One and a half centuries of photography in China assist the contemporary "time traveler" in viewing the Chinese past. Every picture records a special instant, but in the aggregate they show a nation in transformation. The camera's eye assists the mind in grasping social, political, economic, and cultural developments over time, often in the microcosm of a single face.
And as the art of photography itself matures over the years, a breadth and depth of interpretation is added to the form by the photographers themselves, which is likewise a fruitful subject of study. Together, the photographers and their subjects preserve in frozen frames the ebb and now of more than fifteen decades of Chinese history.
Photography was introduced to China within a decade after its invention was officially announced in France in 1839. The exact source is unclear, but it possibly came by the way of foreign missionaries or traders who began arriving in increasing numbers as a result of the "open-door policy" following the Treaty of Nanking in 1842.
As in the West, photography in China was at first used primarily in portraiture. After flash powders were introduced, greater picture variety was possible. Many photographers took to the fields—lugging heavy and awkward equipment—and left studio photography for their more sedentary colleagues.
The wandering photographer gradually became a familiar sight, recognizable by all sorts of heavy packets hanging from his shoulders or roped to the back of a mule. Townspeople would gather around him, curiously watching as he laboriously set up a black-curtain tent darkroom, his weighty and odd-looking camera, and a special chair with a metal head support attached to its back.
When all was ready, the photographer would begin trumpeting his services—telling one and all how his "marvelous magic box" could reproduce the exact image of anyone in the crowd, and preserve it forever. He was telling the truth, for on a piece of silvered copper plate called a daguerreotype, still extant despite fading, are faces from the past staring into the strange mechanical eye. The "magic chair" of the photographer performed its feats as advertised.
Despite the newness of it all, and the occasional fear of the equipment, each crowd always produced someone more curious, more ready for adventure, who pulled money from his pocket for a chance to test the prowess of that mysterious box. And, in a phenomenon familiar to hucksters worldwide, the first bite produced a rush; everyone who could afford the fee suddenly had to have their family images recorded for posterity.
Making daguerreotypes required fastidious efforts on the part of the photographer. Even a cloudy day, let alone a rainy one, would disrupt the process. Each exposure required not one-hundredth of a second, nor twenty seconds, but a full twenty minutes. Beyond facing the capricious weather, the photographer had to exhort his subjects to stoic heights of endurance as they sat stiff and motionless under a scorching sun. Beyond the twenty minute torture, preparatory time was added as the photographer set up his equipment. Patience was a virtue.
Even though subjects were assisted by a metal head support on the back of the chair to prevent movement, it was difficult not to grimace or at least read-just the posture somewhat while remaining in the wholly uncomfortable situation. But discomfort brought results. According to 96-year-old professional photographer Long Chin-san, "Usually a picture of themselves was as easily recognizable as a brother or sister." The "magic box" worked.
Almost unavoidably, the new "magic" of photography was invested by some superstitious country folks with fearsome portents: "The image would capture the very spirit of the person photographed!" But fear could not hold sway before the mightier emotions engendered by human vanity.
Following new developments, especially more convenient photographic techniques such as the collotype that demanded an exposure of only five seconds with proper sunlight, photography became increasingly popular and the superstitions concerning it gradually faded away.
During the reign of Emperor Tung-chih (1862-1874) of the Ching Dynasty, portrait photography enjoyed widespread favor. Although the technology now allowed the repeated printing of photographs from negative plates, many customers still preferred a more permanent positive image. The introduction of the ambrotype satisfied this demand.
In his own family album, photographer Long Chin-san preserves a treasured 116-year-old ambrotype of his parents that was taken on their wedding day. When viewed against a dark background, this positive image on glass, rendered by the collodion process, is still clearly discernible.
The picture was taken in a photo graphic studio in Long's hometown of Huai Yin, a Kiangsu Province city located about two day's sailing time from Shanghai up the Yangtze River. The relative remoteness of the city suggests that some photographers must have penetrated fairly deep into the Chinese interior before setting up shop, an indication of widespread knowledge of the craft.
Ching Dynasty Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi (1835-1908) was fascinated by photography, and in its pleasures found respite from troubled national affairs. She once donned a theatrical costume for the pictorial role of Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, and had her devoted eunuch, Li Lien-ying, dressed as Shan Tsai Tung Tzu, the young boy traditionally seated before the Goddess' lotus seat. Together, against a false lotus pool setting, they created a rather bizarre "salon photograph."
