Zhao's main works

Society in the lens (published in 2004)

Song Zhuang in Black and White: Artistic Pursuit and Life Confessions of Young People in Dynasties (published in 2003)

Memories about to die (published in 2003)

Focus on Survival: A Girl Wandering on the Edge of the City —— Zhao's Notes on Shooting Another Life (published in 2002)

Alternative Life: The Real World in the Photographer's Eyes —— The Real World in the Photographer's Eyes (published in 2000)

Focus on Survival —— A girl wandering on the edge of the city (published in 1999)

There are 10 graphic works, each of which has aroused widespread social repercussions and concerns.

Zhao deviated from the flashy light and shadow of this era, and he was more interested in the "invisible" things: those "invisible people" and "invisible cities". He aimed at "Miss" first, which seemed to satisfy the readers' voyeurism. But no, it really doesn't matter. Just as he also pointed the camera at another kind of rascal, studying here is not fun, but a little heavy. The heaviness from the bottom.

For Zhao, photography is both a record and a narrative. Those children performers lying on the street with nails and broken glass, scavengers in the city, ferrymen in the bay, crab fishermen in the sea fork and fishermen in Qiongzhou Strait are just the protagonists of coolies. Similarly, prostitutes who come to Hainan from the inland are just an ancient way of making a living. They probably don't need or get sympathy from others. Does Zhao express humanitarian concern or social criticism? This seems unnecessary to be over-interpreted. As an observer and experiencer, he intervened in events that were ignored or simply hidden by the public, which made his picture stories have the impact of news "black lens". It is the author's obvious position to sympathize with the people and things being photographed.

The characters in these shots are all wandering on the edge of the city. For example, the author's shooting of urban scavengers has a strong sense of social investigation. "Where do they live? What kind of organizational form does it take? How are their fields of work divided? How did you get rid of the garbage you picked up? Does it need to be reworked? How about their income ...? "In this way, a state of existence can be revealed through the lens and words.

The story of "Miss" is obviously more troublesome. The author won their trust in the form of paid shooting and asked them to register for publication in advance. Now that the mutual trust between friends has been reached, the story may be traced back to their lives before they came to Hainan and continue into their later lives. In fact, the author has taken follow-up photos of some "Miss", and the lens has been transferred from Hainan to all parts of the country. The fate of the characters has developed in depth, and the scene of the lens has won a sense of history.

They also live in this real world, and "they" are not others different from "we", let alone the absence of existence. Zhao wants to make their lives public with a very peaceful and harmless mood. It would be great if we could offset the unfair criticism and excessive embarrassment and impetuousness of some things in the world. "But it is true that, in view of the concealment and sensitivity of the profession of" Miss ",the author's sympathy or even pity is actually difficult to hold. On the one hand, Zhao's marginal identity is symmetrical with his subject to some extent, which may prevent sympathy from being used for commercial consumption; On the other hand, the author also tells the story of his cohabitation with a "young lady", which inevitably makes moral judgment present a kind of complexity here.

It is undoubtedly the value of these "missed" pictures to truly restore the scene and emphasize the author's experience after intervention. Zhao did not intend to become a social pathologist, nor even to treat some pathological social cells with anti-inflammation. He is just a well-intentioned recorder. In this era, "Miss", as a factual existence, does not have much "concealment"-not only Hainan, but also "stray parrots" standing on the street can be seen everywhere, and the night is not enough to cover up this landscape-the author only reveals and highlights its details, so that the factual existence can be "seen" by readers through the witness function of the lens. Because of Miss series, Zhao Ceng was named as one of the "30 Most Important Photographers in China in 2000" by Friends of Photography magazine.

The lens is the eye of the intuitive world, which encourages photographers to witness events and enlarge the public's field of vision through photo solidification. In the era of photography industry, the lens aimed at the rascal is more conscious. Zhao tells a double story with pictures and words, and also tells a double story: the story of the marginal figures he saw and the story of his involvement in these stories. This is essentially a true story of discovering and further understanding the world: it is closely related to the changes of our times and our living conditions. From this, it is not difficult for us to realize the historical consciousness transmitted during it. 1March, 1998, A V, a 16-year-old girl from Guizhou, came to Hainan with her boyfriend. He met a middle-aged man with a camera in Shimiao Village, where many ladies were sitting on the stage.

This is Zhao. 1994, his two companies in Haikou, Hainan and Zhengzhou, Henan closed down one after another. In a blink of an eye, the living space composed of customers, banks and partners collapsed, and he changed from a businessman to a complete pauper.

