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Yunnan Province Entrepreneurial Figures Documentary Series "Walking with Dreams"
Focus on children's photography for 20 years Record beautiful moments with your lens
——Visiting Uncle Han, founder of children's photography agency Han Jinyi
"Day after day, those seemingly unsettling waves will suddenly be on a certain day, so that you can see the meaning of persistence." 」 In the circle of friends shared by Han Jinyi, there is such a feeling, which is also the realism of his focus on children's photography for twenty years.
In Han Jinyi's view, a seemingly ordinary photo condenses the witness of growth, the love that does not ask for returns, the happiness of a family, and the warmth of its happiness and harmony. This is also the significance of his persistence for twenty years day after day, and it is precisely the belief forged by this special significance that allows him to "survive countless days of no one's attention" and have the current "poetry and distance".
01
Childhood: Picking up dung in the production team to earn work
Childhood should be the best beginning of life, but Han Jinyi is not like this. In 1973, he was born in the village of Zhuangjiaxu along the river, the fourth oldest in the family, and the youngest.
In 1973, in China, the grass-roots form of political power implemented the system of political and social integration of the people's communes, the people's communes had production brigades under their jurisdiction, and the production teams under the brigade directly managed the peasant households, and the labor force implemented the "work division system".
At that time, it was in the era of planned economy, and in addition to the dazzling army green, the whole country only had a monotonous and dull earth gray, lack of materials, and economic backwardness. Although Zhuangjiaxu Village is not far from Qujing City, it is not much better than other remote rural areas.
In the specific environment at that time, in order to facilitate management and distribution, the production team generally adopted the "work division system" as the basis for labor measurement and distribution, which meant that everyone would contribute their own strength to the collective and devote themselves to socialist construction. At that time, although Han Jinyi was young, he also actively participated in collective labor, and every day he followed the adults to carry bamboo baskets to collect manure, which was gathered together as fertilizer for farming, and he could get 3 work points a day.
The children of that era did not have toys and fairy tales, and the only things that satisfied them were the catching of clams in the fields and the bustle of the threshing fields during the autumn harvest. The threshing ground is the best casino for children, the adults are busy drying, threshing, and wind selection, while Han Jinyi and a group of children are chasing, playing and playing next to them. The mountain of straw stacks is the "battlefield" of the friends, simulating the picture in the open-air movie, and the branches are still unfinished when they are caught by their parents and go home to sleep.
After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the household contract responsibility system was gradually introduced nationwide, and by the beginning of 1983, 93% of the production teams in rural areas had implemented this responsibility system. Han Jinyi naturally also received his own land, and the new agricultural farming model of household contract management on a household basis officially announced the end of the agricultural economic organization form of production team.
Land responsibility to the household, the spring wind of reform blows the land of Shenzhou, everything is thriving. But fate does not seem to care for Han Jinyi, and his father suddenly suffers a stroke, cannot speak and loses the ability to work. It can be said that the rain has turned into frost, the eldest brother has been married and separated from the family, the second brother has no labor force since childhood, and the father, who is the pillar of the family, has suddenly changed, and the burden of supporting the whole family has suddenly fallen on the mother wrapped in small feet.
Zhuangjiawei Village is dominated by paddy fields, mainly growing rice and broad beans. In Han Jinyi's memory, when he was young, he followed his mother to work in the field, and the water in the field almost flooded his waist, and it took a lot of effort to take a step forward.
"Every year during the planting season, the family is the last to finish it." Because their own farmland is connected to other people's homes, once other people's families have planted seedlings first, it is easy to trample other people's fields when they lead cattle from the field to pass by, so many conflicts with others occur.
When it comes to planting broad beans, the main agricultural work is sowing seeds. In the field of pine turning, it is necessary to press the broad beans into the soil one by one, which can be said to be a step by step bend. At the end of the day, I was so tired that I couldn't straighten my waist.
Although he followed his mother's sunrise and lived day by day, the yield of mu in that era of relying on the sky to eat was very low, and the annual harvest was not enough to support the family, and it was necessary to borrow grain to survive.
It is not easy to be poor and difficult to become an adult, and it is never naïve without setbacks. It is these experiences that make Han Jinyi particularly sensible when he is young, and it has also cultivated his tenacious character.
