Introduction to Cheng Shouqi

1977-1979 self-study photography

1980 was admitted to Beijing Science and Education Film Studio.

1985 became an independent photographer.

1986-1995 filmed a short film, and "Population and Economy" won the 1988 Best Science and Education Film Award.

One of the series "Energy and People", "Will energy be exhausted?" Or 1989 Italian Plama International Medical Science and Technology Film Excellence Award.

Population and Economy, one of the series films, won the Best Science and Education Film Award in the 9th China Golden Rooster Award and the Memorial Award in the 2nd China International Science and Education Film Festival.

Chinese name: Cheng Shouqi

Nationality: China.

Ethnic group: Han nationality

Occupation: photographer

Main achievements: 1988 Best Science and Education Film Award.

Masterpiece: Population and Economy

Gender: male

brief introduction

"Protection of European Ancient Buildings" won the government excellent film award 1990.

Photos published by photography magazine-series photos of rear window published by China Photographers Magazine-series photos of Saibei published by Taiwan Province Photographers Magazine-series photos of Inner Mongolia.

1996-2000, shooting TV series, movies and pictures, won the first prize of CCTV's feature film "Rejuvenating the Country through Science and Education", won the feature film award of CCTV's "Design in China", won the feature film award of CCTV's "New Generation", won the excellent film award of Science and Education Film Studio, and filmed "Painter Chao Ge" and "Artist"

Related introduction

Most photographers (including professionals and amateurs) are not familiar with Cheng Shouqi. But in fact, Cheng Shouqi is mentioned in the circle, but he is a photographer that everyone never dares to despise. Any artist creates his own title with his excellent works (or ideas). 1988 The series of works by Cheng Shouqi, Rear Window, which was first published in the first issue of Photography, attracted great attention from people in the industry as soon as it came out. Even Zhang Zhaotang, a senior photographer from Taiwan Province, and Ruan, a critic, came to the mainland to ask for a meeting with him by name.

Cheng Shouqi is actually a very low-key person. He does not have the aggressive and unreasonable edge of ordinary young artists, nor does he have the ability to improvise, nor does he have the bad habit of opportunism. He will not take part in all kinds of famous photography competitions. For him, publishing any work is a very serious matter. In other words, the standard of artistic excellence is carried in your arms with confidence. You won't believe that a person you don't know or recognize is better than yourself, and you will judge at will. In this sense, Cheng Shouqi has maintained his dignity and self-confidence in every artistic exhibition.

Cheng Shouqi is an extremely accurate person. Accuracy here refers not only to an attitude towards life, but also to professionalism. From a professional point of view, accuracy has full technical significance. I met him for the first time because of his cousin's introduction. 1987 or so, his cousin told me several times that she has a cousin who likes photography. I hope I can take a look at her and give me some advice. And I was busy at that time, and secondly, I didn't take it seriously. Because photography lovers are everywhere, and I have met many of them, I don't want to be the first teacher of photography ABC often. But at his cousin's insistence, I had to go because I didn't want to recruit "students" at home.

When Cheng Shouqi opened the door, my eyes lit up. This is a very neat, capable and well-educated person. At this moment, I have a hunch that I will see something unusual. Sure enough, Cheng Shouqi slowly unfolded his works in front of me with enthusiasm and modesty. I really can't describe my surprise and excitement at that time, because I can say that I have never seen such a well-made photographic work. This is a group of black and white works with the theme of the back window of Beijing Hutong residential buildings. There are almost no common traces of photographers' chisels, such as "composition", and there are no straightforward graphic declarations of various "concepts" and "concepts". The "rear windows" just sit there quietly, accompanied by mottled, broken and weather-beaten old walls. The texture of the wall is delicate. It seems that every grain of sand and gray spots are breathing, and the sound of life is rolling and echoing in silence. I know that my feelings come from the details of the image in front of me, and these details must be reproduced with superb and fine photography techniques. At that time, it was the end of the black-and-white era, and most photographers often dabbled in black-and-white works, unlike today's photographers who are almost at a loss when they leave the color printing shop. The process of black-and-white photography ensures that photographers can create their own works all the time. But at that time, it was rare to see well-made black and white works. In my impression, Ling Fei was the best black-and-white producer at that time. Ling Fei's rigorous attitude and effect level of his works are well-known in the circle. However, Cheng Shouqi's level is really another order of magnitude. Cheng Shouqi controls the tone of his works better, ensuring that even a tiny grain of sand has a complete and rich ladder level, giving it a magical sense of life. I asked Cheng Shouqi how he achieved this effect, and he gave me a detailed introduction of his experience. First of all, he paid great attention to the characteristics of the lens and the film before the film was exposed, and tried to make their characteristics achieve the best effect. In other words, the pursuit of sharpness, exquisiteness and accuracy of images is a complete step level produced by exposure. So every time he uses a new batch of photosensitive materials, he has to test it first. He insists on using Leica or Hasselblad camera lens, and Nikon is his lower limit. Then, the control of film development, he insisted on rolling by himself, and made a combination test of various film development at different temperatures and times in order to achieve the best effect of tone and granularity.

