| Where | Yes | | Shadow |
"My Dojo"
Ant next door class - Yan Changjiang online sharing meeting sound version
Special Thanks:
Voice finishing: Above the roses
Text: Xu Hui
Now let's get started! Today is not very funny, these days are particularly busy, because there are constantly opening exhibitions, and it just so happens that I changed a class today, tonight I am talking to everyone during the break at work, in fact, it is talking, you said to have sufficient preparation or systematic preparation, I really can't do it. Hu Ge was very enthusiastic, and everyone was very enthusiastic, so we met or chatted and talked about some of my own works in photography and the stories behind them. (These stories) have not been much disclosed before, please give more advice!
I grew up in Hubei, and the open space in front of our house is called a dojo. When I came here to shoot, my first volume was born with several very good things. You look at the picture I just posted, I said this is God's summoning order, this is indeed not false, this is indeed a god's occasion, he is closely related to my work "Paper Man". I think this work I do not introduce systematically, everyone probably understands it, "Paper Man" is definitely a very important work of mine.
The origin of my paper man probably dates back to 1997. [At that time] I went around in the countryside of Gaozhou, that is, as a reporter, I wanted to take some pictures of the newspaper, so I sat in the car and looked around, and when I saw what I liked, I took pictures. When passing through the town of Changpo in Gaozhou, the local news correspondent said that there was a temple of Lady Xian here, and she was an ancient goddess who was very famous in western Guangdong. I went into her temple to visit it, and suddenly I found a large number of paper people in a room. I was very happy and asked the master who made the paper man (the local farmer) to take the paper man to the dojo for me. We are talking about the dojo in front of the house, especially in the temple, there is a big open space in front of the temple, (I shot a lot of paper people in the open space), such as the one that made the poster, which I later named "The Scholar Riding the Horse to Catch the Examination". Since then, I have been shooting paper people for about 11 years, and I often go there to shoot.
You can see the works I put on display, but not many people know what is behind it. My original photos, in fact, a lot of times is to use a fool machine to shoot, just record it, so you can see what is going on behind the shooting and creation of "Paper Man".
This paper man, they are used to sacrifice to the deceased, especially in the local temple, especially the temple of Mrs. Sin Tai, when there is a relatively large-scale sacrifice, when the sacrifice, it (paper man) will be used to make a fuss. One day, this author, a farmer who is a paper man, called me and said, "Teacher Yan is a great ceremony that meets once in 50 years, called beating." When I prayed for blessings in Sixiang, I mainly collected the ghosts of Sixiang and the ghosts who had died unjustly and sent them away. "In this local spiritual system, this is almost the most important ritual, but it is no longer there in many places, Cantonese people still exist, and Hong Kong also has a more famous ceremony of beating." I can pass you some pictures of this ceremony.
As a photographer, many of our spiritual sources are not empty. I've been fascinated since I met the Paper Man at The Sin Lady Temple in 1997. (At that time, I had just learned photography, cameras, films, and so on, and I used a mess and used several kinds of cameras.) So now when you look at this quality of my works and the particles on their surface, they feel different. There's Lycra, there's what Pantex hassles, there's Hasselblad, there's everything. I was just studying photography at the time, basically self-taught. I felt that they [the paper people] had something to do with me, and I wanted to develop a huge story through them, and this story even had a plot, in fact, there were tens of thousands of words of text, and I borrowed the paper man to describe a spiritual world.
So this time in this temple, I stayed there for three days. There was a young graduate student in Hong Kong who was doing folklore research, and he couldn't stay, and every night he had to go back to the county town to rest in a good hotel. And I stayed up late with them, or went to the peasant's bed and lay down, and I didn't leave for three days, but I didn't take a picture of the so-called work, but I felt it. Why should I feel this? The spiritual world of this village is actually a very concentrated and concrete embodiment of our Chinese civilization or myself as a Chinese, that is, the relationship between our people and heaven and God and the land, especially the relationship between life and death. You can take a closer look at this diagram.
This three days in a row were rituals, first collecting the ghost everywhere; then settling the ghost, giving them food, food, and drink. I just enjoyed it there, I can't shoot anything, such a dark environment, generally more lively at night, the photo can't be exposed, right?
Since this ritual is so large, he even transcends religion, why? We usually say that this is a Taoist ritual, but in fact there are Buddhist teams in it, that is, Taoists, laymen or monks. The most peculiar thing is that our first picture shows this team, they are wearing blue robes, and they actually tell me that we are Confucian. This Confucianism is also very interesting, and I am very shaken. Because we say that there is Confucianism, and Confucianism generally feels that he does not have a strong sense of religion, a strong sense of ceremony, like other religions, but in fact they have, in addition to the sacrifice of Confucius, he also has such a clergy. I have only found this in Gaozhou, and I have found such a group of people, and they are also quite interesting. They took books and went in the wilderness to find ghosts, and I followed them, and they read the scriptures, and there were some traditional characters in their scriptures that they didn't know, and I wanted to give them guidance. Those words are very interesting, for example, I found a skeleton skull in the wilderness, what is your origin? I asked you, you didn't answer, what grievances do you have, you tell me, you can't stand it, it doesn't matter, I take you away, I settle you down... That's how it was collected.