At the same time, Hainan's economy has experienced ups and downs, and many people's dreams of Hainan have been shattered like bubbles, which has also affected a large number of women who have fallen into the "dust"-girls who hoped to get a ticket in Hainan when they were young.

Chair Zhao 800 yuan rented a house with a price of 10 square meters, which is one of the eight connected rental houses. 16 and 17 neighbors, most of them are waitresses.

Zhao picked up the camera and started his shooting career. The original way is to shoot people in the street, and the price is 10 yuan. In his limited living space, the biggest consumer group is his neighbors-ladies living around. Sometimes, they will spend time putting on makeup and ask Zhao to go to the seaside to take "artistic photos" for them.

Long-term life experience makes Zhao have a deeper understanding of this group living on the edge of society. He began to take these girls as his subjects. In order to get in touch with the subjects more deeply, Zhao changed from the initial paid photography to "paid photography"-he often paid for these girls to have dinner and help them solve various problems. He never taboo posing, as long as girls are willing, they can freely in and out of his lens according to their own wishes. Every time, he always explains his purpose in detail. If he takes a series of photos, he also wants the other person to sign the photo book.

In the eyes of girls, a down-and-out reporter like Zhao is just a beggar. To some extent, he is even weaker than them, and there is no essential difference between them and exchanging their youth for food.

In this way, a V entered Zhao's lens. When Zhao came back with the washed photos, A V agreed to let Zhao take a series of photos for her. Zhao knows that a girl's story will spread from his lens, and A V's idea is to become famous quickly by publishing photos, and even someone will write her story into a script and become a heroine himself. ...

In addition to A V, more than 65,438+000 people entered Zhao's scene in the first four years. In addition to the ladies sitting on the stage, there are fishermen, farmers, out-of-school children, vagrants, foreign scavengers and hunchback ferrymen on the edge of the city ... Like Zhao, they are all squeezed at the bottom of the pyramid-shaped social structure. In cities, they are absolutely vulnerable groups. No one has ever paid so close attention to their lives, and it has lasted for many years.

In March, 1999, Focus on Survival-A Girl Wandering on the Edge of the City was published. In this book, Zhao compiled the survival stories of more than a dozen people, most of whom were sitting ladies. Since then, he has been dubbed by the media as a "photographer specializing in shooting young ladies".

"The Story of A V" became an important chapter in the book, and the photo of A V hugging her boyfriend from behind was enlarged into a cover photo. (top left)

In the photo, A V's eyes are not afraid of the vulnerable groups in the camera, and he is somewhat confused and helpless about the tone in the book.

But V is not famous, and no one has written her story into a script or put it on the screen. After the publication of Focus on Survival, Zhao's photos began to win his place in the domestic media, and so did his words. He likes to call his photos and words graphic documentary works. He defined himself as a "journalist+scholar". He admitted to the media that his photos were only for real documentary records, and he hoped that some people would see the real scenes of China society and marginalized groups he recorded from here several years later. What I care about and want to present to readers is the story behind the photo.

After focusing on survival and alternative life, the re-edited "Invisible City" and "Invisible Man" continued the same sight with them, and showed more photos to perfect the stories beyond those photos.

In 2003, Black and White Song Zhuang, which recorded the life of artists in the suburbs of Beijing, was published. Zhao pulled the perspective back to Beijing. After losing the artistic aura, Chair Zhao's consistent parallel perspective and narrative means show the struggling state of young artists outside the system between spirit and material.

In the same year, an autobiographical novel "Memory about to die" came out. This realized Zhao's dream of preaching for himself, and also realized the era he experienced in his boyhood.

Publisher Sang Hai still has an unpublished manuscript, which is an unfinished documentary collection of Southern Old Beijing Dialect by Zhao. In the past few years, more than half of his life has been spent in Cheng Nan. Every morning, like going to work, he rides his bike around Dashilan or Eight Hutong. He kept taking pictures, looking for new characters and themes that could be integrated into the story. "If you don't leave some video materials, you may not see traces in the future." Soon, bulldozers will run over them mercilessly.

