Author Archive for Sue Anne

18
Jun

Scribbling on street photography

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Take To the Street

Shanghai peak hour traffic

For those in mainland China, I trust you had a pleasant break over the absurdly arranged Dragonboat Festival holiday (we got Monday to Wednesday off after a 7 day work week).

I was visiting family in Singapore and alternated between eating and mopping my brow against the sweltering heat. Singaporeans were complaining about the recent haze from seasonal Sumatra fires, no doubt, there was a light tinge of smog a few mornings. But bah! I could complain about Shanghai’s enduring pollution but will only be scoffed off by my Beijing friends.

Anyway I was thwarted from picking up the Ricoh GR. But it was for the best because with every cloud comes a silver lining, the Iphone came to the rescue. I mentioned EyeEm before, more user-friendly filter app than Instagram that doesn’t attempt to auto-crop your photos. And under a more anonymous username, there is no one to “follow” you.

Now, pair that with the photo and text app Phonto, what do you get? Street photography with wisecrack statements, apologies if they are quite lame. Observe my taxi journey from the airport, after surviving a very uncomfortable and restless red-eye flight from Singapore. I used to do this journey with ease, 5 hour flight meant a 3-4 hour nap and salty eggs for breakfast, but alas, this lady is aging and is not as spry as before.

Enjoy! Continue reading ‘Scribbling on street photography’

05
Jun

Behind the Camera: Yosuke Ishizuka (石塚洋介) on the act of photography

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Behind the Camera Interviews

Yosuke Ishizuka 6

Yosuke Ishizuka profile

Caio Yosuke Ishizuka (石塚洋介) is a Japanese Ph.D candidate in Shanghai studying the role of photographers in advocating social movements across East Asia. He is also an editor for Taiwanese photography magazine, Voices of Photography. In addition to his academic and writing pursuits, Yosuke dabbles in street photography but seriously contemplates about the process and what he deems to be a “conflicting” relationship between photographer and subject. A very dedicated and thoughtful individual with plenty to share with our readers.  Website: Glances

SA: From our conversation, I am very intrigued by the focus of your PhD work looking at the role of photography in social movements in East Asia. Can you share what drew you into this subject? 

我们之前进行对话时，我对你的研究非常感兴趣，东亚社会运动当中摄影师的角色，你为什么被这个题目吸引了呢？

YI: I have been studying Chinese Mandarin since young and have travelled to China and Taiwan. In 2006 I was an exchange student in Hong Kong for a year. At that time I was majoring in sociology and also had interests in visual arts, but my home college didn’t offer many courses connecting these areas. I noticed Hong Kong had many photo documentary projects and found the trend interesting. Before then, my notion of photography was that it is only an inexplicit form of art expression or a direct method of reporting extraordinary events like hunger or war, which seemed very far from myself. But I noticed some Hong Kong photographers used their work as a political tool to address local issues. For example, I was very impressed by the Community Museum Project’s works. They took pictures of Lee Tung Street, one of the oldest street on Hong Kong island which was designated to be demolished for redevelopment, shot it from end to end and turned them into a panoramic picture. They also documented objects the residents had in their shops and houses. This project was obviously part of the protest by local residents against the enforced redevelopment by the government.

Another project is a photo series published by the Society for Community Organization (SoCO) which collaborates with photographers to document people’s lives in a relatively poor area of Hong Kong to report their poor living conditions and related problems. I think their projects have value since Hong Kong continues to suffer from serious social class. After the exchange program, I went back to Japan and wrote a master thesis on documentary photography in Hong Kong. I wanted to continue study more about documentary photography in Asia but at the same time I found my life in Tokyo was quite boring. Luckily, I later got to know my current supervisor Dr. Gu Zheng (顾铮) who teaches photography theory at Fudan University in Shanghai and decided to study under him.

