Rolling Mingsha Mountain in Dunhuang, Gansu, September 6, 2016. Photo by Chen Bin
What does photography bring to us?
Some would say that it is an impulse to retain time, or an entrance to memories of youth.
Some people say that photography is both a language and not a language, it belongs to a semi-language. Therefore, the "meaning" presented by the photo becomes uncertain, and there is room for multi-directional interpretation.
No matter what photography ultimately brings us, the uncertainty that varies from person to person and the story hidden behind each photo really moves me infinitely and inspires me to keep moving forward.
My name is Chen Bin, I am the director of the photography news interview department of the Gansu branch of Xinhua News Agency, and after graduating with a master's degree in 2012, I entered Xinhua News Agency to work as a photojournalist, and I was stationed in Taiwan as a photojournalist in between, and I have been in my 10th year.
Lanzhou Ink Danxia Scenic Area taken on April 6, 2021 (drone photo). The planned area of the scenic spot is 400 square kilometers, and the lanzhou ink Danxia scenic spot with a core tour area of 20 square kilometers in the first phase is the closest Danxia landform group to the provincial capital. Photo by Chen Bin
Today, when sorting through the tens of thousands of photos that are quietly "lying" on the hard disk, the familiar dates, familiar figures and stories behind them seem to pull me back to those familiar scenes. In today's street full of photographers, as a photojournalist, I cherish my original intention of picking up the camera, and photography has become an indispensable part of my life.
Looking at one frozen picture after another, each one seems to be a fragment, but if you connect them, year after year, it becomes a microcosm of an era. Even if it is not an era, it is also a microcosm of the change in one's own vision, a freeze frame of time, and a freeze frame of mood.
On October 7, 2019, tourists walked by the Alishan Forest Train. Located in south-central Taiwan, Alishan has been running for hundreds of years through the dense forests and rolling hills of Alishan. Taking a small train to enjoy the beautiful scenery has become a beautiful business card of Alishan and is favored by tourists. Photo by Chen Bin
On October 7, 2019, a small train shuttled through the Alishan Forest. Photo by Chen Bin
The enigmatic master of photography, Joseph Kodka, once said, "A good picture is a picture that I can live with, like i can live with some kind of music or someone." "Photography is not painting, you can make modifications and polishes on the same piece of paper, nor is it music, you can achieve perfection through repeated practice. Photography is photography, with or without it. In this art of frozen moments, what is needed is not how expensive equipment is needed, but the eyes and a hot enthusiasm connected behind the lens.
Astronauts Nie Haisheng (third from right), Liu Wang (first from left) and Zhang Xiaoguang (first from right) escorted to the desert for wilderness survival training on May 17, 2018. This is the first time that China has organized field survival training for astronauts in the desert area of the landing site area. Photo by Chen Bin
Over the years, the experience of front-line interview shooting has always made me feel that many times the kung fu of photography is outside the lens, precipitated in the accumulation of discovery and emotion, and the news photos with strong visual impact will undoubtedly enhance the vitality of the work, but the photos with temperature will definitely sublimate the soul of photojournalism. After years of precipitation, when the reader pushes open the dusty "that door" again, it will still pull the heartstrings and resonate.
On January 24, 2016, on the hockey field of the 13th National Winter Games, Li Shuyun, the "ice hockey grandmother" who came to the field across half of China, waved banners to cheer for Sun Tzu's team during the game. Photo by Chen Bin
As a photojournalist for Xinhua News Agency, I am undoubtedly lucky. In the past 10 years of my career, I have witnessed, recorded and personally experienced the progress of this era, and every wonderful moment and story that has been frozen in the depths of memory has long remained in the depths of memory, becoming a valuable asset and keeping my photos warm. I think this is also my sense of mission as a photojournalist of Xinhua News Agency, to record the vicissitudes of the world, to condense the white clouds of the times. The other day, I sorted out the hard disk information and saw the photos taken at the last National Games of the taekwondo teenagers who burst into tears for their dreams, and I was still excited.
