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East Germany19 year old soldierCondra SchumannOne of the most famous escapees in history. (Image source: public domain)
photographyThis word used to sound a bit like written language. At that time, it was usually called “taking photos” or “taking pictures”.take pictures“Phase” refers to “appearance”. Except for “shooting on location” in movies, I have never heard anyone say “shooting scenes” or “photographing scenes”. Shops that specialize in taking pictures are called photo studios. Wang Kai Photo Studio on Nanjing East Road has an outstanding reputation and is famous all over the world. In the 1930s and 1940s, a large number of celebrities such as Zhou Xuan, Hu Die, Ruan Lingyu, Li Lili, Wang Renmei, Shangguan Yunzhu… They all left their elegant photos in Wang Kai, and the photo studio became a fashiontrendthe leader.
Taking pictures is to preserve a person’s appearance. People’s appearance will always age, but the appearance in photos can stay young forever. My high school classmate kept photos of himself from his childhood, adolescence, and middle age to this day. Looking through the photos when he has nothing to do will take him back to the past. A few months ago, she took a group photo of more than forty classmates in the same frame during a spring outing, copied it to her mobile phone and sent it to me. Over time, the clarity of the photo has been affected. I saved it on my computer and zoomed in to take a closer look. I could only identify a few classmates. I saw her on the left edge of the front row, but I couldn’t find myself because the further back I went, the blurrier the image became. . After some advice from her on WeChat, I finally found my childish face at the end. Looking at myself in the photo, I feel like I am from another world.
The word “photography” seems to contain more than “photography”. Photography can not only capture the appearance and image of people, but also landscapes, street scenes, corners of the world, or corners of campus. A few photography can even capture wonderful moments in the great changes in history. . Most people take pictures of people in the scene, as if there are no people standing in the scene, which results in a waste of resources. But how to choose a scene? What scene to choose? It is not only a matter of judgment of beauty, but also a matter of opinion. After all, photography is a process of discovering and expressing beauty.
Before May this year, my wife and I stayed in Zhouzhuang for three days, hoping to experience the charm of Zhouzhuang again in this “April on Earth”. I found that the Zhouzhuang Twin Bridges are always a popular attraction for photography tourists. It’s no wonder that when the painter Chen Yifei introduced Zhouzhuang to the world, his painting “Memories of Hometown” showed the twin bridges – the agility of the small bridges and flowing water, but also the simple and bleak atmosphere of winter, bringing with it the Jiangnan water town. The unique culture is still covered by the dust of history. The Shuangqiao described by Chen Yifei is really said to be “raised in a boudoir and unknown to people”, and it can generally retain the appearance of the Beiyang Government period and the Republic of China period.
I guess that during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Shuangqiao may have formed what is shown in “Memories of Hometown”. In fact, the beauty of Zhouzhuang is not limited to the twin bridges. During the season when trees cover the area, as long as there are water, bridges, green trees, and residential buildings, there are many landscapes that can be captured in the picture. In fact, after “Memories of Hometown” was recognized by the world, the double bridges written by Chen Yifei also acquired symbolic meaning. Unfortunately, today, as Zhouzhuang continues to be developed, what we see is no longer the original Zhouzhuang. Zhouzhuang used to be like a pure girl. In the past 30 years, she has been enduring the pollution of makeup and powder.
Nowadays, too many people come to Zhouzhuang to take pictures. In fact, in tourist attractions of all sizes, everyone has a mobile phone in their hand. As long as you hold the mobile phone, you can take pictures. You can see the people in the camera on the mobile phone desktop and take pictures with just a few clicks. This was unimaginable before. The rapid development of electronic technology has greatly reduced the cost of photography. In the past, cameras weighed 10 or 20 times more than mobile phones. When shooting, you had to adjust the aperture and speed, and visually check the distance before focusing. Finally, before pressing the shutter button, the person posing in front of the camera was reminded to “smile.” If a photoshoot fails or you laugh too early, it is a waste of emotional resources. I still have an old-fashioned Seagull camera at home, but I don’t use it anymore and I don’t want to throw it away. However, retired photography enthusiasts can still be seen, armed with long guns and cannons, as if they are professional photographers.
In the era of mobile phone photography, there don’t seem to be many prompts to “smile”. Instead of “smile”, the person being photographed habitually extends their index and middle fingers to make a “V”. When everyone stretches out a “V” in front of the camera, the photographic images tend to become more formatted. When a person faces the camera, it is probably impossible to completely get rid of the consciousness of performance. A little performance is not a bad thing at all.
A few years ago, a staged photo circulated on the Internet. The photo was taken in a luxury hotel room. In the photo, there are two women and three men with springy smiles on their faces. The second young woman is sitting in the front row wearing only her underwear. The three men are naked and standing next to each other. Their private parts are covered by the two women in the front row. It is obvious at a glance that they are middle-aged officials taking a souvenir after a group sex. What impressed me most was that at least two of the five people stretched out their hands and made a “V” sign, thus showing the mentality of “successful people” in officialdom. I guess the officials met for a group sex, and it was originally three men and three women, but one of the women temporarily became the photographer. Of course, the three women are not the original wives of these three officials. The photos show a simple fact: officials can easily monopolize sexual resources with the power of their sticks. Of course this photo cannot be seen from inside the wall, but the online Berlin Wall cannot be airtight either. How do photos end up online? Still unclear. It is said that Southeast University has a college of Marxism, and the dean of this college once sent pornographic photos of himself to a WeChat group of more than 300 people, including senior leaders of Southeast University. These pornographic photos were probably also taken on mobile phones.