For a long time, quite a few days were actually constantly beating gongs and drums and playing music, and each team (Confucian, Buddhist, Taoist) searched around, each team with a musician. My master who is a paper man, he is a trumpeter, he can also be a paper man, he is a musician in a team. And then going through this wood today, and then going through that wood tomorrow, it's also very interesting. I feel that our land is not unusual, our culture is not unusual, our people have to settle their hearts, to find meaning in the land, or the reason why our hometown has become a hometown, the reason why our doorstep has become a dojo, he has to have such a divine factor.
You can see that the above work with fire cannot be regarded as a work, because it was taken at random. There are two gods in the back, this god statue is in the form of temporary paper, that is, the master who makes paper tying that I have been working with for many years, he is also a musician who blows the whistle, that is what he does, his rural team in the whole country, they are the best, he is a god, although it is very huge, but the tie is still relatively rough, why? Because anyway, it will be burned in two days, and then everyone can find in the next picture, this is called The Shadow House, this topic is very amazing, because the Shadow is a not very good word, this is related to hell, and the Shadow House is actually the elegant name of a tomb. These paper people are the kind of people I usually shoot, but I usually shoot better than this, because this is the scale and the lot of work. My master did it very casually, and when the paper people were done, they represented these ghosts collected from the four directions and placed them here. It's like a cartoon that replaces people, the clumsy flattened image of the paper man, and these smokes, these fogs, these candlelights, which in those years were important realities that prompted me to fantasize.
You can look at the next one, the last one, and if you zoom in on it, then we can feel that we might be making some fantasy-type so-called works here that are divorced from reality. I'm going to crop it for everyone with my phone now, and you see if it's filled with an atmosphere of fantasy, and that's the possibility of going to work. We don't do it for the sake of making works, we do it for our spiritual world. So I'm not talking about this technique, but I love the scene of this spiritual life. Even if some people think that this is unlucky and has too much to do with death, I also feel that between life and death, this soul is wandering here, which is a very enjoyable thing. Actually, how to say it? Living in the spiritual world is indeed like this. You said Teacher Yan, you were influenced by these things, what exactly did you create? You may understand, if you don't understand, I will now pass some pictures to you. As you can see, these pictures of mine are made of the paper we just made. Of course, because the master and I have enough time to cooperate, but he does not mean to do it very exquisitely, but he will do better by seeing how much I have come. Then what I shot in black and white is much better than the stuff on the scene above. As you can see, through these paper figures I saw at The Sin Lady's Temple, they triggered my creation.
This creation has become a great spiritual world, that is, the aesthetic tradition of Chinese literati, especially scholars, and our philosophy of the unity of heaven and man is endless in this land, which is our foundation. A lot of things happen in the big world I create, and it makes up a big story. For example, love, to be honest, this is not my main business, at that time I was still shooting these two paper people, I wanted to photograph them together, and it turned out that a large group of children next to me played with me, which can be said to be my assistant. It was amazing that one of them had a kid who put two of the girl's arms around the man's paper man. Of course I also have an umbrella, which is very important, and it has appeared in another picture of me, which is floating in the air. Of course I have my installation skills, which are not done by the computer, it is a skill of the field. So this is called love. That umbrella it stays here forever, symbolizing the eternity of love. Of course, the love in our reality is often not so lasting, which can only be said to be a beautiful yearning.
But this beautiful world was later interfered with by some bad people (or rather, this is the force that violates civilization in our world), so I spent a lot of effort with the peasants and took such a picture, "The Massacre that Happened in the Riverside Picture Scroll", which was very difficult to shoot, it was not as advanced as it is now, I would not make smoke, I would only use grass to make this, and I did not know how to pay attention to technology, for example, I was in the high temperature of 40 degrees, Laika is a steel machine, it has been baked badly, As a result, the film was baked, so there were many holes. I patched up this hole in this photo. Then my peasant brothers made me an extra, and I was a world where paper people and living people coexisted, and in front of this smoke there were a group of living people gone, and those living people were in fact killers, and paper represented civilization, and those living people were made of meat, and meat represented desire. I myself am like this, there are two sides. Humans appear here, but humans are smaller in my work, or in the shadows. Because you want to unify the living and the paper man in one picture, because of the huge difference in form, the huge difference in feeling, we can't do it too clearly, too bluntly.
So what kind of role is the girl in this process? This is also what I have explored, and we look at the seclusion above, the color picture I just cut, they are a group of little girls, it feels very pitiful. At one point during my shooting, they didn't do very well, and I didn't feel much, but there were some little girls whose image wasn't very good, and I burned them, and it was a ritual, and it burned until only two faces were left. Their skeletons were like four crosses, and I lay on the hill, a white cloud in the distance. In fact, I like this picture, its exposure and development is not very good, but I like this picture very much, it seems to be asking the world.