By the end of the Ching Dynasty, photographers began experimenting with new forms, moving away from being mere technicians and toward becoming actual craftsmen. Photomontage became one of the more popular forms of creative experimentation. By making a number of separate exposures on portions of the same negative, photographers grouped images of the same person, often in various postures, in a single picture.
Long Chin-san recalls that the "Self-Entreaty Picture" became a favorite photomontage format. Here a seated subject faced another likeness of himself kneeling. This suggested a moral lesson: "Rather to beg of yourself for help than ask others for favors" —a traditional Chinese proverb.
Before 1920, photography was primarily for professionals because of equipment costs. Those cameras available in China were assembled from parts on the scene. The cumbersome wooden cases were made in Shanghai, and were fitted with lenses imported from abroad.
By the 1920s and '30s, however, assembled cameras were being imported in greater numbers, leading to a growth in the popularity of amateur photography and the emergence of photographic societies across the country. With broader interest came further development of photography into a genuine form of art.
Photography as art gained significant support from the halls of academe. Peking University became a center of photographic activity under Dean Tsai Yuan-pei (1867-1940), who advocated the "joining of science and art." Dean Tsai was particularly interested in aesthetic education and saw great possibilities for photography in promoting this field among the general populace.
In 1918, nine teachers and students from Peking University staged the Republic of China's first photo exhibition on the campus. Five years later, Huang Chien, one of the students in that exhibition, organized the Artistic Photography Research Association, later renamed the Kuang She (Light Club).
Aside from promoting a general interest in photography, Kuang She was also dedicated, via planned research, to improvement of the techniques and art of photography. Among the concrete advances in the field contributed by its members were Wu Yu-chou's exposure meter, Lao Yen-juo's enlarger, and Chien Ching-hua's panoramic camera.
In mid-June, 1924, Kuang She staged its first-ever photo show on the borrowed walls of the Lai Chin Yu Hsuan Teahouse in Peking's Central Park. It proved immensely successful, attracting an estimated four to five thousand visitors, including government officials, artists, and prominent scholars. The enthusiastic response stimulated Kuang She to stage enlarged, four-day exhibitions the following three Octobers at the same site. Each reportedly attracted more than ten thousand viewers.
In 1927, at the conclusion of the fourth exhibition, Kuang She published the country's earliest photographic annals. Edited by Liu Pan-nung, a professor at Peking University and founding member of Kuang She, the annals included fifty-six works by sixteen photographers, and articles on photography by Kuang She's members.
Kuang She disbanded after publishing but two annals, for most of its members had left Peking, one after another, for southern locales. Some, including Huang Chien and Chien Ching-hua, later joined Hua She (the Photographic Society of China), Shanghai's first regularly active Chinese photographic association.
Because many members of Hua She, including Long Chin-san, had connections with the press, the group's first photo show in March 1928 opened after considerable advance billing in the local newspapers. More than fifteen thousand people crowded into The Eastern Times building to view more than a hundred photographs by Hua She members. The show prompted extensive commentaries in various publications.
Three subsequent photo exhibitions held by Hua She in November of 1928, 1929, and 1930, helped popularize photography further, and photographic associations were established in Szechwan, Honan, and Kwangsi Provinces, plus six Shanghai universities.
Special books on photography began to appear on the market, such as A Good Friend for Photographers, by Kao Wei-hsiang and Lin Tse-tsang, and these helped budding photographers learn more about the nuances of the form.
The Shanghai press discovered that pictures from the exhibits published in the newspapers increased circulation. They quickly began to capitalize on this knowledge by devoting more space to artistic and journalistic photos. Hua She thus helped lay the foundation for China's press photography.
Liu Pan-nung, in a preface to the second volume of photographic annals published by Kuang She in 1928, said Chinese photographers "should try to more fully express, via their cameras, the unique personalities, sentiments, and qualities of the Chinese," and that they should develop "a style different from that of photographers in other countries in the world," so that "the money the Chinese send to Kodak and Agfa will not be wasted."
In the beginning years of the 20th Century, Chang Ho-an, a native of the port city of Tientsin in Hopeh Province, had already begun employing photography in conjunction with traditional Chinese painting, mostly for the sake of convenience. After taking pictures of various flora, he then reproduced them with brush and pigments.
Long Chin-san was more innovative. Instead of producing paintings based on photos, he sought photographic images that met the traditional criteria of Chinese art. He therefore applied the "six precepts of Chinese painting" advocated by Hsieh Ho of the Southern Chi Dynasty (479-501) to the art of photography. These aesthetic criteria encompassed the ideas of concept, natural appearance, composition, modeling on classical paintings, building structure through brushwork, and the use of appropriate coloring. Long eventually became famous for his composite photographs that satisfied the standards previously applied only to Chinese painting.