Then Cheng Shouqi took out a set of works that surprised me even more. This is a group of works that adjust the brown color (commonly known as "eating yellow") by post-processing black and white photos. I didn't like looking at brown photos in the past, because this so-called artistic treatment, using potassium ferricyanide bleaching and sodium sulfide reduction, simply and quickly created the antique effect of photos, which fully exposed the inferiority of human opportunism. It always reminds me of the tricks used by charlatans to cheat money. But Cheng Shouqi's brown adjustment is completely different from the photos I have seen before. Light brown is silver, clear and elegant. I remember two works, one is two horses resting comfortably in the depths of the grassland in the sunset, and the other is a child standing in the midday sun. The former has the effect of slate painting, and the picture is filled with classical and brilliant emotions; The latter radiates the burning sensation of the sun, making the viewer feel as if he were there. I even thanked Cheng Shouqi, because he made me feel the artistic charm of photography again. Because for a long time, photography has been used as a quick and simple means of political propaganda by people who are used to hype, or as a stepping stone for quasi-artists. Because it seems that photography is simpler and more convenient than other arts. So photography is becoming more and more suspicious. Most so-called photographers either pursue great effects in composition or win by the content of the subject matter they shoot. No one pays attention to the expression charm of photographic body produced by the interaction of lens, photosensitive silver salt and chemical developer. Any kind of art supports its facade with its own unique expression. Visual arts have the same plane features, but each has its own unique expression. If you like China's paintings, you should have pen and ink and pay attention to Mo Yun's brushwork; Prints should be treated with knife method and black and white space; Oil painting should be unique in color strokes and free imagination. If everyone just does the basic work of graphic visual art, it seems that this demand only exists when politics is prominent during the Cultural Revolution, because at that time, only political themes are needed, and everything else can be ignored. Sadly, photography seems to meet this fast, simple and direct requirement. It replaces the works created by other graphic artists with photosensitive materials and chemicals, which simplifies the creation process of graphic art by half at once, but this half is precisely the key point that various graphic arts will produce artistic characteristics with different aesthetic feelings. Therefore, if a photographer doesn't realize the charm of his art, he should try his best to get it in the half where he is different from others. Photography can really become a strange skill. Any human artistic efforts, only when artists master their own methods and apply them to the extreme, will produce extraordinary artistic effects. Cheng Shouqi said that he had made long-term unremitting experiments on the brown adjustment of photos, and made detailed and different records and comparisons on the relationship between the temperature, concentration and time of the liquid medicine, and even the effect of photos before brown adjustment. At this point, Cheng Shouqi has some scientist spirit. But art can never be separated from science, just as Leonardo da Vinci used rigorous anatomy to draw sketches, which made human painting art go up a step. Kandinsky scientifically reveals the law of color vision for human beings with his own paintings. As for the modern new art form, the color of science is getting stronger and stronger. Photography seems to be the pioneer of modern art.

Cheng Shouqi recently held another exhibition called "Walking and Shooting" in Beijing Public Film Gallery. The whole exhibition is mainly a 20-meter-long photographic scroll named "Zhao Road 1998/200 1", which is Cheng Shouqi's collage photo reproduction of Zhao Road, an old street in the west side of Beijing. Regarding the purpose of creation, Cheng Shouqi said, "A long time ago, I realized the limitations of the fixed viewpoint and time recording method of a single photo, and always wanted to find a way to make the content and time continue indefinitely at the same time. The scattered perspective of China's scroll makes me feel very interesting, which makes me intentionally or unintentionally try to introduce the time factor into the same two-dimensional plane by moving the shooting perspective, and record a particularly broad scene with a combination of single-point perspective, fixed-point panning and multi-point perspective. " Obviously, Cheng Shouqi did some experiments before the official shooting. Finally, he took a picture every 7 steps (6 ~ 8 meters) along the road with a standard lens of 50 mm, and then unfolded it into a 7-inch photo collage, and a long street was synthesized and reproduced by technology. This street is the street where Cheng Shouqi grew up. In addition to technically reproducing photographic collage as a scattered perspective, he also endowed the works of this street with complex emotions. Missing Zhao Lu, the place where he was born and raised, should be Cheng Shouqi's final creative impulse. But even driven by such deep feelings, Cheng Shouqi insisted that these are not the parts I want to express most. In fact, what fascinates me most in the whole process is how to measure the distance, change the lens, deal with the perspective relationship in the middle and long term, and collage the most scenic facade. Is to find a way to make memory flow and time and space continue indefinitely. "

Or Cheng Shouqi! The origin of the beginning is always the opportunity of the beginning, and happiness is the process after the beginning.