Paper people are not just taking some strange pictures, they have a context that I just said, that is, civilized people, I use paper people to represent the destruction of civilization and the cultural world. So can it still be saved? Can it still be redeemed? So I made another one later, and this is the ending, and its original title was "He Finally Met His God." In other words, we are actually relying on a god to save ourselves, to save ourselves. We are to forge our own God on this land. That is to say, we have to have our own dojo, our own way. I chose such a space, it was a hole, the middle was very bright, the surrounding was quite dark, and then there was smoke, and at this time a god statue floated from the air, in fact, this god statue was also made by my masters. Because they are practitioners of such a spiritual undertaking in the countryside, they will have many aspects of craftsmanship, and one of them will paint a god statue, I have a lot of effort, only this one is relatively better. Later, I changed the name to "I have been waiting for you for a long time", which has two meanings, one is this God, I have been waiting for you for a long time, you have encountered such misfortune in the world, and now I am waiting for you to wake up and come to me. The other refers to the person, that is, this specific person on a horse, whose wish is that I have been waiting for you for a long time, I have been waiting for my God to come here, and now you are finally here. In fact, this God, to some extent, we can also say in life that He is our own projection. We ourselves always find ways to comfort our lives and find meaning for ourselves. This one is a little brighter and better, I'll pass this one.
In fact, this story is almost over, I think these things I shot are the most unseen things in the countryside, these scenes are the most ordinary rural scenes, but as long as we like it, we can find our own dojo in these scenes. You talk to it, you enjoy it. In fact, all my works are like this, if he has light, he has light, if he wants to have fog, if he has clouds, then there must be. We photographers, looking at this ordinary world is absolutely extraordinary. When a little touches us, it's like love at first sight, and you shoot it off. The whole meaning I give to everyone is that the work is not hard to do, for example, in recent years, there is no scene in front of me or people can touch me, I will not do anything, I will do something else, this is okay.
I want to change the topic below, in a short period of time to try to tell you something else, I will talk about my three gorges scenes, you should be very familiar with my Three Gorges works. I mainly focus on documentary, divided into three parts: the first part is documentary, the second part is performance art, and the third part is also (performance art), but it is recorded in the form of photography, which is development, according to the development of the process of the Three Gorges.
Because I also have more things in the Three Gorges, I will give an example to illustrate the development of the three parts of my Three Gorges. We are nothing more than people looking by the river, looking for something that triggers our souls. In that instant, you'll have to press the shutter, instinctively. There is such a place, and he is such a way that we are intoxicated. This is the Xiayan Temple, which is where Wang Wei and Su Dongpo have done a lot of poetry. This is a cave temple, this waterfall flows to the lower side of the Yangtze River, there is a grotto under the waterfall, a cave, there are tens of thousands of Buddha statues, some Buddha statues are only the size of fingers, the large one is two stories high. Four large Buddha statues, not from the Tang Dynasty, were smashed by a captain surnamed Yang during the Cultural Revolution with red guards. When I went here in 2003, this Captain Yang had become a layman here, he was atonement for his sins, he restored the temple, but he did not expect that after recovery, it would soon be flooded by the Three Gorges Reservoir. Most people know that the shooting of the Three Gorges is mainly documentary, which is also one of the dozens of works of documentary, you see whether the number is 05 or relatively high.
I'm going to the second part, as you may know, is the act of making black boxes. In the process of the Three Gorges submergence, I buried a black box, because this place was flooded relatively late, so I am here, and the black box is done a little later. This also became a link in the middle of my second Three Gorges work. This step is generally called "living with heaven and earth, and lighting with the sun and the moon". I've done a long job on this topic anyway, and this pavilion is the next pavilion, and this pavilion protects a Statue of Buddha from the Tang Dynasty. I did this act of my black box here. You can see that I have a black box in my hand, and I use another picture, maybe not to be able to see clearly, this box is numbered. Then this time paper money is flying in the sky, and this is the second stage. I also made one in my black box at Xiayan Temple, because the water of the Yangtze River is rising at this time. This pavilion and the Buddha statue, this temple are going to be flooded in. The three gorges black box behavior was mainly written in 2003, and this explanatory article was also written in 2003. At that time, the picture was better, so I didn't put the pictures.
To Shimoiwa-ji Temple, this is 2006, this time almost, because I am also a few years older, not so pretty, this dress is also casually worn. But sometimes I don't want to do it so much, I can't think about it so much, and to express it, he loves this place too. We can see how we develop differently. Then when there is a stage, you can imagine that our traditional culture lives in the market and sings opera. But what's the weirdest thing? The most funny thing is that every time we make a work, in my own place, I speak, that is, to express my views on the world, to express clearly. If one method doesn't work, I use the other direction, the method. When Ji shi felt that it was not possible, I used the black box, but the black box could not express my regret for the loss of places such as Shimoganji Temple, and I finally developed a new method, which is the third part of the Three Gorges.
