Guangming Daily reporter Yan Huifang
Anyone who has been to Wangfujing Street knows that the window outside the China Photo Studio is a scene of Wangfujing, attracting many citizens and tourists to stop. Not long ago, China Photo Studio celebrated its 82nd birthday. For 82 years, China Photo Studio has recorded people's most authentic times with lenses, and collected people's laughter and emotions. People of different eras and different regions came to the China Photo Studio to compose a time album and compose the eternal love in time.
Photographer Xing Pengfei and partner Chen Yannan are taking family portraits for the Du Du family. Guangming Daily reporter Yan Huifang photographed
From Shanghai to Beijing
In 1937, the China Photo Studio was founded in Shanghai. In July 1956, in response to the call for "prosperity of the capital service industry", 19 employees of the China Photo Studio came to Beijing from Shanghai and settled at the south entrance of Wangfujing Avenue, starting a new journey of serving the capital. A few days after moving to Beijing coincided with the National Day, the business of Chinese photo studios was very hot. Every day at four or five o'clock in the morning, people start to queue up, waiting for the photo studio to open at eight o'clock to pick up the number. Even if the number stops at three o'clock in the afternoon, the photo studio has to be busy until more than 10 o'clock in the evening every day to finish work.
Li Zhengqin, a retired coloring group technician, explains the technique of black-and-white photo coloring. Guangming Daily reporter Yan Huifang photographed
The Chinese photo studio, which moved to Beijing for only one month, welcomed a distinguished guest, which made a classic in the history of Chinese photography, which is the "Standard Portrait of Premier Zhou Enlai" that often appeared in major media later. In the following years, the China Photo Studio successively took standard portraits of Liu Shaoqi and Zhu De, and was called "the National Character Photo Studio that specially took pictures of great people".
After the National Day in 1988, the China Photo Studio moved into the new building at No. 307 Wangfujing Street, with eight floors, namely photographic equipment sales, various studios, color darkrooms, craft workshops, etc. In 1999, taking advantage of the opportunity of the "International Year of the Elderly", the China Photo Studio set up an external photography team to take free photos for the retired veteran cadres; later, several external photo services were arranged to be "through trains", walking the streets and alleys, leaving their footprints in many cities and rural areas. In September of the same year, the remodeled Wangfujing Street reopened, and the China Photo Studio and other long-established brands were uniformly moved to Ludong to open accounts. Today, there are 145 employees in China Photo Studio, with an annual income of nearly 90 million yuan and an annual profit of more than 30 million yuan, all of which have reached the peak of history.
Repeat customers once a year
"Chin propped up, smile, sir, you turn around..." In the second studio of the Wangfujing store of the China Photo Studio, photographer Xing Pengfei and partner Chen Yannan are taking family portraits for the Family of Seven. When Chen Yannan changed the background, Xing Pengfei went forward to help customers adjust their photo posture. The two cooperated very tacitly, and in ten minutes, a set of family portraits was taken. The Toot family came from Changping in the morning and waited for more than an hour to shoot it. They don't have to wait very long, they usually have to wait for three hours to shoot on holidays, and photographers are often too busy to have lunch. As soon as the Du Du family went out, Ms. Lin's family of three came in. Similarly, it is to take a headshot for the child first, and then take a set of family portraits. "Since my son's first birthday photo, I have come to take one every birthday, and this year is the 12th year." Ms. Lin said.
In the window next to the stairs on the third floor of the Wangfujing store of the China Photo Studio, a total of 14 photos with the standards of the Chinese photo studio of different ages are hung, recording the love of Wang Qihong and Wu Wenxia in the same boat, and also witnessing the development history of the Chinese photo studio. The two have been inextricably linked since they took their first engagement photo at the China Photo Studio in Shanghai in 1946. In 1955, Wang Qihong and Wu Wenxia's unit moved to Beijing, and the Chinese photo studio moved to Beijing the following year. Since 1956, the two have taken photos almost every year: gold wedding photos in 1997, diamond wedding photos in 2007, 70th wedding anniversary photos in 2017, and family portraits full of children and grandchildren... They were all taken in Chinese photo studios.
The meaning of the record never changes
In a house in Beijing's South Fourth Ring Road, Gai Fang, Li Zhengqin and his wife are taking care of flowers and plants in their yard. The two were classmates of the Beijing Municipal Service School majoring in photography, and after graduating in 1964, they were assigned to work together in the coloring group of the China Photo Studio.
In Li Zhengqin's view, "basic skills + practice" is the basic requirement for doing a good job of coloring photos. "Just like the gourds planted in our yard, what color they are when they first grow, what color they are after slowly turning yellow, what color is the reflective surface on the ground, these all need the accumulation of life." Li Zhengqin said as she took out her previous coloring work from the TV cabinet, and casually pulled out a children's headshot, "Take this one, this is the highlight part, this is the transition middle key, there is a turning surface here, there is also a reflective surface here." Don't look at just a small face, show these layers, in order to get a more artistic photo. ”
The most work in the coloring group was at the end of the 1970s, in order to ensure the timely delivery, more than 20 coloring technicians divided the work according to the process, carried out assembly line work, laying the foundation, putting on the background color, wiping the edges... Greatly improve work efficiency. The work of photo coloring, Li Zhengqin has been working for more than 30 years, not only witnessing the most brilliant moments of manual coloring, but also experiencing a bleak process. In 1984, China Photo Studio officially added color photography, which caused a huge impact on the coloring group business. When Li Zhengqin retired in 1997, there was only one person left in the coloring group. Later, if the customer provides the photos that need to be colored, the photo studio uses computer software to color them.
In 2002, China Photo Studio turned into a private enterprise, and the restructured China Photo Studio opened the transition from film to digital technology, and successively purchased Italian Polaroid laser amplifiers and large-scale Polaroid laser digital equipment. In September 2004, after technical training, China Photo Studio fully applied digital photography. Since then, the "Shanghainese" wooden landline that has made great achievements has been honorably retired, and it has been replaced by digital cameras such as Nikon, Fuji, Mamia, and Canon.
But technology is changing, and the meaning of the record never changes. "Shooting well on the basis of reality is what we have to do, 30 years old should have a 30-year-old look, 40-year-old should have a 40-year-old look." The photos are getting heavier and heavier, and looking back at the photos taken after five years or ten years, it feels different. That's what records are about. Gai Fang sighed.
Guangming Daily (11th edition, December 8, 2019)