It was the final of the 13th National Games Taekwondo Women's 57 kg Class, when Hunan teenager Luo Zongshi, who had just completed 3 years of practicing taekwondo, made his first appearance at the National Games and made a "dark horse" to the final. In the athletes' channel before the start of the competition, I met Luo Zongshi and sent her blessings, and paid more attention to her during the competition. In the final, Luo Zongshi faced Zhou Meiling, the team champion of the 2016 Taekwondo World Cup and the champion of the 2017 National Taekwondo Championship. Luo Zongshi had been suppressing his opponent in the first two sets, but unfortunately he was reversed by the experienced Zhou Meiling at the last moment, and missed the gold medal with a one-point difference.
On September 5, 2017, in the women's 57 kg final of the taekwondo event of the 13th National Games in Tianjin, Hunan's Luo Zongshi (right) lost the final by 1 point and burst into tears. Photo by Chen Bin
The fierce competition made me keep pressing the shutter, and the focus motor of the 300 fixed focus head kept ringing on the two people. When Zhou Meiling defeated the young general Luo Zongshi 9:8, I quickly turned the camera on this little girl in Hunan who was sorry to lose, and I could see that Luo Zongshi looked very sad. After smiling and greeting her opponents and the audience, Luo Zongshi, who stepped off the boxing ring, could no longer control her emotions, and hugged and cried with the coach, tears mixed with sweat and wet the hem of her clothes. At that moment, the little girl who was only 19 years old at the time was venting her truest feelings, and I froze the moment with my camera not far away. At the time, I was thinking that this might be the price of growth. Because every blossoming flower has experienced dark waves; every bright and dazzling has experienced wind and rain; every scenery is infinite, it has experienced eclipse.
Looking back at this photo, thinking back to the story behind it, this is the biggest charm of the language of photography, with the embodiment of these emotional elements, our photos have more connotations. This year is the time of the National Games, in the arena of Xi'an, I wish that young players like Luo Zongshi can make their dreams come true, and I also look forward to more warm moments in this sports storm of dreaming of the Olympic spirit.
Herders play soccer on the grassland at the Tent City Resort in Gaxiu Village, Gahai Town, Luqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture on August 10, 2018. Photo by Chen Bin
Photographer Nan Golding once put it this way: "For me, taking pictures is an act of touching and caressing the person in front of me, a way of expressing my respect that is unique to me. The camera was my eyes and hands at that time. "For photojournalists, how can the camera not be our eyes and hands to feel the world? In this era when the publication time is calculated in seconds and most news is difficult to survive more than a day, the new media communication pattern that has been formed has created an era of "everyone is a photographer", which seems to make pictures more "one picture is better than a thousand words".
However, for photojournalists, they are also facing unprecedented challenges due to the advent of this new "era of reading pictures", and to achieve true "a picture is worth a thousand words", photojournalists need to have extremely deep humanistic qualities and care, and finally integrate their life experience, life accumulation, professional perception and ideological refinement into the stories they want to express and pass on.
On September 8, 2018, literary and artistic volunteer Tan Juan performed opera for villagers at the liangcha village square in Gangou Town, Jingning County, Gansu Province. More than 60 local literary and artistic volunteers used the weekend volunteers to send literary and artistic performances to the villagers, using the method of "finding an open space to perform, putting down the line and singing" to send the joy that the people need to the field to enrich the cultural life of the countryside. Photo by Chen Bin
In August 2020, the southeast of Gansu Province suffered continuous heavy rainfall, and flash floods and mudslides occurred in Longnan, Gannan and other cities and prefectures, affecting more than one million people and disrupting road traffic in more than 800 villages, becoming "traffic islands" and "information islands". The sudden disaster, which has not been encountered in a hundred years, not only tests the organizational ability of the local government to fight floods and provide disaster relief, but also tests the comprehensive ability of photojournalists to respond quickly.
In the early days of the disaster, a large number of unverified flood conditions, disaster situations, help-seeking information and casualties were disseminated on the Internet. Although the local media broadcast a large number of dynamic and rolling news, under the squeeze of massive self-media information, it is difficult to form an effective dissemination, and the grass-roots cadres and the masses, especially the masses in the missing townships, are panicked. In order to understand the real situation in the disaster area as soon as possible and carry out disaster reporting in a timely and accurate manner, my colleagues and I rushed to the area where the disaster was most serious at the first time and issued a large number of front-line reports in the sleepless days.
