boardwalk starts at the "lighthouse" library (which I, regrettably, did not take a photo of) and ends at the start of the Shenzhen area called Hong Kong Street - off-limits for foreigners...

At some point in our walk, one of my fellow photographers asked me how colour photos in infrared look, so I changed my setting to one of my stored custom white balances, changed the film simulation to ASTIA and took a photo to show him on the back screen.

Needles to say, I did not change back to monochrome. It was already late afternoon, and the amber colour created by the infrared custom white balance enhances this lazy late afternoon mood at the sea.

On almost all weekend walks, we encounter Hanfu enthusiasts, (Hanfu has most likely reached cult status amongst young Chinese. Interesting, most of them are university students.) so it was not strange to find some Hanfu enthusiast on the boardwalk. One of the "perks" of such an encounter, is that it will inevitably end up in an impromptu photoshoot - they love being photographed (as long as you share the photos with them).

(Side note: I will post a separate article somewhere in the future about the Hanfu culture...)

The day was too short, we will need to come back and continue our exploration of Line 8. As it is, we started at 9 am in the morning and was only back home at 10:30 pm.