When the person being photographed has no idea that there is a camera or mobile phone lens aimed at it, photography enters another state of freedom and real recording. This is also a capture that professional photojournalists are familiar with.
Statue commemorating Konrad Schumann’s entry into West Berlin. (Image source: public domain)
On August 13, 1961, the passage left after the Berlin Wall was first built was built into a temporary barrier with barbed wire. Two days later, 19-year-old East German soldier Conrad Schumann (German: Hans Conrad Schumann, March 28, 1942 – June 20, 1998) took the opportunity of his duty to jump over the barbed wire fence with one foot. When Schumann was wearing a steel helmet and holding a rifle on his right shoulder, his right foot was about to leave the barbed wire fence, and the moment his body flew downwards, he was successfully captured by a passing photographer. This shocking jump at the Berlin Wall was something no one could have predicted in advance. Schumann did not know that there were passers-by holding cameras on the west side of the Berlin Wall, and of course he had no sense of performance. Such an unexpected encounter recorded an exciting moment in the 20th century, and this photograph has become a classic in the history of world photography.
One day, in Taikoo Li, Chengdu, China, Hu Jiyong, the general manager of a company owned by China National Petroleum Corporation, was shopping intimately while holding the hand of a beautiful subordinate as if no one else was watching. He was also successfully captured by passers-by on the street. Taking advantage of the spread of the Internet, the photos quickly caused a sensation inside and outside the walls. The photo shows that the young woman is tall, graceful and good-looking, wearing a pink dress.
Of course, posing also has its own advantages. With a sense of performance when facing the camera, the person being photographed can easily reveal his own temperament and soul. A few years ago, I traveled to Zhangjiajie with my old companion and saw the words “The World’s First Staircase” engraved on a huge vertical stone in Tianzi Mountain. Because it is “the first in the world”, it has become the background for many tourists to rush to take photos. The aunt in red from Shanghai who was traveling with me stood under the boulder of the “World’s First Staircase” and prepared to take a photo. Driven by her sense of performance, she clenched her right hand and raised her left arm in front of her chest, subconsciously assuming a pose similar to that of Li Tiemei in a former model drama – as if holding a red light with her head held high, waiting for the photographer to press the shutter.
It is also a coincidence that in March this year we traveled to Enshi, Hubei Province with a group. At the entrance of the Grand Canyon, a horizontal boulder was engraved with the traditional Chinese characters “Yunlong Ground Seam”. There is also an aunt on the left side of the boulder, with her left hand on her hips and her right hand holding the boulder high. She also has her head held high and her chest is high. She has a legacy of the Red Guards back then, waiting to be captured in the camera. People’s body language can’t lie. No matter the Shanghai aunt in Tianzi Mountain or the aunt in Enshi Grand Canyon, they show their own beauty in front of the camera. This type of aunt is about 60 years old. In fact, it is not just aunts, but also men of similar age. Their judgment of beauty is generally fixed in the unified style with the color of the Cultural Revolution. This generation was primary school students or had not yet entered primary school at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Their idols were once the all-powerful and arrogant Red Guards, or Li Tiemei in model operas. Such a subtle infection has penetrated into the bone marrow of this generation.
Yes! What tourist aunts pursue is exactly the beauty in their minds. Photography is a process in which the photographer and the subject jointly discover and express beauty. As long as the subject of your photography is not a pure natural scenery, but a human being as the main subject, this person has the right to express the beauty he yearns for. Whether you are posing or arrogant, you are showing your true self, which you cannot hide even if you want to.
More than once, I have seen photos of experts and scholars attached to their books. The experts and scholars in the photos usually sit in front of their desks, with several books in hand and a pen in their right hand, as if they are in a deep working state. In fact, when facing the camera lens, what scholars are probably thinking about is how to make themselves appear more knowledgeable in the camera lens. The camera is really not polite at all, because the photos show that the pretentiousness and strong desire to perform are exactly the true self of this scholar.
The same photography leaves behind pictures with completely different values. You can laugh at the scenes showing the narcissism of officials after group sex, the strutting of tourist ladies, or the pretentiousness of scholars at their desks. But there is a photographic scene that leaves an imprint on the heart after reading it, which may linger forever. This is a picture I saw on the Internet a few years ago. It shows a dozen ragged schoolchildren with religious piety on their immature faces. They are led by an equally poor middle-aged teacher and participate in daily activities. Routine flag raising ceremony. Behind this group of schoolchildren is a dilapidated classroom, which does not even have a decent door or window. It makes people cry without tears. On the lonely flagpole is a newly raised five-star red flag.
I forgot whether this photography came from the rural areas of northern Anhui, the impoverished mountainous areas of Guizhou, or… In fact, this is not important. What is important is that the cold language contained in this picture is so rich and shocking that any attempt to interpret the photographic picture is redundant. Anyone who has not lost his conscience will fall into deep thought when facing the flag-raising ceremony of poor school children.
Source: Look at China
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