我学中文很久，小时候就去过中国大陆和台湾旅行。后来在2006年我到香港去当了一年的交换学生。当时我的专业是社会学，但其实也对视觉艺术感兴趣，我日本的大学却没有连接两者的课程。我在香港发现有不少纪实摄影的项目，觉得这个现象很有意思。之前我对摄影的理解很狭窄，我以为摄影要么就是很模糊的艺术表现方式，不然就是很直接告诉你所发生的新闻故事的一种方法，往往这些报道摄影作品离你很远，都是宏大的叙事，比如饥饿、战争等等。不过我发现香港的摄影家却用自己的作品阐述着本土问题。例如，“民间博物馆计划”，这组作品让我印象深刻：香港最老的街坊之一利东街被拆迁之前，“民间博物馆计划”的成员赶到那里拍摄了一整条路的样貌，之后做成幅宽的摄影作品。他们也拍摄了当地居民店铺里和家里的东西。这个项目很显著地构成居民所推动的反抗政府城市重建项目的社会运动的一部分。

另一个有趣的例子是“香港社区组织协会”出版的摄影书系列。他们和摄影师联合起来纪录相对来讲贫穷社区的人们的生活，以便向社会诉说他们所置身的恶劣生活条件和相关问题。我觉得这个项目很有价值，因为香港仍然存在着严重贫富差距，但又往往被忽视。学校的交换计划结束后，我回到日本，就香港的纪实摄影写了篇论文。当时我还想继续研究亚洲的纪实摄影，但同时觉得我在东京的生活有点无聊。之后我很幸运地认识了在复旦大学教摄影理论的顾铮教授，便决定在他指导之下进行研究。

SoCO Yau_1

(Above) By Dustin Shum for Society for Community Organization (SoCO) 

SA: So he was a reason you moved to Shanghai to do a PhD? 

所以顾铮老师是你决定到上海来念博士的缘由吗？ Continue reading ‘Behind the Camera: Yosuke Ishizuka (石塚洋介) on the act of photography’

31
May

What I am reading: Three foreign perspectives on China

By Sue Anne 3 Comments
Categories: What I Am Reading

What are you shooting at

How do we as foreigners view China? Beyond the tired observations of the darker side of urbanisation, weathered and beaten portraits of the under-classes, what do we see that is different from how locals view their surroundings?  Do we suffer from the shallow “drive by shooting” effect, or do we really provide an insight that is wildly unique?

Today’s links present three perspectives, I’d be curious to know if you feel them to be similar or otherwise.  

- Czech photographer Jiri Makovec’s mark as a photographer is noted by his recent induction into InPublic, the street photography collective started up by Nick Turpin, his feature in New York Times and referred to as “One to Watch” by the British Journal of Photography. I was pleased to discover his work on Russia and China, a wonderful contrast in style and perspective: the former monochrome, vintage and personal, while the latter was desaturated, upbeat and distant. Makovec’s China collective is very interesting mainly due to the obvious absence of Beijing and Shanghai. Rather, it had a more “provincial” feel: domestic tourists, a smaller sized Mao statue, regional airpots and generic natural scenary. It captured China in an even fashion by the lack of captions on location and tother details.

- Markel Redondo studied part of his MA in photography in Beijing. His work covered topics du jour: urbanisation in Chongqing, environmental issues along the Yangtze etc. But I thought his most interesting work was documenting Chinese domestic tourism. He referred to the project as:

“… a satiric comment on the mass movements of people for cultural and “scenic spot” consumption. It concentrates on the social interactions between group members and leaders, tourists and the landscape and reveal a new phenomenon.”

- You’d probably have seen Alan Delorme’s “Totems” at some point. Less photography, more photographic art. While on a purposeful trip to Shanghai, he photoshopped shots of exaggerated (though not implausiable) and towering cargo that hawkers and deliverymen in Shanghai carry around against a backdrop of Shanghai’s building frenzy. His manufactured perspective of China is more overt, though I wouldn’t go as far to refer to it as reductive, but best appreciated for its wit and artistic value.

You probably can tell which is a favorite of mine, what about you?

You can follow more of my frequent posts on China and photography-related links on the blog’s Facebook page.

29
May

On the road in Kyrgyzstan (part 2)

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Off the Streets of Shanghai

◄ Back
Picture 1 of 6

Months ago, I answered a call from a most unexpected person.

“Who is this?” I inquired snappishly, assuming it to be yet another sales call interrupting my evening.

Static greeted me. Then … “Surname Chen. You …. remember me?”

I looked at the country code and googled it: +996.

