Recorded Impressions of Beijing in the 1980s

Author: Qian Yu (Photography), Li Jianming (Text)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: Mr. Qian Yu's photographs span from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, with shooting locations limited to accessible public spaces in Beijing. Yet, he meticulously captured a history of the lives of Chinese people during the early stages of the reform and opening-up, starting from the smallest details of daily life. A visualized social history of the Chinese people should and can be composed of photographs taken by both true photography enthusiasts and professional practitioners. If professional practitioners are writing history, then amateur practitioners are sketching it. Only those with a rich inner world can create photographs with rich content. Mr. Qian's photographs are not without humor, sometimes even a touch of irony, all conveyed through a warm gaze that ultimately returns to his negatives. Each of his photographs retains the temperature of past realities and is imbued with the lingering fragrance of history. His photos are like gentle touches on the eyes of reality, stirring up ripples of emotion—natural and intimate. He focuses on the seemingly insignificant details, yet these details are closely tied to the fluctuations of the real world. With such photographs, he witnesses the era and preserves history for us. As a photography enthusiast, Mr. Qian, while capturing the daily lives of Beijing citizens in public spaces, brings the people in his photography (the photographer, the subject, and the onlooker) into sharp focus. These Chinese people in front of and behind the lens become his subjects of observation. Although his photography skills were not yet refined at the time, his unique perspective and sense of humor allowed us to see the richness of human nature, awakened and expressed by the modern ritual of being photographed. From his photographs, we discover that photography has become a medium that awakens the long-suppressed self. From the unique angle of "Taking Photos," we can observe that the spiritual demeanor and life attitudes of the Chinese people begin to undergo substantive changes through their interaction with photography. Looking back now, the personality and self-identity revealed through this activity of photography will inevitably extend to other aspects of their lives and exert subtle influences on their social lives. And perhaps this is the profound yet invisible impact that photography has on human consciousness and modern life.