This third part has only three works, and this is the first number in the text description just now, and the time is very specific. At 6 o'clock on September 25, 2006, Yan Changjiang was hanged from the Buddhist pavilion in front of the Xiayan Temple, and it was as simple as that. So a lot of friends call it "you that hanged" right? Later exhibited at the Guangdong Museum of Art, at the 2nd International Photography Biennale. The work was placed in the atrium and hung from the upper floor, and the curator thought of this particularly well. But I myself regret that I should have put it very large, and it was only a meter big at the time. In fact, it should be put on two or three meters, hanging down from the middle, and we will make this effect enough, right?
In fact, that time was a bit of a pity, just here this hanging process I will not say. At that time, the water had risen to the pavilion, and my feet were already in the water, I had swam, and I had done a lot of work. My collaborator Xiao Xuan'an was on the shore, taking pictures of me in a place where the cave had not yet been submerged. He didn't take Hasselblad camera seriously, and as a result, he hanged me half to death, this piece should not have been repaired, a little wrong, should not use this one, I see if there is any spare, there is no good, this is a original film.
My old friend Mr. Xiao Xuan'an has been walking in the countryside with me for many years, and there are many cooperation in the Three Gorges. He does his, I do mine, and he helps each other because he also has some performance art that requires me to press the shutter. When I left Xiayan Temple, I said I was going back to Guangzhou to work, this submerged process you came to shoot, and finally he shot very well, rented a boat to shoot every day, and later won the grand prize of the Xishuangbanna Photography Festival that year.
Yes, just now it was a pure scan, the effect is very poor, this one is a little better, in fact, the shooting can not say that the exposure effect is very good, the conditions at that time are like this. How to say this? There's nothing to boast about, that's an expression, and I'm not really dead myself, you say true martyrdom is great, we can't do it yet. Of course, I myself can also think that I am the reincarnation of Yan Changjiang at that time, right?
Just now there is a job, let me talk about the Wang Ye Temple. Wang Ye Temple also appears at least in my first part and the third part, just the same place, we just see one, in short, on the road will encounter a point, this point keeps bumping, these points trigger photography, it is such a relationship. I can say that you find your own dojo, and some places really don't have one, so don't force it. Let's say it's feelings, let's say a little heavier, it's your victory, a victory for love at first sight, you shine on each other, right?
Then one day, I was sitting on a boat, disheartened, walking on the river, in Changshou County, which is not far from the main city of Chongqing, now Changshou District, see the Yangtze River Bridge, this bridge has pot ears on it, it is Cantonese style, because before the lake filled Sichuan, this temple is too beautiful, I want to go down, I am in a small dock in the countryside, because I am sitting on the most ordinary passenger boat, went down, and then found a motorcycle, in the mud full of mud, here, I feel that this is a huge treasure. I climbed over the wall of this temple myself, because it had been closed for a long time. Seeing that there is a stage inside, it is actually a very large and very large temple. In ancient times, he was used to sacrifice Zhang Fei, that is, the water god. Zhang Fei later became a water god in Sichuan. Later, during the Cultural Revolution, you can imagine what kind of a place it became, why am I sure it became an important place during the Cultural Revolution? Because the next door to this temple is the township government, it is quite convenient for everyone to overthrow the fengzi repair.
But the most peculiar thing is the contemporary, this bridge has attracted thousands of builders, and the entertainment of these builders is mainly in this small village. I found many small cubicles under the stage of this temple, and some lascivious words were written in them. Local people told me that in the 1990s, when he was building the bridge, it became a place where some women sold their bodies. I think if Wang Ye had a spirit, I don't think he would know what would happen, and he might cry and laugh. One day there was a Miss Luzhou, who came from Luzhou, and everyone called her Miss Luzhou, and she fell directly from the front of this temple and drowned. Of course, it may also be a headless case, which I did not investigate deeply. But I thought to myself, and I later wrote an article, that the spiritual history of this temple is our role in it, and that its process, these hundreds of years, is a microcosm of our nation in the spiritual world. If you are writing a novel, writing a play on this topic, it is simply wonderful. Let's have a three-act, four-act play, that's really wonderful. Therefore, I combined this temple with a modern bridge in the documentary part, and took this one that I like very much.
Even within the limited scope of my documentary, I took another one and put it in. One day I saw a lady in front of the temple, she was walking her dog here, the wife of a teacher, leading a dog, and I took a picture of her. As a documentary, I am very satisfied.