Kyrgyzstan.

Did someone find my missing tripod in Osh province?

Unsure, I hung up quickly. He rang back again and after much probing, he replied in exasperation, ”It’s Chen, the (Chinese) businessmen you met at the Kara-Suu market in Osh? From Fujian? You met my wife and cousin.”

I did a mental flip through my poor memory. That was more than a year ago. And yes, I do remember him, his family and Chinese comrades that made up the substantial gaggle of Chinese traders in one of the largest trade bazaars in Osh region.

“How are you! Goodness, how did you end up calling me?”

It turned out that he was cleaning out his car when he found my name card. Chen was still in dusty Kara-Suu but unfortunately, his wife had returned to Xian to see family, so has his very fiesty young female cousin who spoke Russian with the most Chinese of accents. The local Kyrgyz laborers loved her.

“A young girl like that,” he referred to his cousin, “she needs to find a husband back home. Not a place like here.”

When I first met Chen, I knew he was different. I felt in him a sense of wanderlust that built up his tolerance for working in a less developed country. He also had a university education, unlike his peers at Kara-suu. Chen never saw himself working as a tradesman, much less in Kyrgyzstan. He missed China’s more developed east coast and would even settle back in Urumqi, Xinjiang where the family business had an export outpost.

We spoke at length, about Shanghai, about China and about life. I sensed he was lonely and was tired of mingling with his Chinese neighbors. He was very engaged when talking about literature and history, sharing happily his views on everything.

Before he hung up, he seemed cheered. “Keep well, 小郑” (Little Zheng, my Chinese surname). I read your blog, though it’s all in English which is a problem.”

I remember he had dropped me a nice email weeks after our meeting, as did his young and lovely wife. Chen said he enjoyed the photos, calling it a perspective of a tourist, not someone who had to be there for work. I readily acknowledged it. It’s easy to romanticize life on the road, especially through rolling hills of evergreen and snow in Kyrgyzstan. But for someone like Chen, after tens of hours crossing the Chinese-Kyrgyz border at Ishkertam Pass in a rattling bus, one would find it tedious and most of all … homesick.

28
May

The worker’s ferry across the Huangpu

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Street Stories

◄ Back
Picture 1 of 7

The weekend was mostly gloomy and wet though offering a comforting blanket for a restful weekend best enjoyed with a quiet cup of tea and movie du jour.

But for most of Shanghai, it was work as usual. Opening restaurants, selling wares and pounding pavements in a bid for a tidy investment, be it real estate, stock tips or a Ponzi scheme.

I joined the droves of delivery men on motorcyles and electric bikes as they crossed from one end of the Changyang Lu ferry point to the opposite side of the Huangpu River on Fuxing Lu. These men are exiled from the rest of the commuter population, unable to enter tunnels and bridges, but also seeking the fastest and most direct route to their customers in the dense metropolitan area.

As we swayed across choppy waters on that grey afternoon, I surveyed my fellow passengers: delivery men carrying a microwave, a television, a giant oven, eletrical wires and construction piping, adventure bikers and the occasional tourist who took a wrong turn somewhere.

The damp air helped cool the interior of the ferry which was infused with fumes from sputtering motorbikes which had readied itself at the exit. Having journeyed this way thousands of times, their moves were mechanical: park and stare. But in the few minutes as the ferry drifts sideways against the current, I watched an occasional sense of awe among the men as the unending skyline opens up to them. For one repair man, he said, “I’ve lived here ten years, and this always leaves an impression. Best part of my commute.”

Huangpu River has 19 ferry points dotted along both sides and four key ports for longer travel to nearby islands. Visitors are mostly aware of the pleasant yet iconic ferry journey back and forth the city’s two icons: the historical Bund and gleaming Lujiazui financial district.

But what they miss out is travelling on all the ferries up and down the Huangpu, watching the skylines crawl upwards in a manner that mapped Shanghai’s modernity. There are no tourists, only more deliverymen, workers, floating shipyards and waiting cargo hulls.

24
May

What I am reading

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: What I Am Reading

IMG_9012

We travel around the world in this week’s photography links, touching on culture, poverty, urbanization and daily life.

