The Sun's Vigil - Explorer Photographer Lü Lingling

Author: Lü Lingling
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Outside the south gate of Chengdu, there is an unassuming courtyard. It is a "Red Army Courtyard" built in the 1960s, with one floor and one basement, quiet and ancient. Although it has been renovated, it still looks a bit dilapidated, with lime occasionally falling from the ceiling. There are no luxuries in the house, and the furniture is still left by Lü Lingling's parents. The sofa is as hard as a wooden chair, and the vines on the rattan chairs have all spread apart. Yet, it was in this old house that Lü Lingling's initial photography dream was nurtured and born.
Lü Lingling's love for photography began in childhood. An old Zeiss 120 camera left by her father gave her the thrill of pressing the shutter. Starting with this camera, images of her youth were frozen on film time and time again. These ordinary photographs became the source of her artistic career as a photographer. At the age of 16, Lü Lingling left Chengdu, the "Land of Abundance," and came to the Greater Liangshan Mountains as a "sent-down youth." At 17, her father sent her to the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang, where she became a railway soldier. The experiences of serving in the west gave her many unforgettable memories. Her heart grew closer to the desolate land of the west, and she gained a deeper understanding of the ethnic groups living there, moved by their tenacious vitality. Therefore, when she had the chance to pick up her camera again after a long absence, she instinctively aimed it at the then little-known western regions.
After returning to Chengdu, Lü Lingling found a good job at the Sichuan Branch of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. However, she always liked to travel, constantly seeking new subjects for her lens. In that era of severe shortage of production materials, all of her income after being discharged from the army was invested in photography. Sometimes she had to save for a long time to buy enough film, and she could only maximize her photography dream within limited means. Due to insufficient funds, she usually chose to create works in the surrounding areas of Chengdu. After several years of creative practice, her innate love for nature, her detached heart in the mortal world, and her aloof personality, along with the subconscious urge to return to nature, led Lü Lingling to decisively quit her job at the agricultural academy and devote herself entirely to the photography art she loved.
In the early 1980s, Lü Lingling, along with young poets such as Zhai Yongming and Ouyang Jianghe, entered Jiuzhaigou, then little-known to the public. They rowed homemade rafts, drifting aimlessly in the clear waters of the Longhai. They built bonfires on the grasslands at the foot of the snow-capped mountains and talked all night. When tired, they would gaze up at the starry sky. Every time they returned from an outing, countless sleepless nights in the darkroom would result in beautiful works appearing on the walls of the small house, on the screens of the slide projector, and in the eyes of those yearning for the west.
Lü Lingling often held slide shows in the old house, with an audience that included painters, poets, writers, and musicians, of course, as well as photography enthusiasts. As each photograph appeared and faded in the light, everyone's hearts followed them to that distant and mysterious plateau. The exchanges after the screenings subtly influenced each other's artistic perspectives. One of the guests at the time, the later poet Ouyang Jianghe, showed a passionate fondness for Lü Lingling's early black-and-white works, incorporating this fondness into his poetry.
In addition, the group of like-minded individuals would also hold various poetry readings, musical performances, and art exhibitions in the old house. Countless nights, in this very old house, souls communicated with souls, ideas collided with ideas, and countless sparks of artistic inspiration flashed in this warm and free atmosphere.