And then I came here again and I felt like I was going to carry out one of my wishes, which was that I was going to hang on here. Teacher Xiao didn't agree at first, I forced him to agree, and then he figured it out, and even these farmers along the way figured it out. Yan Ming said that the people here are particularly reiki, and the people on the Yangtze River will understand our behavior. One evening, when we came here, I said I must do this, start work immediately, and ask Mr. Xiao to assist me. I finished this one, this one was hanging on the stage, in fact, this one is also quite dangerous, because my feet have no place to fall, there are random stones underneath, and there is a floor below, right? If I'm not careful, the rope can really strangle me. So where do you find my feet standing? I found a huge nail nailed to this one, and I estimated that I should be able to stand for a while, and I stood on that nail and did this. Of course, this exposure is also slightly insufficient, or this stage will be clearer, in short, completed.
Well, time is limited, I'll hurry up a bit below. This is another similar series. An ancient bridge not far from Chongqing is also going to be submerged, there is a bridge monument next to this bridge, which records the birth process of this bridge, this bridge monument is very good, I came here, there was a peasant woman hoeing the ground next to it, I thought there were outsiders, maybe we think we are crazy, so what to do? Later, I deliberately said to her, (I think instead of becoming the opposite of the local people and ordinary people who do not understand each other, I would rather pull her to my camp), I said a few words to her, and then said sister-in-law, I need someone to help me pull the rope, can you help? You help me install it. Throw the hoe and say wow. So I took such a picture, the image is not very good, we are wearing this rags. In fact, in the Three Gorges or on the Yangtze River, in the wild, I often make myself like a beggar, and even sometimes when I see what people have, I will eat when I go in. The clothes I wear are things that I usually do very casually and don't value. For example, this dress is very interesting, I participated in the flood fight in 1998, the army sent me a memorial, T-shirt wrote on the flood rescue what commemoration, this T-shirt it is related to the Yangtze River, is my in the middle and lower reaches of Hubei flood resistance souvenirs, all this is very interesting.
Sometimes our feelings, or time repeatedly stay in such a small place, really for many days there will not be a tourist to care about such a bridge or a monument.
I also started landscape photography relatively early. When I walked to a place not far from Chongqing, I found that there were 4 buildings standing by the river, exactly the same, basically exactly the same, it was a third-line factory, this is called Wangjiang. This is the Wangjiang Motorcycle Factory, which produces Wangjiang brand motorcycles, with four buildings. I look at the clothes of the people on there, their various objects, and I think that's all we live. We took so many documentaries, it was better to take a good look at the four buildings. So I said that I photographed four buildings, which were once exhibited, and after the exhibition, I wrote a lot of text, and finally the exhibited works were stolen, in Chengdu. It's also a very strange thing, and I'm waiting for it to come back.
What is very interesting is that this year, Teacher Xiao Xuan'an, he walked together because we have been walking together for many years, and he will also see the scenery I have seen, and his play is different from mine. You can imagine the same place, we are so interested, how he played. This year he launched a work, which is on the market, in Beijing Contemporary, and this year it is selling quite expensive. I prefer landscape photography, I don't do anything on the picture except for doing behavior. But Mr. Xiao's imagination is relatively strong, and he is an old avant-garde. So what he made is even more exaggerated, you can see.
I'm looking for it on my phone now, I just delayed, said the wrong place, said somewhere else. This work is magnified or you can see a lot of details, which represents the whole life of the people at the bottom of our Yangtze River. A monument, a Tower of Babel, but it's like hell, and my image is in it, and I'm happy. So we say the so-called dojo, you see Teacher Xiao directly made a monument, or made a temple-like, like a large building with a religious sense like The Tower, everyone can open up a little bit in the creation. I shoot four buildings this work is a common collage, and, not much, I can show you two more.
The first is an ancient bridge, this ancient bridge in Chongqing, three bridge holes, this ancient bridge was also demolished in the wave of construction in Chongqing. I didn't do a good job because the location of my photo didn't fully meet my requirements for a camera position. But if you look at it, I like it.
The other is a suburban scene in Guangzhou, in this forest there is a very cattle temple, is the Temple of Literature, related to literature, called Luofeng. Luofeng Temple, also known as Luofeng Academy. This big college, ancient, is very good, and if you zoom in, you may be able to see some of the buildings of this academy. There is a viaduct in front of me, and it passes roughly in front of the temple on this side, it is a highway, and I took this photo. Maybe after a while I can take a picture of color, I haven't, these years lack of creative sense, did not do, because now it has changed again, the scene under the bridge has definitely changed, it has become very contemporary, because it has become a park made by the government, a very good park. Then its scene will be different. So this is something I like very much, my name is Luogang Xiangxue Tujian. That is to say, we are the discoverers of the spirit, this is a blow, and the result is that everywhere we go, we see beautiful things, or things that touch our own spiritual world, and I am very energetic.
You say for example, the color above, this is also an ancient bridge, in the ravine of the Three Gorges, the water of the Three Gorges Reservoir has just flooded to this waterfall, and this bridge may still be able to survive. But this beautiful sight, I really linger here.