- New Yorker profiles Caroline Drake’s work on Central Asia with rather insightful captions. She has been photographing the region for a long time, delving layers into the region, transcending culture, ethnicity and politics. Her latest book “Two Rivers” follows the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, the region’s major rivers.

- The Atlantic features how photographers are telling the story of China’s warp-speed urbanization at the San Jose Museum of Art. I was quite taken by Weng Fen‘s work. In his earlier series Sitting on the Wall and Bird’s Eye View, Weng’s images has young girls sitting/standing on a wall, bridge and platform staring out into the abyss of technicolor urbanism in cities such as Haikou, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

-  Photographer Russian Vlad Sokhin captures an under-reported plight of children in servitude called “Restavek: Child Slavery in Haiti” which I found very unsettling. Sokhin’s photos are disturbing without being graphic, but not as distressing as what he did not photograph:

“Sometimes he (Sokhin) was forced to put down his camera so he would not be participating in mistreatment, he said. In one photograph (Slide 20), a man who refused to have his identity revealed nonetheless slung his arm around the shirtless shoulders of his restavek boy while Mr. Sokhin was shooting. His head is cut off, a lit cigarette dangles from his hand, and the effect is creepy.

Even creepier, Mr. Sokhin said, was what he declined to photograph next: the man put the cigarette in the little boy’s mouth, laughing.”

The ethics of photographing such vulnerabe subjects are always murky to me, but I hope the ends justify the means. Writer Deborah Sontag wrote an extensive article about the plight of restaveks.

- Martin Parr’s saturated and trippy “USA Color” should perfectly lift your spirits.

As always, you can read more related links on the blog’s Facebook page.

23
May

On the road in Kyrgyzstan (part 1)

By Sue Anne 5 Comments
Categories: Off the Streets of Shanghai

◄ Back
Picture 1 of 6

One thing I promised myself with the blog’s revival is to share more as I’m hoping readers will evolve a little with me as we expand beyond Shanghai and China on occasion.

As part of the China in Central Asia project that I have been involved with, I am still publishing on the topic as interest remains strong. Come July, I’ll be having an exhibit on Kyrgyzstan in Singapore, details which I will share soon.

Inspired by the simplicity of monochrome and missing the general wanderlust feel of driving for hours on end from north to south and back again, experiencing evergreens to snowy mountains in span of weeks, I present a short series of being on the road in Kyrgyzstan.

22
May

Little Bun: Superhero

By Sue Anne 1 Comment
Categories: Portraits of Strangers, Street Stories and Take To the Street

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“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Trapped in a bustling mall at the worst possible time – lunch, I was in line at a restaurant when I spotted Captain America riding the escalator. Kitted out from head to toe in a leather headgear, handsome blue jacket and jeans and of course, a red-white-and-blue shield - he strode confidently while examining his surroundings.

I watched him as he ambled around the cinema on the seventh floor of the shopping mall, obliging passers-by for photographs. There was no sign, no accompanying Avenger partners, nothing. Just him. Strolling.

It was too good an opportunity to pass up. I dashed over and waited patiently past eager children and giggling office girls. His face, half-covered, appeared handsome and strong. He posed strong-man style next to his younglings, staring off into the distance with a look that said, “Yes, I am here to protect and pose.”

When it was my turn, I shook my head when he shifted into yet another stance.

“I just want to know if you made this costume.” I asked.

Caught off-guard, he relaxed and nodded sheepishly. I replied, “That’s just awesome. What’s your name?”

It was the first time he appeared abashed. His Cosplay (costume play) name is “Little Bun” or xiaomantou (小馒头). The irony struck me as I tilted my head backwards to speak to his 6″2 frame. The movie Avengers was playing in the theatres then but he wasn’t paid to be walking advertisement. There was no need to given the glamorous lure of Hollywood and Marvel combined. Why are you here, if unpaid and simply posing for pictures in a random mall? I asked.

He shrugged, “I had time. Besides, this is fun.”

Little Bun was born and bred in Shanghai, and currently studying in university. He participated in Cosplay events, even performed in the annual ChinaJoy Cosplay Competition – where lusty men photographed endless half-naked young women in World of Warcraft costumes and Goth-dressed, pimply teenagers acted out their favorite Japanese anime novels.