Traveling against the water just to keep you safe, Wang Xiaojun (left), a member of the Rescue and Disaster Relief Party Commando Team, and his companions march towards the hardest-hit areas on August 25, 2020 (photo taken on August 24). In the past few days, continuous heavy rainfall has caused a flash flood mudslide disaster in Zhouqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, affecting more than 60,000 people in 19 townships and towns, and temporarily disrupting traffic in 108 natural villages, becoming "isolated islands". Photo by Chen Bin
In Zhouqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, my colleagues and I carried cameras, computers, drones, voice recorders and other publishing equipment on foot for more than three hours to the village of Mono in Quzhaona Town, the hardest hit by the disaster, all the way with the party-member commandos and volunteers who went to the missing village, and were infected by their spirit of going against the water regardless of their personal safety. Along the way, the camera shutter in my hand kept ringing, and in a short period of time, I completed the shooting of all media, and the rich text, pictures, and video materials were sorted and processed to form a picture story "Against the Water Only to Keep You Safe" and the media work "Boat Song, Mono Village, Storm Mudslide" stood up in the "Bridge of Life"! In a short period of time, the number of hits on the whole network exceeded 10 million, and those images with temperature became the epitome of the responsibilities and responsibilities of many party-member commandos and volunteers in that flood fight.
After experiencing it, we will better understand that the image needed in the era of media integration must be an image that can perceive the temperature through the lens. Those pictures that really touch the heart are the core values of photojournalism, so that familiar subjects are defamiliarized, unfamiliar subjects are familiar, and every record is made conscientiously to find the keywords of this era. I think I still have a long way to go.
Appreciation of Chen Bin's works
On 6 August 2016, the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship (China) entered the desert stage, with Fuzhou Fusen Racing Team driver Xu Ziyong and navigator Bian Liming driving the No. 28 car in the desert promenade race. Photo by Chen Bin
On February 20, 2016, monks of Labrang Monastery set out from the Great Sutra Hall carrying a Buddha statue thangka on their shoulders. On the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, Labrang Monastery in Gansu, known as the "World Tibetan School", held a grand New Moon Sunning Dharma Festival, attracting more than 100,000 Tibetan monks and laypeople and tourists from home and abroad to visit and visit. Photo by Chen Bin
On February 9, 2017, labrang monastery, the "world's tibetan school", held a buddhist festival, and the monks of Labrang monastery slowly unfolded the Buddha statue thangka covered with yellow curtains. Photo by Chen Bin
On June 20, 2020, several Tibetan actors performed a dance on the grassland in the tent city scenic spot of Gaxiu Village, Gahai Town, Luqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Gaxiu Village, the only village-level 4A-level tourist attraction in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, relies on its unique ecological environment and rich cultural and tourism resources to upgrade and transform the whole village. On the basis of highlighting Tibetan characteristics and paying attention to maintaining the original ecological rural style, the standards of star hotels are introduced to improve the comfort of living, and at the same time, the central kitchen catering, immersive experience and folk special activities are launched to bring tourists an in-depth tourism experience. Photo by Chen Bin
On September 13, 2019, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the giant panda "Tuantuan" of Taipei Zoo tasted a special mooncake. Photo by Chen Bin
On April 5, 2019, two white swans frolicked in the wetland of Xiaosugan Lake in Aksai Kazakh Autonomous County, Jiuquan City, Gansu Province. Photo by Chen Bin
On January 24, 2019, a wrangler rode a thousand-year-old horse farm at the northern foothills of Qilian Mountain. Photo by Chen Bin
Photography and text / Chen Bin
Director of the Photography Department of the Gansu Branch of Xinhua News Agency, former correspondent of Xinhua News Agency in Taiwan, has traveled to Androad Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and other places for many times to investigate and participate in organizing reports. Engaged in photojournalism for 10 years, every year an average of more than 100 days of in-depth grassroots research, chasing wild camels in no man's land, letting wolves go deep in the grassland, trekking to the top of glaciers to find... Enjoy the feeling of body and soul on the road at the same time. He has participated in major reports such as the 93rd Military Parade, the field survival training of Chinese astronauts, the election of leaders in the Taiwan region, the National Games, the Winter Games, etc., and his works have been exhibited at the National Museum of China, the Military Museum of the Chinese Revolution and other places.
This article was originally published in the August 2021 issue of Photography World
Editor-in-Charge / Gao Yihan