02
Dropout: 14 years old, I went out to work and learned photography for the first time
Fast forward to the age of school, but due to limited conditions, Han Jinyi did not enter the classroom until he was 8 years old. The first and second grades were held in the warehouse of the original production team, and it was not until the third grade that they were officially transferred to the village elementary school.
In that era, there were not as many primary school subjects as there are now, and students did not have as much learning pressure as they do now, and they could leave school early every day and have very little homework. So, after school, I ran and played in groups of three or five. There are also some children who have to help their parents work after school, and Han Jinyi is one of them. Every day when I came home from school, I put down my school bag and casually got some food to fill my stomach, and I had to go to the ground to help my mother work.
At that time, many places still implemented the 533 school system promulgated in 1951, that is, five years of primary school, three years of junior high school and three years of high school. After graduating from elementary school, you must take the entrance examination and meet the admission score line to enter junior high school. At that time, the quality of rural teaching was relatively poor, and many students were eliminated at this stage.
In 1986, the Law of the People's Republic of China on Compulsory Education was passed at the Fourth Session of the National People's Congress, clarifying that "the state implements nine-year compulsory education" and "the state exempts students receiving compulsory education from tuition", and officially came into force on July 1 of that year. However, due to the remote location of Qujing, it has not been complied with for a while.
This year, Han Jinyi successfully jumped over the score line of Xiaosheng Junior High School to enter Yanjiang No. 2 Middle School. Tuition fees, living expenses and other expenses of more than a dozen yuan per academic year cannot be afforded by this poor family. Therefore, only a few days after the start of the second year of junior high school, Han Jinyi packed up and dropped out of school.
Han Jinyi, who is not more troublesome, is very confused at this time, does not have a clear plan for the future, but cannot be satisfied with the status quo, and does not want to live a life at home by farming.
After dropping out of school, working at construction sites, selling fruits... At the age of 14, he entered the society early, helping the family with farm work, and in his spare time, he wandered between various odd handyman jobs.
After a few years, life did not have much improvement, so Han Jinyi decided to go out and break in, and in 1995 he went to Ruili alone, thinking that there were many trades, opportunities, and good things in border cities. Soon, the bone feeling of reality shattered the beautiful vision again, and Han Jinyi returned to the state of doing odd jobs everywhere in Ruili.
It was also during this period that he came into contact with photography and videography. At that time, many foreign tourists came to Ruili to travel, and they would take photos to commemorate the occasion. At that time, unlike now, mobile phones can "retain" any kind of scenery taken, so the business of photo studios is very good, and even many people set up stalls to help tourists take pictures or rent cameras and sell film. Han Jinyi's job at that time was to help people guard the photo booth, and it was also at this time that he came into contact with photography and video and deeply liked this line of work. This is also the longest job he has done in all these years, which is 3 years.
03
Entrepreneurship: Keep the clouds open to see the moon
In 2000, Han Jinyi returned to Qujing. On the one hand, the reason is that I want to come back and do something from the photography and video aspect, and on the other hand, the family is urging marriage. After all, in that era, the 27-year-old was not married at the age of 27, which was intolerable in the family, coupled with the fact that he had been wandering around all these years and did not take marriage to heart, it was indeed time to consider marriage.
"The crowd looked for him a thousand times, and looked back, but the man was in the middle of the light." This poem is appropriate to describe Han Jinyi's fate. Although it is a blind date, the object and his village or elementary school classmates, mutual understanding and mutual satisfaction, just from the "blind date" link to unveil the emotional veil between the two, naturally soon a good couple.
As the saying goes, marriage matures a man. After marriage, Han Jinyi is more clear about what he wants, and he is also well aware of the heavy responsibility on his shoulders. He wanted to open his own photo studio, but felt that the time was not yet ripe, and there was still a shortage of fire in both technology and other aspects. Therefore, Han Jinyi found a senior senior to study, and every day he ran around the wedding shooting scene or the shooting of the campus graduation group photo.
After two years of study and accumulation, Han Jinyi began the road to entrepreneurship. After the husband and wife negotiated, they found a shop of more than 30 square meters in the lotus pond, named it "Zhongyi Photo Gallery" and officially opened for business. In addition to taking pictures, there are also typing and copying, camera rental and sales and film sales, and his wife takes her newborn son to guard the store, and he is invited to go out to shoot.
