photographing the far far east
2009 has been packed with lots of travel goodness, early on saw me speaking in Melbourne, exhibiting in Adelaide and then speaking again in Auckland for the fantastic Semi-Permanent conference.
These trips were but the entree to what would become a mammoth expedition through both the far east and then the west.
Our journey begins with the Pingyao International photography festival, located roughly 700km South-West of Beijing. One of UNESCO's world heritage sites, Pingyao is an intriguing fortified city. Built in the 14th century it was bound to have plenty on offer and as such we booked in for a week with the carefully slippery floor.
They say the dead travel fast but not as fast as Pingyao's Cat-ear noodle soup!
Arriving in the medieval fortified city of Pingayo was truthfully an exhausting experience. If your well-travelled travel agent hasn't heard of it, it's definitely off the beaten track. We flew from Sydney to Shanghai to Beijing to Taiyuan and then a long drive to Pingyao and then joined the bumper-to-bumper human traffic of spectators filling every inch of the festival I was exhibiting in. Nothing in the world could have prepared us for the mammoth week ahead; attending exhibitions, lectures and events and shooting the dusty fortified city that housed the enormous international photography exhibition.
The exhibition in Pingyao was overwhelming in scale and popularity. The number of photographs in the show was staggering and this was only matched by the masses of spectators viewing the shows. Daily we set out to check out a variety of shows and find something that inspires. After all, we're all searching for inspiration everywhere, all of the time!
I found inspiration in a verity of photographs. In particular, I loved two photographer's exhibiting figurative works.
Wangfei
Mongolian photographer Wangfei had a series of B&W portraits of Mongolian's in their native landscapes (Image pictured below). Although their subject and environment is not unusual, what was unique was the drama contained within each image. Maybe it was the stripping back of colour or the simplicity of a landscape containing one person, the large scale rag prints or the detail captured in their subject, whatever the cause, the effect was a series of highly detailed staged portraits that somehow seemed to contain soul.
Oleg Dou
Another photographer who made my heart flutter was DOU The Russian artist presented a series of portraits that were quite repetitious in their theme and subject and yet were so beautiful that they continued to entice me to walk up close to the work to marvel at each new image.
The haunting porcelain skinned subjects were void of detail other than the intense eyes, textured lips and precious objects contained within each desaturated piece. The contrast between the flawless airbrushed skin and the highly detailed features is what makes these works so powerful.
Both series appealed to me for similar reasons. Both were intense staged portrait series that captured emotion and were also technically delicious but what separates their approach is that one photographer shoots like a purest and the other, like a postproduction junky. This is the kind of diversity one can find in the strange and unique festival in Pingyao.
What's really lovely about the show in Pingyao is that it's filed to the brim with photographers and artists from the show. The result of this is that you meet a staggering number of exhibitors, curators and directors; in fact, you all just hang out for the week under the strangest circumstances. You sit around drinking beer together and chatting about bodily functions and laugh about the fish and cat-ear noodle breakfasts and finally, you get to discuss each other's work and what inspires us all.
How did we construct or capture our work? What's hot right now? Where are we all headed? Where do we stand in the world?