I just said the wrong place again, this is not if the time is required, I will introduce it in much more detail. I hope you will have questions later. I am not saying that I do not want to tell you this, if I continue to talk about it, it may delay my colleagues to discuss some work with me, and I still have a lot of free time in the process of working until one o'clock. Everyone asks as many questions as possible, and I will take the time to answer them.
I just passed a picture is not very successful, is the netizen's, I will remake it, remake it, this has no copyright problem. Why? I'm taking a news photo, I'm retaking a computer, I'm taking a computer. Because I directly take the photos of netizens, I don't know who the author is, this is the mountain I went to, I went with Teacher Xiao. What would you do on this mountain? I also like photos like this, I would like to spend three days like a donkey friend through this mountain range of forty or fifty kilometers, because I think in Guangdong, this is the only mountain that has not been noticed by tourists, not the only one, but also a relatively rare mountain that has not been noticed by tourists, but in fact has a wonderful scenery. So what are we going to do? I certainly wouldn't be satisfied with this kind of scene, since the donkey friends can shoot, even better than me, I can shoot like this, at least I have some such pictures that have not been taken out.
So what I care more about, what we care more about is, putting some of our ideas to life. Many people ask, Teacher Yan and Teacher Xiao, how did you get to photograph these animals? Then we have to explain that our capture work is very high, in fact, these are all specimens, we just let them return to where they live.
You see in my black and white work, this mountain in the distance is the mountain that the donkey friends just climbed to the top. Of course, most of my works were also taken at the top of the mountain, but like this reservoir halfway up the mountain, I also saw the scene of my hometown, the Yangtze River where I grew up. I think it's a far-flung realm, a far-reaching realm. So I took this picture here. The grayscale of this work is very comfortable, especially made of silver rock, especially the ash on the trunk and the ash of the leaves, which makes me very fascinated. This scenery seems to us in our usual way, we want to form it into a holy field, a dojo, it's not so easy, right? If it's all about taking pictures, that kind of feminine scenery, that's what everyone will do. It's as if many of our temples have become a very popular place of atonement. I give some money, I pay for incense, and I make a mistake, which is not called a mistake. For us this one is a little bit simpler.
When we let the dead animals come back here, everything is lit up, and this field is called a dojo. The days there are unforgettable, and sometimes I feel like I just want to do it again. One of the most peculiar years, about 2011, I thought the scenery at the top of the mountain was so good, I still had to go to the top of the mountain. I took a picture of the better and more famous one in this group of works, and I looked for it. I'm right on top of a hill like this, and we take pictures like this. Then I would go once in a few years, and the tree would slowly wither. The mountains here burned tens of thousands of pine trees due to the ice disaster in 2008 and the forest fires that followed, and they slowly withered away. I reckon that by now the tree may have fallen and there is no time to go, and some will be surprised the next time they see it. I'm going to let the animal sit here like this and take another picture, which has been used. For example, my brother Fu Yongjun's "A Tree by the West Lake". It doesn't matter, what you shoot later can be seen by yourself.
We set up a tent on the top of such a hill, in this place I have set up, should be three days at a time, once it was winter, the first two days of rain, in fact, the cold wave came, just endure, drink some wine to warm yourself. So I later found out that there were some outstanding people in the news now, who were frozen to death in the wild, and I was surprised. I think it was true that we had been in the tent for two days in the rain. Of course it's true that we tried to dry ourselves, and we had logistics, and there was a farmer who sometimes brought us a little hot meal, and the first time we went, we didn't have a hot meal for three days. But on this morning, after enduring two days of rain, I stayed out of the tent in the morning. Because I have seen the ice hanging of the whole world, this southern ice hanging is not the same as the north, which is very interesting.
Today, our reporter is also filming the ice hanging in Guangdong in the northern part of Guangdong, and the cold tide has come in the past few days, and it has appeared like this again. But I know the most beautiful thing is this place, but I won't let my friends go, because it's really tough and high. Having said that, he couldn't find it, and it was really not easy. I remember especially shooting this work when the sun was just rising, we were actually so cold that we couldn't manipulate the camera, and the camera couldn't let you do it, especially the tripod was frozen. Put the camera on the tripod, by estimation, in the cold wind, one person with an umbrella, and then another person manipulating, with a wide-angle lens, by estimation, it is actually not bad. You have to know the big format, although it is only 4 by 5, if it is not installed, we just buckle the camera on it, the whole is still moving, you touch it will move. In this case, you can shoot a large frame, but also shoot so stable, it is not easy, this is also based on experience, the focus of the wide-angle lens can tolerate a lot more. Of course, there are occasional moments of leisure, and in the three valleys where we do this, we really enjoy it, we enjoy it very much. That's all there is to it.
In Hunan, in the process of walking this north-south ancient road, I saw many beautiful pavilions and beautiful scenery. I'll just pass on a few more to you.