When the ideal meets reality, despite the helplessness, it is still necessary to crawl forward. The photography market is not as good as Han Jinyi imagined, the business of taking photos is only some ID photos and other just need to consume, occasionally some families will be invited to take some birthday photos of the elderly, or take some commemorative photos when the children are 100 days old and one year old.
"Almost no one takes a complete set of photo albums, and occasionally a few customers come to take pictures, and they just choose one or two backgrounds to shoot casually." In Han Jinyi's view, the photography market at that time was not mature enough in Qujing, and few people had a sense of consumption in this regard, and most of them were solving some rigid needs such as ID photos.
Shop rent, film costs, labor costs... It was difficult for the meager profits to support the normal operation of the "China Art Photo Gallery", coupled with the fact that digital cameras had entered the market one after another at that time, the traditional business model was challenged. Although Han Jinyi also bought a digital camera at a high price, it was rarely used because it did not have computer technology such as post-retouching.
It was when the "China Art Photo Gallery" was struggling, and some areas around Lotus Pond needed to be demolished due to real estate development, triggering a wave of shop price increases. The landlord ignored the previous agreement and proposed to double the rent price.
The market is not good, and the rent has to be doubled, which is undoubtedly worse for Han Jinyi. After several considerations, he had the idea of closing the door and changing careers. "The business is not good, the expenses are particularly large, and you have to support your family." After four years of perseverance, from full of enthusiasm to discouragement, Han Jinyi was still defeated by reality.
In the midst of boredom, when Han Jinyi looked through the photography magazine, he found an invitation to the exhibition sandwiched inside. This is a relatively high domestic specifications of the exhibition, many excellent photographic works at home and abroad will participate in the exhibition, it can be said that it is a "feast" for photography enthusiasts.
"As a practitioner of the photography industry, it is a pity not to go to the exhibition to turn around." Thinking of saying goodbye to the industry completely when he returned from the exhibition, Han Jinyi stepped on the train to Shanghai.
At this exhibition, cameras, costumes, backgrounds, props... A variety of materials related to photography and videography are dazzling, giving Han Jinyi a refreshing feeling. In particular, the operation mode of the children's theme photography agency at the exhibition made him even more enlightened, and he had a new positioning and thinking about the "China Art Photo Gallery".
"Children are the heart of every parent, we carefully care for the growth of children, but also want to remember the moment of children's growth, that photo is the best witness." After returning from participating in the photography exhibition, Han Jinyi changed the "Zhongyi Photo Gallery" to "Zhongyi Digital Photography", re-found a new storefront, adjusted the new ideas, and pulled anchor again. Soon after, "Zhongyi Digital Photography" was renamed "Zhongyi Han Uncle Professional Children's Photography".
In the process of business adjustment, Han Jinyi abandoned the miscellaneous business such as typing and copying, engraving discs, etc., and focused on children's photography. "Do everything, don't do anything well, go all out and do one thing well, that's enough."
So, learn computer technology, strengthen photography expertise... This time, Han Jinyi held the firm determination of "a thousand grinding blows to return strength, Ren'er's east, west, south, and north winds", and was bound to "never break the Loulan and never return it".
If a person has ambitions, he is afraid of the wind and waves, and let the road ahead be thorny. At that time, several professional photography institutions with children's themes were opened in Qujing, but none of them persisted, only Han Jinyi gritted his teeth and insisted.
After experiencing countless "no one's interests" ordeal, the market has gradually matured, and "Zhongyi Han Uncle Professional Children's Photography" has ushered in the spring of take-off.
In December 2016, the headquarters of "Zhongyi Han Uncle Professional Children's Photography" moved to Chaoshang Street, Qilin Jiayuan. At this time, it is the tenth year of the transformation to take the road of professional children's photography development. After ten years of accumulation and development, "Zhongyi Han Uncle Professional Children's Photography" has developed from a small shop of more than 30 square meters to a photo studio with more than 1,000 square meters of independent property rights, with nearly 100 employees.