It can be said that before the publication of Focus on Survival, Zhao did not have an exact identity to support his filming. 1948 was born in a cadre family in Beizhen County, Liaoning Province. His graduation from high school coincided with the Cultural Revolution. His mother committed suicide and his father went to prison. 1968, Henan Xinxiang jumped the queue, 1970 Xinxiang Qianjin machinery factory worker, 1977 transferred to Beijing Shougang to continue his career as a worker. 1978, admitted to Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, majoring in industrial automation, and stayed there as a teacher after graduation. 1986 left the university to work in a graduate school. 1990 going into the sea to do business. As mentioned above, two companies were established in Zhengzhou and Haikou until 1994 closed down. People often question the artistry of Zhao's photos, which are "no aesthetic feeling" and "no different from ordinary photos" ...

Indeed, as long as you see Zhao's photos, you will be amazed at his naked, straightforward and unadorned image language. How can I be elegant?

In China in the1990s, documentary photography was an era of exclusive sense of form. At that time, China's mainstream works were Jie Hailong's I Want to Go to School, Hou Dengke's Mike, Jian Jiang's Scenes and Lu Yuanmin's Shanghainese, which represented an international metropolis from a postmodern perspective. They usually have a strong personal imprint, rigorous composition, and ran out. And before assembling the works, these photographers are professional photographers with more than ten years or even decades of experience.

1996, Li Nan won the artistic title of the 52nd World Photojournalism Competition organized by the World Photojournalism Foundation (WPP). 1996- 1998 Wu Jialin, Yunnan, Han Lei, Beijing, and Li Lang, Sichuan won the American MotherJonesDocumentaryAward Photography Award respectively. With the photographers from China going to the world and bringing international standard documentary photography back to China, domestic photographers who have just understood what documentary photography is all about have turned their lenses to keep up with international standards in terms of composition, lighting and photo matching.

Facing the China society in the transitional era, more people think they should shoot something with their cameras, but they can't find a good subject, so they can only explore the possibility of technology in the limited image space. At this time, American female photographer Nan Golding has already taken action. In order to break the long-established image standard, she extended her photography perspective to every detail of her private life and became the originator of "private documentary photography". MaryEllenMark's work "The Road to the Falklands" was earlier and later highly praised by Zhao. Falklands Road is the street where prostitutes stand in Mumbai, India.

The appearance of Zhao undoubtedly dropped a bombshell on this originally standardized pattern. Engaged in photography for three or four years, most photos use the same focal length, all use black and white film, and develop themselves. An entry-level SLR camera-Nikon F80 1 plus a 35mm lens is all his equipment.

This kind of close observation, which quietly extends to the perspective of marginal groups, has become a new experience that China documentary photography has never experienced, and is called "participatory observation" by sociologists. It transcends the voyeuristic plot and condescending posture of similar works, thus entering a simple and sincere narrative level. He constantly asks the bottom line that photography can watch as a medium, and constantly corrects the photographer's judgment scale for the subject. These social meanings have long gone beyond the framework of formal photography.

At that time, the executive editor of Reading magazine commented on Zhao's photos in the preface to Memories of Death-"These photos, from the perspective of artistic photography, also belong to the wild road in the rivers and lakes. Later, it was collected and published. From then on, I remembered a person who would tell stories with a lens. "

In 2000, Friends of Photography, an authoritative photography magazine in China, selected the most important photographer in China in 2000, and Zhao was among them. In 2002, he was employed by Tsinghua University Contemporary China Research Center as the director of the imaging room. In 2007, China Photographers Association awarded Zhao the title of "Photographer with Outstanding Contribution since the Founding of the People's Republic of China". On May 20, 2009, Zhao attended the farewell ceremony of the body. The narrow farewell hall of Dongzhimen Chinese Medicine Hospital was crowded with people who came to pay their respects. Out of professional habits, most people carry cameras with them.

On this day, China Youth Daily, which always cherishes the edition like gold, published Zhao's classic works in a full page. One of the most famous photos of V hugging her boyfriend from behind occupies two-thirds of the page. The title of this group of photos is "How Long Is a Photographer's Road", and the introduction says that Zhao, one of the representatives of China's contemporary "new documentary photography", died in Beijing due to illness.

After the news of Zhao's critical illness came out, friends in the photography circle helped him auction his works. A few classic photos taken by Zhao were reprocessed and sold at a price of 2000 yuan each, and all the proceeds were used to treat Zhao.

For documentary photography in Europe and America, such a price is simply not worth mentioning. However, for Zhao, whose home is within a high wall, every work sold has kept him alive. This is a fact that documentary photographers in China must face at present. Two-bedroom apartment in Dongsishitiao old tube-shaped building, thousands of films, and a worn-out bicycle. These may be the whole legacy of a good documentary photographer in China.