I have two paintings that I attended the Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair today, and I happened to be seen by my colleagues, and my colleague Mr. Deng Bo took these two paintings because I haven't seen them yet, I'm too busy. This news photo of him is very well taken. So a lot of what happens to us every day is related to the work. If you look at the photos taken by a reporter friend today, it is also a coincidence that there is my thing in it.
I said here, it's time to end, an hour and a half, almost, because I do have other things to do. Everyone asks questions now, I hope it doesn't matter if you ask a dozen questions, because I still have enough time, and I will be a little idle in a while, thank you.
I ended with a piece of my phone, which actually has an official version. I found it on my phone, but it already represents my view of the world. Wherever we are, we are spiritual factors that motivate us. It is true that life may not necessarily have meaning, but we need to give meaning, when you are strong enough, you are like a heavenly seal on this land, you will stand firm. I won't say more. Well, walking on this ancient road, I finally saw such a square building, which is unique to this place. In order to prevent bandits, it actually contains a Chinese-style tile house, and the design of the house in Gaiwa is very clever. He is like a big seal on this land, and I hope that each of us will be like me like a seal on this land, goodbye, thank you.
【Question Session】
I'm going to answer these questions in turn, sorry, it's been so long, because I'm really busy.
Q1: I have heard 11 episodes of the podcast that Mr. Yan Changjiang did on a certain platform, (a long pause), one of which analyzed the creative change process of the two authors, from documentary to contemporary art, as if this is what many authors are experiencing.
Yan Changjiang: My Himalayan audio program was played by myself, and then I was too busy to play anymore. Each of us is busy, and I am purely obligatory. We're not here to be influencers, and we're not here to make traffic. Although my main business is to engage in communication, it is not difficult to do this, and it is not difficult to be an Internet celebrity. The difficulty is not that it is red now, but whether you have good things to stay in a hundred years.
Q2: "Every time the shutter rings, the holy realm is in front of you", can you talk to us about this sentence on the poster?
Yan Changjiang: First of all, this sentence on the poster is casual, and sometimes it is suspected of boasting. When the shutter rings, the scene in front of us should be a scene that makes everyone feel. Of course this is not necessarily true, we are talking about the usual, for example, sometimes as a photography of contemporary art, he asks questions. He's not saying there's a radiance in front of him, he might make you feel ugly, it's a problem, maybe he's garbage or something, but anyway, as a work presented in an image, the image itself has its charm, even if we're taking a shot of a junkyard. So in fact, that is the sentence, there must be light, there must be light, and the work itself must be able to look at it, right? You can't say I'm taking garbage, my photos are garbage too. What you take is garbage does not mean that your photo is garbage, maybe your photo has a point of view or a connotation of spiritual support.
Q3: You just said that in the paper man scene for 3 days did not shoot anything just to feel, this is a bit like Eugene Smith filming "The Country Doctor", but some photographers think that the stimulation brought by strangeness is more useful to create, familiar but not easy to shoot, how does Teacher Yan see this matter?
Yan Changjiang: Saying that we are on the scene, sometimes it does not mean that there is no certain rule, it does not mean that I must shoot well if I am familiar with it, I am unfamiliar, it is more exciting, this is difficult to say, there is no certain rule. When I first encountered the PaperMan, two of the first volume went into my series. And only a dozen negatives were used in the first volume, and only two or three were very good, which was strange. Yes, but then I became familiar with it, and I also shot quite well, right? There are no rules for this.
Q4: There are many photographers who shoot the theme of "rivers, lakes and seas" in China, from Edward Bodinsky and Nadav Kandel to Xiao Xuan'an, Yan Ming, Mu Ge, Zhang Kechun, etc. What is the biggest feature of your "Three Gorges Series" or the difference between you and others?
Yan Changjiang: There are many people who photographed the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, I can only say that I was in that year, if it is said that it is a meaningful photography, rather than a very pure news report, then a personalized photography may be systematic, but also personality, I may be the earliest. At an important moment, there was a great change in the Three Gorges. This Berlin period predates me, but I think his stuff is very good, but it is not a systematic, the Three Gorges is just an integral part of it. Most of the other friends are a little late, Xiao Xuan'an is very good, but also quite comprehensive. He can also say that he is earlier than me, but Teacher Xiao is really more focused on conceptual art, and he is shooting our things on the Yangtze River from another dimension.
Q5: Teacher Yan shoots "Paper Man" to "Night Zoo" to "Three Gorges Series", your works have a clear theme, and now there are photographers advocating archery first and then drawing bullseye, that is, first shoot a large number of films, and then slowly make up a theme, what does Teacher Yan think about this?
Yan Changjiang: I said that there are no certain rules for this. That is to say, sometimes there is a theme first and then shooting, sometimes the middle of the shooting is looking for a theme, this does not have certain rules, depending on your feelings at that time, in short, you want to do what you want to do, you don't want to do you don't hard.
Q6: Teacher Yan, have you ever understood how paper culture has undergone the Cultural Revolution and come back to life in modern times?
