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A photographic activity in a remote area brings some unexpected results By Yuan Yuan

A village seated deep in the mountains of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region was the center of a photographic whirlwind meant to foster greater intimacy between photographer and subject.

In December 2012, a group of artists from Beijing broke the silence in remote Shangjuanzu Village of Xiji County, once home to 200, with the clicking of shutters, clappers and pens.

The United Nations designated Xiji as an inhospitable region in the 1970s due to its limited water and food resources. Shangjuanzu isn’t accessible by roads, and electricity only became available in 2010. There was little hope of a better life for its inhabitants until a relocation program was launched in 2012 to move them to flatlands.

By the time the visitors from Beijing arrived, half of the houses in Shangjuanzu had been torn down and only 91 people from 22 households were still living there. Wang Zheng,a Xiji-born freelance photographer, initiated the outing to Shangjuanzu in November 2012 along with several friends to shoot photos at the original site of the village.

In pursuit of creativity

Although participating artists involved movie directors, poets, novel writers and even painters, the Shangjuanzu-based visual art program is mainly for photographers, who, according to Wang, are stuck on the question of how to fi nd more photographic possibilities.

With more than 30 years of photography experience, the 51-year-old Wang has judged some photography competitions focusing on rural life. He said most works look similar.

“The pictures are either about happy harvests or the beautiful scenery in rural areas, but only a few show the daily life of the villagers—it is not enough at all,” said Wang.

For Chen Xiaobo, photo editor at Xinhua News Agency, it is not just a problem with rural life pictures, but the whole industry.

“We clearly divide the photos into categories such as portraits, landscapes, etc. and teach how to take good pictures in each category,”said Chen. “This has confined photographers’creativity to an established format.”

According to Zang Ce from the China Photographers Association, the reasons why many photographers are unable to take great photos are inadequate equipment, travel money and academic training.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Wang Zheng, an initiator of thephotographic outing to the remote Shangjuanzu Village, hopes the activity can help participants seek inspiration from the lives of villagers

CAPTURING MOMENTS: Zang Ce advises photographers to rediscover their original feeling or passion for photography

“These factors do matter of course, but these influences get exaggerated,” said Zang.He suggests photographers turn back to their original feeling or passion for photography to break down barriers to creativity.

“When I was a fresh photographer, I was curious about everything around me and wanted to display it all with my camera,” said Zang. But,he admitted that after learning more skills, this curiosity faded away as he began to focus more on the composition of photographic elements rather than the subjects themselves. “The problem is not being insuf fi cient, but overwrought.What we want to do is help the photographers alleviate burdens instead of teaching them more,” he said.

Sharing Zang’s idea, Wang had long planned a photographic outing to the countryside to seek inspiration from the everyday lives of villagers. He finally chose Shangjuanzu as the destination.

“It is like a huge performing art and we had no idea what would happen,” said Zang.

Full of surprises

The village never had any guests from major cities before and prepared a warm welcome at the gates.

Wang purposely chose December, as it is well after the fall harvest, providing ample time for villagers’ participation in the program.

Organizers prepared five pocket cameras for the villagers, each worth about 700 yuan($113). Except for teaching villagers the basic skills, they provided no guidance on composition or selection of subjects, just asking them to snap photos of whatever suited their fancy.

On the evening of December 15, after a day of shooting, they made the fi rst display of the pictures both from visiting photographers and villagers. The villagers’ works awed almost everybody present.

HIDDEN ART: The Hidden Land exhibition opens in the Today Art Museum in Beijing on April 7

“The photographers often gasped at the display of the villagers’ pictures,” said Chen. “It is unexpectedly awesome.”

Five-year-old Ma Xiaofu is only 1.2 meters tall and his pictures are all at the height of his eyes.People in his pictures mostly have neither head nor feet. But this created a novel visual effect.

Eleven-year-old Ma Qin’s pictures are all about her female friends. None of the girls posed for the camera—they either hide behind a blurred window, or jump on piles of straw or just show a hand in the sunshine.

Ma Shenghua is the only teacher in the village’s primary school, which had less than 30 students. She took photos of her students. Most of the kids have never seen cameras before so they appear more candid than kids who are more used to putting on a face.

“The kids might not look so natural in the photographers’ cameras,” said Zang.“Photographers are always inclined to tell everybody they are camera carriers and they are professional, which is more like an obstacle.”

The photographic program in Shangjuanzu lasted for four months until March. In addition to more than 80 artists from across the country,29 local villagers also participated, the youngest being 4 years old and the oldest 67.

Photographer Bai Dongquan said that he learned a lot from the villagers’ pictures although they sometimes made him feel kind of frustrated.“After years of professional experience, I never thought pictures can be taken with so many different and interesting angles,” he said.

Bai got up very early every morning in the village and worked very hard to take pictures.So did his companions. “Some of the photographers took their best works ever in the village.”

From village to Beijing

HI, PEERS: A young girl looks at the photos at the Hidden Land exhibition on April 20

On April 7, before participating villagers moved to their new houses in another town, they took a slight detour to Beijing, more than 1,000 km away. Their works were shown at a large photo exhibition entitled Hidden Land.

The exhibition displayed 2,600 pictures from both Shangjuanzu villagers and professional photographers in the four-story museum.Villagers played a major role in planning, too,selecting their favorites fi rst and letting the professionals help to choose the rest.

Villagers’ choice is mostly based on their feelings to the subject of the pictures—the cat,the dog, the tree in the courtyard, the farmland or food they like most.

“Judging solely by professional standards,most of the villagers’ works are not qual ifi ed to be exhibited, but they are so vivid that you will forget all those criteria,” said photographer Pan Ke.

Natasha Murray, an Australian freelance photographer visited the exhibition and was strongly impressed. “It is just amazing what they have done in the village and I really hope I can participate in such a program in the future,” said Murray.

“All the surprises, in a way, come from the large gap between these two groups and the low expectations of the villagers’ works at the beginning,” said Hai Jie, a photographic critic.

“We don’t want to draw any conclusion from this experiment and we want to leave it to the audience to decide,” said Wang Zheng. “This is just a start of the following activities we are going to take.”