I have always felt that summer is not the easiest season to travel in Beijing, as I wrote in Best Time to Visit Beijing: An Honest Seasonal Guide From a Beijing Native. The heat can be heavy, the sunlight can be harsh, and walking outside sometimes feels like a test of patience. But Beijing hutongs in summer have their own quiet charm: dense green shade, cicadas hidden in the trees, lazy animals sleeping in corners, and a slower rhythm that feels almost suspended in the heat. This photo collection gathers my recent works from Beijing hutongs, especially around Fayuan Temple and the Drum Tower area.
On a bright weekend, I visited Fayuan Temple (法源寺) and several hutongs nearby for the first time. Although I was born and raised in Beijing, I have not actually spent much time wandering through the older southern part of the city, where the local atmosphere often feels stronger and less polished than the more familiar tourist areas. This time, I checked the route in advance, packed my camera, and went there with the intention of exploring slowly.
Fayuan Temple was my first stop. It is an old temple with a calm, almost meditative atmosphere — not overly commercialized, not too loud, and still carrying a sense of age. In summer, the temple becomes especially gentle because of all the greenery. Lotus leaves, hydrangeas, old trees, carved roofs, and quiet courtyards soften the heat and make the space feel peaceful. Walking there, I felt as if the city had suddenly lowered its volume.
The hutongs around the temple—Xizhuan Hutong (西砖胡同), Lanman Hutong (烂漫胡同), Nanbanjie Hutong (南半截胡同)—are a different kind of beautiful. There are small cafés, creative shops, local restaurants, hidden former residences, and ordinary Beijing homes all mixed together. Compared with famous hutong areas like Nanluoguxiang (南锣鼓巷), this neighborhood feels much more local. There are fewer large tourist crowds, and the streets still keep a lived-in rhythm: scooters parked by old walls, cats stretching in the sun, red signs above narrow doorways, and plants growing with a kind of casual confidence.
Later in the day, I moved toward the hutongs near the Drum Tower (鼓楼) and Bell Tower (钟楼). This area feels much more personal to me. My middle school was only one bus stop away, and I used to meet close friends around here, so the streets carry a kind of private memory. The Drum Tower area is now one of the most popular places to visit in Beijing, but once you step deeper into the smaller hutongs, the noise fades quickly. There are quiet cafés hidden behind plain entrances, and the whole area becomes a rare balance of lively and calm.
After resting in a café for a while, I waited until late afternoon, when the light became softer. That was when I took two of my favorite photos from this walk: birds flying above the Bell Tower seen from inside a hutong, and a family of three walking through the warm evening light. They are not dramatic photos, but they carry the kind of feeling I love most in Beijing — ordinary, layered, and quietly alive.
From a photography perspective, I think the most important thing about Beijing hutong photography is not simply finding “pretty” streets. Hutongs are residential areas, so they are naturally full of visual disorder: parked bikes, wires, signs, laundry, doors, plants, people, shadows, and random daily objects. The key is to find stillness inside that disorder. Sometimes that means choosing one clear subject. Sometimes it means using a tighter frame. Sometimes it simply means waiting until a person, a cat, a shadow, or a bird enters the right place.
That is also why I enjoy photographing hutongs. They are not clean stage sets. They are lived-in spaces, full of fragments, interruptions, and small surprises. In summer, those fragments become even more vivid: the green shade feels heavier, the animals look sleepier, the streets feel slower, and the whole neighborhood seems to breathe in the heat.
If you are interested in more Beijing hutong photography ideas, you can also check out my earlier post: Beijing Hutong Photography: 4 Things to Look For (and How to Shoot Them).
Visit the Gallery and Yearly Albums to browse more photos directly.
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