The artistic achievements of Chinese photographers gradually won international recognition. In 1928, fu Ping-chang, a member of Kwangchow's Ching She, the first photographic association in southern China, was invited to exhibit two photos, "Peasant Woman" and "fruits," at the Salon of Photography in Paris. Three years later, Long's photographic "painting" of a lady boating under a weeping willow appeared at an international salon of photography in Japan.
Somewhat later, Long and photographers Liu Hsu-tsang, Huang Chung-chang, and Hsu Tsu-yin formed a group called the "Three Friends," a name chosen more because of historical resonance with a group of classic Chinese painters than with the actual number of photographers. The group took an organized approach to submitting their works to various international salons of photography.
Their efforts were successful. In the following twenty years, the group succeeded in having over five thousand photos accepted and displayed at photographic salons around the world. Their exhibits not only presented the artistry of Chinese photographers to an international audience, but also helped to present a face of China as viewed by Chinese eyes and lenses. The photos performed a valuable service by offering a different orientation from many foreign photographers whose work pictured the country as a mysterious, ancient, and essentially unknowable land.
While photography gained both popularity and aesthetic acceptance in the Chinese mainland provinces, by the 1930s it was no less nourishing in Japanese-occupied Taiwan.
Photography was at first almost monopolized by the Japanese on the island, but eventually numerous young Chinese left for Japan or the larger cities on the mainland in order to study photographic techniques. Available sources indicate that Lin Shou-i, Peng Jui-lin, and Chang Tsai were among the first to study photography in Japan. The three returned to open private photo studios—Peng in 1930, Lin in 1938, and Chang in 1939—and each exerted exceptional influence on his photographic colleagues.
Lin demonstrated exceptional skill in bringing texture to his photos, giving them a special delicacy. His portrait photographs were masterpieces of composition in their representation of both the physical countenances and the inner spirit of his subjects.
Peng was remarkable for his contributions to professional photographic education, especially around the time of Taiwan's restoration to Chinese sovereignty in 1945. A native of Chutung, Hsinchu County, Taiwan, he graduated first in his class from the Tokyo Photographic College in 1930.
After Peng returned to Taipei, he gained wide attention by holding three different photography exhibits in what is today's Taiwan Provincial Museum. Each displayed portrait, scenic, and commercial photography. His photographic classes subsequently attracted many students, and with his training and encouragement, other Chinese opened photo studios throughout the island.
Chang's contributions were mainly in the area of amateur photography. Born into a literary family of means, he made photographic tours to Japan and Shanghai in his early youth. Later he was fortunate to accompany archaeologist Chen Chi-lu into Taiwan's remote mountain areas, where he had his first experience with field photography.
At this time, many photographers were trying to adapt painting aesthetics to their work. Chang countered this idea by advocating a realistic style. He urged photographers to come close to life and truthfully reflect it. His words fell on fertile ground, especially among Taiwan's amateur photographers.
In the 1950s, Chang Tsai and Teng Nan-kuang, Li Ming-tiao, Huang Tse-hsiu, Chen Yen-ping, and others initiated the Taipei Salon of Photography. The salon was located at the famous Mei Erh Lien Gallery in Taipei, and its activities included public speeches, small-scale expositions, and discussions covering the whole field of photographic art, technique, and aesthetics. The animated group and selling attracted the participation of photographic clubs from various local universities, thereby stimulating more youth to experiment with photographic forms.
A sign of even greater commitment to the form came at this time with the growing popularity and influence of Photography Journal. Originally a pictorial founded by Chen Lu-yin, the magazine eventually was acquired by Chen Yen-ping, director of the Mei Erh Lien Gallery.
Chen introduced innovative ideas to the publication, including a full-page "Photographic Art" feature. The idea came from the short-lived Taiwan Photo Art, the island's first magazine to specialize in photography. Founded by Li Ming-tiao in 1951, it lasted only three issues, but its column "Photographic Art" ran in its transplanted environment for more than four years. The Journal, edited by Huang Tse-hsiu, included quality pictures as well as discussions of outstanding photographic works, explanations of photographic concepts, and responses to inquiries from readers.
No photographic history would be complete without mentioning two of the most famous Chinese news photographers, the late Wong Hsiao-ting and Lawrence Chang. For decades, Wong's photos were used by Time, Life, and other international media. While the world was his beat, two of Wong's photos were enough to make him an anthologized celebrity down to the present day. One was taken in New York City. On a quiet Saturday afternoon in the 1940's he was startled by a huge fireball; he instinctively raised his camera and captured the picture of an airplane plunging into a towering New York skyscraper.