Yan Changjiang: A friend mentioned that the paper culture has undergone a process of resurrection in modern times. Of course, any of our traditional cultures have experienced the Cultural Revolution and experienced the destruction of the four olds, right? It's all about coming back to life. Because of the resurrection of the dead, we are now going to call it survival, that is, salvaging our precious things, right?
Q7: Teacher Yan is one of the few photographers engaged in creation who has theoretical skills, I heard that the articles written by Teacher Yan are going to be published in a collection, when will I be able to publish a book?
Yan Changjiang: Another friend said that I have theoretical skills, but in fact, I have no theoretical skills. I have always felt that I do not learn to have a technique, that is to say, I do not learn no technique, I do not learn a technique, I have no knowledge, I do not read many books, but I feel very good, there is a little method, a bit of empiricism, so it is called a technique. Sometimes Teacher Zang Ce also feels very strange, he is engaged in theory, and often thinks that I am very right. For him, they have to go through a lot of reasoning to argue, and I am a subconscious sentence, which may be very correct. In fact, this is the difference between a long-term practitioner and a long-term theorist. In most of our cases, my empiricism may also work. It's an art, and what I write is written by an artist, not by a theorist. So it also has its own unique value.
My review of china's nearly 50 photographers may be published at the beginning of the year, and the zhejiang photography publishing house is now tentatively titled "Amazing Photography". I hope you pay attention.
Q8: Does Teacher Yan's photographing of paper people and "hanging" in monuments bring a special experience to his dreams or daily life?
Yan Changjiang: My own works do not affect my life, I think there is no big impact, it only has a positive impact. On the contrary, the documentary part has been for me, and I think it has hurt. And these behavioral or fantasy types, it is a comfort to hurt. For example, you say that we often dream, and what I dream of is not these strange works of mine, but the disappearance of the landscape of the Three Gorges itself. I often dream that when I go back there, the water of the Yangtze River is still flowing, and then I wake up very uncomfortable. Whether we fantasize about hanging there, making black boxes, or playing music, we are comforting ourselves, and this kind of comfort is very necessary.
Q9: Please ask Teacher Yan, your work is to express your thoughts in a way that you can achieve, but how do you think about the quality of a photo, because if you consider the composition and other factors from a professional point of view, but there are also photos that make people praise because of the story of the photo?
Yan Changjiang: I think this photo is good or bad, a friend asked, how do I think to say it? Professionally, he does have a good or bad point of view. For example, in terms of landscape, I shot very early, but then Zhang Kechun, I think he shot well, the treatment of color, especially in technology, and some taste is better than mine. This photo has a professional standard of good or bad, and indeed there is. We conceive or whatever is not worse than others. But sometimes in terms of technology or temperament, he has a high or low distinction. For example, there are many imitations of Teacher Zhang Kechun now, but they are often inferior to him, which is the truth.
Q10: Teacher Yan is unpredictable! Deeply impressed! I think that Teacher Yan's works are supported by his own unique spiritual system, and there is a powerful aura hidden behind the wonderful dojo. I am very curious about how Teacher Yan can achieve a harmonious coexistence between his unique spiritual system and the general environment, and maintain the usual life mode while constantly producing fantastic ideas and cutting-edge works. Don't know if I'm a problem with this?
Yan Changjiang: There is also a final question, that is, how does my spiritual system live in harmony with the environment, maintain a normal life, and constantly have fantastic ideas. I think that in fact, harmony can be harmonious because I have a spiritual system. You don't have the mental support, and it's not easy for you to live in this big city. In addition, to be honest, I am not doing well, I am not doing well. You can also say that I don't mix well in real life, but it doesn't matter, without spiritual pursuit, without the comfort of these works, maybe I will not be able to stand this reality for a long time, I may flee, this is not easy. So it's not that you do photography or do art. We see a lot of ordinary people, I met a lot of farmers in the township, they all have their own spiritual world, have a very good spiritual world. So, my brother once said that people like you, like Wei Bi, like Xiao Qiu, like Xiao Xuan'an. If you guys don't go to the city, you are doing good work in the countryside, that is to say, doing spiritual work, and that's it.
Thank you again, I end with an unpublished, unpublished, not counted work, or a relatively poor work. It was worse, but I was in 2003, the water of the Yangtze River was rising, the bottom of the mountain was submerged, and I was standing on the oldest site under the mountain, which was the Daxi cultural site of 6,000 years ago. I am at the east entrance of Xitang Gorge, and you can see this site, and the archaeological site is drowning the ancestors who once buried here. This ancestor is as beautiful as our people on the Yangtze River, because they are very tall, but they are also very small.
Standing here is very stable and nostalgic. Every piece of land we stand on is not easy, has a story, is unusual. Because of our ancestors, but also because of ourselves, here, these few words want to encourage you.
Thank you for delaying everyone's sleep. It is true that I can't find the right time to talk to you now, tonight. I hope to have the opportunity to communicate with you again in the future, thank you!
END
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