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[Slim Pickens]

A documentary titled The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn - a man who back in the 1900s wanted to collect a photographic record of the word - got me thinking.  What do your photographs say about China, or rather what are you trying to say about China through your photographs?

[George]

they represent the China you are living in,

Yes, definitely. I am urbanised. Lack of a car prevents me from seeing the villages, etc, so I have to stay in the city. I shoot what I see that intrigues me. I am more concerned with what makes me giggle, gasp, smirk, etc. When I shoot, I am thinking of what family and friends would like to see. I'm often wide of that mark!!

[Lotus Eater]

All of the above.  I take photos of the China I live in - local streets, people.  I take photos of places I travel - and for the most part I really prefer to travel to the wild places, so I am finding a China that is likely to disappear.

But I can't take photos of a China that doesn't exist.  Today I travelled less than an hour out of the city to the local mountain range.  Even that close (actually much closer for many of the villages) to a 2nd tier city there is still so much of the 'old' or 'real' China left.  Urbanisation is increasing but the majority of the population is still rural. Living in the city makes it very easy to forget this. Even in the city, one street back from the new improved fancy westernised streets there are the old streets, twisting alleys, little lanes.  Within the city wall is still a farm.  Just have to know where to look to escape from the clones of big cities all over the world.

I am talking very hard to my mate who is a senior city councillor to preserve the old when they modernise. 

Village China




Fresh eggs and kiwi fruit.

[Eagle]

As LE tells us, we can't photograph what isn't there.  Perhaps we can see what locals can't because of their being too familiar with their own home.  I have photos of old, new and changing China.



From my classroom, trying to stay warm while engaged in a lesson.



The boulevards are lined with ornamental cabbages at this time of year, a winter flower, as the city tries hard to become a beautiful city.



And in a local park, modern art sculpture frames the sun in a polluted sky.  This too is China.

[Lotus Eater]

Eagle - LOVE the modern sculpture one. 

I photograph everything - building sites to flowers, people to landscapes.  Photographs provide a history of my involvement in wherever I go - if they also provide a history of the country and it's people that may or may not be there in 20 years - all to the good.

[Lotus Eater]

I don't specifically take 'romantic' pictures of China - I take anything where the shape/colour etc catches my fancy.  Xi'an is close to the country areas, I love being out in the country (you can take the girl out of the farm, but not the farm out of the girl), I love travelling to the wild places. And because they are remote, they are like any remote area in the world - not so much 'Wall Street'.

Check my Shenzhen photos - what are they? 

It is pretty rarely that I take stuff out of photos - usually only for a photo group I belong to.  For me, the closer to reality the better.

Chinese power lines



Tradition in modernity



Submissive??

[Eagle]

Slim - what you are saying in your photographs exists.  True that each photo is about what the photographer is looking for and hopes to record.  Laying on the ground to get rid of nasty powerlines is one trick, but the result is still reality.  The desperate beside modern adverts is powerful and REAL.  Only if you are coaxing folk into relationships with the background would a photo be false.

So, what you are really saying is that there is a yin-yang relationship you are enjoying in China, on the unconscious level at least, a relationship that is blatantly made concrete in your photographs.

Interesting.

[china-matt]

Most of my photos are of construction. That's my basic view of the country: permanently under construction. The rest of my photos are of the few nature scenes I've come across.

[Lotus Eater]

We take those photos because they don't exist to the same extent as at home.  Back home modern buildings, successful business people, construction workers are boring, old hat etc.  So we take what we don't see (or DIDN'T see) back home.

We are in a foreign country BECAUSE it is different - not because it is the same, so we are continually looking for difference, and this becomes reflected in your photos.

[Lotus Eater]

Are you trying to create meanings, create otherness, alien life forms? So do your photos seek that out?  Juxtaposing poor people who are just resting or chatting next to coke or Rolex signs to create meaning that doesn't exist? Does that give your experience here more 'depth' - away from the caffe latte world you lived in? Does it give you the feeling that you experienced China more deeply than others, saw more into the 'real' culture?

Questions to think about. 

[Acjade]

I don't take photos but I do draw and paint. I guess the choice of selecting what to draw and or paint is very much like taking photos except it's a lot slower. I choose things that have an emotional impact on me and then attempt to capture it.