I took down his number, much to the embarrassment of my colleague who commented that I was too old to be chatting up a young boy. Undeterred, I showed up per his instructions the next weekend in Jingan’s shopping mall, where he and his Cosplay friends were participating in an “American Heroes” exhibit. After that, he said, they had to practice for their play for the upcoming ChinaJoy.

Sure enough, on a hot and sweaty afternoon, I arrived to a smorgesboard of costume-clad teenagers in a copyright confusion/crossover from Marvel to Star Wars to DC Comics. Storm troopers posed with a Red Darth Vader, ambiguous interpretations of Spidermen and Supermen jumped around.

Little Bun was popular as Captain America, holding babies and embracing young girls in mini-skirts. He was shy by nature clearly but the mask gave him a veneer of confidence as it did anonymity.

But isn’t that the case with all our favorite superheroes? Continue reading ‘Little Bun: Superhero’

20
May

London Photography Exhibits this Spring

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Off the Streets of Shanghai and What I Am Reading

Salgado 01               [by Sebastião Salgado, from "Genesis"]

I visit London frequently and make it a point to take in one or two exhibits each time. Art and culture are abundant and highly accessible in the Big Smoke, so there really is no excuse not to pop by The Photographers’ Gallery on top of Oxford Circus, or the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in South Kensington.

During my last two visits, I saw the following photography-related shows which reminded me how powerful this medium remains despite the growing prevalence of digital video, and why funds are still invested in high quality photography work.

Sebastião Salgado’s Genesis at the Natural History Museum (until 8SEP)

I first saw Salgado’s work as part of his powerful series “Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age” which looked at laborers from 26 countries in different fields – mining, oil refinery, coffee and tea plantations, ditches and canals. Salgado had been accused of romanticizing the Third World, but they hold irrevocabe and brutal truth. After “Workers” came “Migrations”, a six-year photographic chronicle of the “human flood tides set loose around the world by wars, famines or just people searching for work.” I imagine that after documenting so much human suffering and destruction, Salgado turned to nature or what was left of nature’s spoils.

The best online showcase of Genesis is by Time’s Lightbox but nothing prepared me for the haunting beauty of seeing them in all their spectacular detail. Since 2004, Salgado made a total of 34 trips to the Kalahari Desert, the jungles of Indonesia, the Galápagos Islands and Madagascar, across the Antarctic, Falkland Islands, South Sandwich Islands and across Siberia with the nomadic Nenets. Thank god for benches, I lingered there quite mesmerized by sea lions staring back at me (see above), a sea of chin-strapped penguins diving into the sea’s abyss and Siberia Nenet hunters driving reindeer across icy plains. You’d think that his choice of monochrome for nature was a compromise, but I emerged convinced of its deliberative and arresting impact.

Man Ray Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery (until 27MAY)

“A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.” ~ Man Ray, Oct. 2, 1966

Man Ray[Man Ray, "Self-portrait"]

Continue reading ‘London Photography Exhibits this Spring’

17
May

An encounter with laundry … and a wall

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Take To the Street and The Lives Within

It’s odd to see the screaming pronouncements “WASH! IRON!” through a sea of laundry along a busy alley. Sunday afternoon meant residents were out in the streets, and hanging every piece of clothing on bamboo poles, wooden pegs, thin string that hung from one house to the next. On a beautiful day, it could almost pass as a quirky art installation.

As I moved closer, the hiss of steamers and thudding of the washing machines grew louder. The shop’s plastic shields used for staving off the cold swayed to a soft ryhthm as the billowing steam bumped gently against it. Poke your head through them and the noise is deafening.

I approached hesitantly and began my inquiries despite her blank expression. Do you get mostly uniforms or civilian laundry? Do you do dry cleaning? Why, when most residents would prefer to save money, would they drop their clothing here? Can you really de-shrink a badly laundered sweater?

Her scowl was unfriendly and persistently silent to my questions. After a flicker at my camera, she stared ahead as if right through me.

Soon, the tumbling stopped, as did the spitting steamers. There was only the backnoise of the alley, and her unwavering wall that said, maybe you should return back to the street.

February 2013

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