Huanglong Cave – literally: “yellow dragon cave” – is a karst cave located near the Wulingyuan district of Zhangjiajie City, Hunan, People’s Republic of China and a national 4A rated scenic area. As of 2010, the cave has over a million visitors per year. Since 1997, the Huanglong Cave scenic area has been managed by Beijing-based China Datong Co. Ltd. It was previously managed directly by the Hunan provincial government.
The entrance has an impressive visitors building with a lawn grown on the roof!. There was also a rather puzzled looking monkey statue at the entrance … probably wondering about the sanity of the human race given the performance by most of the local Chinese visitors.
After passing some large wooden water wheels in a rural rice paddy we were ready to enter the cave. Luckily we had VIP tickets so we managed to escape most of the Chinese tourist throng. It’s bad enough being in a tourist site surrounded by large crowds of rude, loud Chinese but being in an enclosed space like a cave with them was just a whole new level.
The cave I have to say was very impressive and lit up in a variety of coloured lights. Photography was difficult in the dark setting and having to try and avoid the Chinese crowds but my new Canon 5DMkIV did very well in the low light conditions.
We walked a lot to make our way through the large extent of the cave with a fair bit of up and down numerous stairs but one one section we took a long boat ride.
The highlight was one of the larger caves which had a large rock formation in the middle …. the Chinese called it a cave within a mountain within a cave ….. they had also suspended a large pearl-like globe inside the small cave opening in the rock formation just to touch it off.
One of the largest stalagmite was an extremely large one which they had bathed in golden light making it look like a golden rod.
We had a brief lunch on exiting the cave at an onsite restaurant which was actually very good and then to exit of course we had to run the gauntlet through a small alley of shops selling food and souvenirs. There was however an interesting looking old man doing some Chinese calligraphy.
Passionate Photographer …. Lost in Asia
Stuart Taylor of HighlanderImages Photography has been making images for over 25 years and can offer a diverse range of photo imaging services with a focus on Asia and a documentary/photojournalistic style. These services include planning and executing a photo shoot on location but importantly all the post-processing and image preparation needed for the specific finished media format required by the customer. Stuart’s experience and knowledge in all of these aspects makes HighlanderImages Photography a one-stop-shop for a comprehensive and professional image production service.
Stuart can be available for a variety individual assignments or projects and he specialises in areas such as photojournalism, commercial, architectural, real estate, industrial, interior design, corporate, urbex, adventure, wilderness and travel photography. Stuart can also offer some innovative and advanced techniques such as HDR (High Dynamic Range) and Panoramic Photography.
Final image products can be delivered as high resolution images, prints, books, multimedia slideshows, videos and DVDs. Images from this website can be purchased as prints in a variety of sizes and media, as gift items or as digital downloads.
E-Mail : staylor@highlanderimages.com
Website : http://www. highlanderimages.com