In the cold wind, crouching under the ming city wall, I don't know how long it has been. At the beginning of the night, suddenly the legendary "Four Cats of the City Wall" appeared. He leaned forward, focused, and pressed the shutter in one fell swoop.
This is Brother Hua's cat shooting routine. He has taken more than 40,000 "cat sucking" photos in 6 years, and has traveled to more than 20 cities in the past two years.
Cute cure cat film, let him gain millions of fans, and is known as the "street cat photographer", but also on CCTV.
After the 80s, brother Hua, whose real name is Wu Hongli, just worked for a while because he liked to wear a flower shirt and got this flower name.
At the end of November 2017, Brother Hua began to become popular after photographing a group of city wall cats in Nanjing.
On the same day, he walked back and forth along the moat in the wind for more than 1 hour before finding 4 cats "growing" on the wall of the ancient city of Nanjing.
At about 5 or 6 p.m., the cute cats poked their heads out of the holes in the city wall and looked around. Brother Hua quickly incorporated all this into the camera.
It was then uploaded to his Weibo with a piece of warm text.
The "Four Cats of the City Wall" picture was popular in the circle of friends and was also forwarded by some well-known people who love cats. Slowly, the number of fans will come up. So far, he has been a big V with 3 million + fans, known as a "street cat photographer", and has also been on CCTV.
In January 2018, it was rare for Jiangnan to drift snow. Brother Hua, who has always wanted to shoot the cat of Linggu Temple, bought a train ticket and hurried to Nanjing. I stepped on the point before, and this time I was familiar with the road.
To Brother Hua's surprise, these orange cats of the Linggu Temple seemed to be waiting for him there. They are in the snow, "cats come crazy", running and frolicking. "It's amazing, I've never seen a cat see me so hi in the snow." Brother Hua recalled. Clicking, he kept pressing the shutter to record the group of agile temple cats.
Nanjing photographed cats, bringing good luck to Brother Hua, and his vision was opened, and since then he has shuttled around the country to suck cats.
He wears a pair of glasses, carries a camera, and carries cat food. Every time Brother Hua went to a city, he did not take the streets to pick out the alleys, and when he saw the cat, he quietly stepped forward. After the air is empty, the cat food is thrown to lure the other party. No, let's make a few bird calls. Even the wild cats were all taken care of by him.
Brother Hua, who has shot more than 40,000 cat films in 6 years, has extended the radius of cat shooting to the whole country with Hangzhou, where he settled. In the past two years, he has run more than 20 cities in one go.
He found that the cats in each city are very different, which is "nourished by different geographical environments and cultural customs." If you simply take a big face photo, you can't see the difference in Shanghai or Beijing. This is also the main reason why he decided to go to the country to shoot cats.
Over the years, Brother Hua has favored the royal cats in the Forbidden City. Since 2018, he has traveled to Beijing more than a dozen times. "The Forbidden City comes with its own traffic, and even if there are no cats, the Forbidden City in the snow is attractive enough."
Shooting out against the background of ancient buildings is a kind of royal style; the hutong cat crouching on a stone drum or a door pier has the taste of a city. "It's a very different temperament."
There is no shortage of interesting things about the forbidden city shooting, but Brother Hua is more willing to talk about that regret. In January 2018, he shot a lot of cat films at that time, and when he demonstrated to a friend, the "hand owe" misoperation was all formatted. He still hurts when he talks about it.
Later, I went to reshoot, and some of the shots never appeared again. There are many people who go to the palace to pick up cats, and the cats you want to photograph may not necessarily appear, they may die of illness or be adopted. "Some cats miss it, they miss it."
Cat ownership is not only a personal hobby, but also a culture. "For example, the shop cats in the old towns of Guangzhou and Shanghai are very famous." After photographing the Guangzhou Arcade Cat and the Shanghai Lane Hall Cat, Brother Hua summed up the commonalities.
These graceful shop cats, counted as half owners, in addition to catching rats, sometimes "greet" guests. Brother Hua said that he had the opportunity to go to Hong Kong and Macau and photograph the shop cats there.
Zhejiang people grew up in the countryside, when they were young, they had more pastoral dogs in their families, and later they raised a Bomei, but they were stolen after they were raised. Repeated several times, the family did not want to raise anymore.
He liked to draw since he was a child, and was admitted to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where he was exposed to photography in his sophomore year. "I like it all at once, and it feels different from painting, which is another more direct way of expression." During his four years at university, he honed his photography skills during his work-study.
Hua Ge studied environmental engineering at university, but has always been interested in it. After graduation, I worked as a photography assistant. Because he was not sociable, he quit his job and went to an Internet company to do web design. I worked for 10 years, until I quit my job last year and concentrated on petting cats.
Unexpectedly, in the meantime, I met the stray cat Xiaobai family that changed their lives. After work, he followed the Xiaobai family, which also relieved the pressure. As a result, he changed from a Wang Xingren to a cat slave.
"Big Orange Urine", this is the photo that Brother Hua says to people the most.
"Nine of the ten orange cats are fat, and one is crushed." On the same day, near a hotel in Shanghai, Brother Hua saw an orange cat with a crushed kang, with a good look and a particularly round face.
He chased after it, trying to slap it in the face. But the other party was not happy and kept dodging. Jumped on the heating pipe, ran to the bend, turned his back on the camera, scratched the pipe, and suddenly started peeing. "It was like unscrewing the water pipe. Fortunately, I didn't get too close, otherwise I would have been nourished. "The winning flower brother is happy."
"It takes some luck to shoot cats, they are very difficult to pose, of course, not to get a wire or rope to hang the cat up. Maybe someone would do that, but I won't. Brother Hua said.
"Some cats simply can't get close." Last year, when he was photographing the royal cat at Gyeongin Palace, he tried to use cat food to lure the cat to the wall, but his hand was scratched and he saw blood in an instant. And this is not the first time he has been attacked.
Brother Hua's cat shooting clues are generally obtained from netizens. "Sometimes the 'old iron' of a certain city invites me. If I find it myself, the time cost is quite large. ”
He prefers to shoot in winter than other seasons. The warm winter sun, the lazy cat star, or under the palace wall, or on the Dewa, a casual shot, are all blockbusters.
With the popularity of Internet thinking, the fan economy seems to have become a manifestation. "Idol" Brother Hua also took this train and began to make peripheral products with his partners.
Although his wife also supported him, after all, shooting cats was a money-burning thing. At present, he is still the commander of the light pole, "I can't afford to hire anyone now", Hua Ge laughed. Of course, some of the income will also be donated to the adoption of stray cats and dogs, such as for the purchase of cat food.
Recently, Brother Hua made a "leapfrog" cat film, which is scheduled to be released on New Year's Day. "This is one of my favorite pieces recently. The meaning spans from 2019 to 2020. ”
In the new year, he will continue to shoot cats nationwide. The cat under the rainbow in Dali, the cat on horseback in the grassland, and the cat in the Jokhang Temple in the snowy area, Brother Hua was excited to think about it.
In the list of famous cat slave photographers, Hua Ge regarded the American photographer Walter as his goal: "He focused on shooting cats for 75 years in his life, leaving more than 90,000 works." And The Japanese cat master Iwawa Mitsuaki is his idol.
Walking the streets and alleys, whenever he recruits a cat, he will also tease the dog, which will remind him of the pastoral dog he lost when he was a child.