In the past 20 years, "Zhongyi Han Uncle Professional Children's Photography" has opened 18 chain stores so far. Among the three districts, one city and five counties of Qujing City, except for Zhanyi District, which is close to the headquarters, chain stores have been opened in other areas. And in Wenshan, Zhaoyang, Ludian, Xundian, Shilin, Songming, Yuxi, Yuanjiang, Yuanmou and other counties (cities) have "Zhongyi Han Uncle Professional Children's Photography" chain stores. In particular, the official opening of the Panzhou store in Guizhou marks the official departure of the brand of "Zhongyi Han Uncle Professional Children's Photography" out of Yunnan and blows the clarion call of the layout of the whole country.
04
Focus: Record beautiful moments with your lens
There are many reasons to fail to do one thing, but there is only one reason for success, and that is to go all out and persevere. Today, Han Jinyi and his "Zhongyi Han Uncle Professional Children's Photography" have gone through twenty years, and it is also the longest insistent in Qujing children's photography institutions. When talking about the twenty years of ups and downs, Han Jinyi summed it up with the words "like" and "persistence".
Because I like it, I insist on it. In the meantime, a customer's story gave Han Jinyi a great touch. An aunt came to the photo studio and hoped that Han Jinyi would help her renovate and enlarge an old photo. This photo was taken by the aunt when she first went to Work in Huize, and the photo is black and white, yellowed and small in size. "There was no way to zoom in as she asked, the photo was blurry and yellow, and I couldn't even see my eyes, but the story behind the photo gave me a lot of feelings." According to Han Jinyi's recollection, the eldest mother wanted to renovate and enlarge the photos of her youth for her daughter to commemorate.
"I want my daughter to remember what I looked like when I was younger, and her mother was a great beauty when she was younger." Speaking of this photo, the aunt seems to have returned to her youth, and her face has a long-lost pride on her face. "To take this picture, I spent a month's salary to buy a cardigan and put on a beautiful makeup." Now that her youth has passed away, the beautiful faces of that year are no longer there, which is the only testimony of her pursuit of youth.
The old mother left with regrets, but her story triggered Han Jinyi's thinking. Life is short, how do we grasp the fleeting nature of youth? Obviously, in addition to the dusty memory, only the photo can freeze that beautiful moment and record the colorful of the colorful years.
If the story of the old mother adds a feeling of "recording beautiful moments with the lens" to Han Jinyi's photography career. The story of another client is to inject a booster into Han Jinyi's insistence on children's theme photography.
The client, a civil servant, wanted Han Jinyi to carve the video he had taken onto a CD.D. From the time his wife was pregnant, he used a camera to record his wife's changes, the birth of the child, and the growth of the child until the child went to elementary school.
"This is another kind of care for children, and it is also the best model for family education for children in the future." Han Jinyi said that as parents, we look forward to the child growing up quickly, when the child begins to go to school, start work, gradually away from the parents' sight, or even rely on telephone contact, we can only look at the child's bedroom to miss the childhood time with him day and night.
It is precisely because a photo condenses too many feelings and has a lot of special significance, Han Jinyi pays great attention to details, and often requires employees to do their best, in addition to continuously improving professionalism, but also to create a warm, meticulous, thoughtful experience atmosphere. "Whether the customer takes a baby photo or a family portrait, it is an expression of love and affection, and we cannot hurt this love and affection because of the flaws in the process of providing the service."
In this regard, Han Jinyi also vividly called "Uncle Han's professional children's photography" as a "family bank", recording various warm and beautiful moments is to continuously store family affection and love. So he bought a lot of storage equipment and stored the photos that the customer had selected. "Originally, I took a lot of photos with different shapes, but at that time, for various reasons, everyone didn't choose, and they would want it again for a while or even a long time later."
In his view, although the warm picture in front of the camera is short, it is a tacit understanding of blood communication, an inseparable existence, like a sweet and mellow old wine, more like a ray of sunshine and warmth in winter. Rich and noble is not what you want, and you stay with people, which is the meaning and value of Han Jinyi's insistence on the photography industry.
The towering tree will have its roots, and the mountain around the water will have its source. In the exchange with Han Jinyi, the author personally felt his fiery love and affection, and it is precisely this love and affection, as the root and source of the reason why "Uncle Han's Professional Children's Photography" can be well-known, inspiring this group of recorders to move towards a farther future.