Even more famous is Wong's photo of a blood-covered, crying baby, sitting in the rubble of the Shanghai Railway Station just after a Japanese air raid. The photo touched not only the hearts of people following the war in China, but has reminded subsequent generations of the horrors of war, especially on non-combatants.
Lawrence Chang became interested in photography when in 1918 his father invited a professional photographer to take a formal family portrait. By 1952, Chang was working full-time work with Pan-Asia Newspapers Alliance, a cooperative news agency starred by Chinese, American, and Filipino journalists. Later, Chang worked for the International News Service and NBC, as well as Time and Life. Like Wong, Chang braved battlefields, terrible weather, and the whole range of personal discomforts to pursue newsworthy photos. Chang, who is still very active in journalistic circles, has become a living legend among his colleagues in Taiwan.
With the movement of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949, accomplished photographers from Shanghai, Canton, Peking, and elsewhere on the mainland gradually gravitated to Taipei. The war-disrupted Photographic Society of China had by 1953 resumed its activities on the island under the leadership of Long Chin-san. And within a decade it developed into an international photographic society.
The Society has maintained a rich program of activities. These include monthly meetings and publications, annual exhibitions of photos by members, qualification examinations for Society associates and fellows, and various photographic workshops and international exchange activities.
The organization has also sponsored twenty-four International Salons of Photography since 1964 with entries coming from more than seventy countries. Many famous photographers have been among the judges for the event. And there have been imitators, the highest form of flattery. Similar photographic associations have been formed in many of Taiwan's smaller cities.
The 1960s saw a budding of realist and modernist schools of photography, which complemented the artistic main stream engendered by salon photography. Huang Tse-hsiu and Cheng Sang-hsi were two of the most remarkable realist photographers of this period.
Huang's black-and-white photographic exhibition, "The Lungshan Temple," held at the Mei Erh Lien Gallery in 1961, spurred widespread attempts at realism in Taipei photographic circles.
"I have long tired of pictures of pavilions, lotus flowers, beautiful girls, and parks," Huang said at the time. "My purpose in picturing the Lungshan Temple is to prove that this is not an empty structure, but a receptacle for people's beliefs. The reason this has not already been noted is because photographers were not attentive or lacked the realistic spirit. "
This spirit was conveyed by photographer Cheng Sang-hsi in a memorable series of photos taken in 1960 on Orchid Island, the pristine Pacific islet off the southeastern coast of Taiwan. His unique photographic record of the island's aboriginal Yami tribe systematically presented the inner life, customs, and living environment of the Yami through natural yet elegant photographic composition.
Three years later, Cheng drew rave notices again with his exhibit "Images of fowls," where the form and spirit of birds were as effectively captured by his lens and keen eye as were the Yami.
Primarily a journalistic photographer, Cheng Sang-hsi pioneered in photojournalism with his "Stories of the Hung Yeh (Red Leaf) Baseball Team," which appeared in the first issue of Scooper Monthly. The pictures and accompanying article express the spiritual connotations of the team's competitive struggle, and even when judged by the standards of today the overall effect is touchingly effective.
On the wings of magazines such as Theater, Avant-Garde, and Modem literature, photographic modernism came into great vogue in the latter half of the 1960s. Ko Hsi-chieh was the forerunner of that movement.
From his 1962 exhibition held in Kaohsiung to his 1963 Taipei exhibition, Ko used the special characteristics of wide-angle and telephoto lenses, masses of black-and-white contrast, and simple background lines to dramatize his portraits and scenery. His style was echoed locally not only in photography, but also in painting, advertising, and design.
Modernism finally became so fashionable that in 1973 a group of young men formed Group Visual-10, an influential force in the community that staged numerous exhibitions before being absorbed by the flourishing TV Industry.
The 1970s marked an age of introspection in the ROC. In a predictable reaction against its newly-won affluence—the new "material civilization"—people turned with nostalgia to the simple country life of "eternal China." Songs by local musicians focused on local topics, while literary works emphasized the nation's experiences and contemporary environment. A movement toward photojournalism emerged at this time among local photographers.
The pioneering Echo magazine reported on the country's folklore and living environment through a lens that emphasized the human. Its "snapshots on the street"—so familiar yet so easily ignored—conveyed a warm feeling of intimacy. Encouraged by Echo, many young photographers captured on film the people and things around them, and made these photos tell stories of the vicissitudes of society and culture. Their essentially unsophisticated images stirred a fervor for this approach in various mass media, especially local magazines that were now starting to develop at a quick pace. The magazine supplements to newspapers also followed suit, especially a column in the China Times, the "Jen Chien" (The World of Mortals).
Exhibitions of the time following the photojournalistic orientation—by Wang Hsin, Chen Chuan-hsing, Hsieh Chun-teh, Lin Bor-liang, and other depicted local conditions and customs in Wushe, Luchou, and other small pastoral villages on the island. Their work drew enthusiastic popular and professional comment. According to photographer critic Chang Chao-tang, the photos were the work of photographers who "think, examine, and criticize with their cameras. "
While realistic photography flourished, the artistic-aesthetic school at first paled. But toward the end of the 1970s, Ko Hsi-chieh and Quo Ying-sheng returned after trips abroad to generate a lyrical photographic trend that local commentators called "mental vision"-an aesthetic expression of photographic feeling. Ko's painting-style compositions, which used vivid colors and massive geometric figures, projected a phantom beauty that attracted many admirers.
Quo Ying-sheng's works emphasized the gloomy, yet were simultaneously dainty; although low-key, they expressed symbolic connotations via a masterful control of light, shade, and color. There was an exotic charm underlying these works that also drew considerable popular attention.
Encouraged by the popularity of "mental vision," the lyrical school soared in popularity during the 1980s. In Pingtung, southern Taiwan, members of the nationally celebrated Single Lens Club applied "mental vision" to photography that had a regional flavor. Photographers such as Wu Gia-bao, Seiji Chang and GV-10's Hsieh Chun-teh drew their subject mailer from city life. A whole new movement of young photographers focused their lenses on favored vistas in nature. By manipulating moving figures, they "abstracted" colors and images to express the beauty of speed and rhythm.
More recently, the serious problems of environmental pollution and a new awareness of the importance of ecological preservation have resulted in the emergence of "ecological photography." The most active include Liang Cheng chu, and Lin Bor-liang. They record the beauty of nature—animals, plants, rivers, and mountains—and the crises for the environment in the industrialized areas of the island. Their work has reached a wide audience through various mass media. One of these is Nature, a pro-environment quarterly, which has offered an excellent medium for quality photographs.
The love of eternal China—the native land-has been an enduring subject for photographers. In 1984, Li Hsiao-ching's photographs of the Grand Canal in contemporary China, and Chuang Ming-ching's shots of the Yellow Mountain stirred deep nostalgia among viewers. In a similar vein, Cheng Sang-hsi and other Single Lens members organized a photographic group to systematically record historic sites and objects throughout Taiwan.
Photographers have particularly focused on the spirit of minority nationalities, on ignored and forgotten subjects, and on introspective approaches to social phenomena. A long list of recent photo exhibitions have illustrated these concerns, and their titles represent their orientations: for example, Chang Chao-tang's "Human Grace and Forgiveness," Wang Hsin's "Good-bye Orchid Island," Kuan Hsiao-jung's "Expectations and Strife Among the Two Percent," Juan I-chung's "Peipu" and "Pachihmen," and Huang Chen-fu's "Leper House."
The press has also helped create favorable conditions for realistic photography. Photos regularly run in newspaper columns such as "Image" in the Commercial Times, and "Beautiful Taiwan" in the Independence Evening Post. Magazines do the same, such as Chang Chao-tang's "Domestic Photographers" in Artist, and Juan I-chung's "Contemporary Photographic Masters" in Hsiung Shih Art Monthly.
Thanks both to the popularity of photography as art, and growing disposable income among book lovers, there is a growth in the number of photographic books on the market. In the past decade the most popular include Quo Ying-sheng's Images of Taiwan, Hsieh Chun-teh's Travel of Writers, Liang Cheng- chu's Lin Yuan, Old Man of Stone and Yen Kai-i's Visual Impact, Choice of Shutters, and Moment of Decision.
In November of 1985 came the birth of a new photography magazine, Ren Chien, a journal emphasizing goals of "reporting, discovering, recording, evidencing, and commenting with pictures and words." With this publication, photojournalists have been given more space to fulfill their sense of mission: "to improve society through the photographic presentation of its problems."
"Improve society"—this represents a considerably different goal from those early photographers struggling with the weight and shape of early equipment in China's hinterlands. Like other art forms, photography has encompassed a wealth of aesthetic orientations and techniques during its history. And as a living an, it can be expected to continue its creative development; as it does, it will also provide a rich record of the transformations that take place on both sides of the lens.