What do people think of traveling with a copy of Lonely Planet?

Author Liao,

Like many young walkers in the world, more than ten years ago, I took a lonely planet in my hand and went to the vast world. The first stop is Paris, then Normandy, London, Edinburgh, Europe, North America and Southeast Asia? The most unforgettable thing is that in Vietnam, in order to reduce the weight of luggage, I broke down the big and thick books in my hand into countless small ones, only used a part in each city, and then threw them away.

Lonely planet, the title is full of reverie. Although the earth is lonely in the universe, besides the moon, there are countless people crawling on it like ants. On this planet, I think I prefer to be a lonely traveler defined by Kerouac, compared with other backpackers on the earth-indeed, these people are called "backpackers", but their backpacks are not Kerouac's broken canvas bags, but all famous brands such as Columbia and North Face. They are by no means the beat school that Kerouac said in Dharma Wanderers who refused to live for consumption. On the contrary, they spend all the way and are well equipped. Their vagrancy is actually called "charging" or "business".

At that time, the beat generation headed by Kerouac advocated "going on the road" in order to throw themselves into the whirlpool of the world and directly brand the times with their bodies, minds and destiny.

Sal and Dean, the protagonists in On the Road, live madly in the same words and devote themselves to the vast rivers, lakes and seas. Their generation is experiencing their world with a childlike innocence, which is different from their descendants sitting in front of the TV and copying their ideas. Their world view is directly compared with the world, so it is more real and independent.

Every time I travel, I will position myself as a photographer and communicate with the world through the lens as long as I walk out of the hotel, get on the transportation or walk quite slowly. When I return to the hotel in the evening, I will be a poet again, trying to write down what I can't shoot, and at the same time, I will look at the photos of the day to see what images can't be explained in words. In my own coordinate system, I define the latter as a good photo.

I have published four photo albums, the first one is Lonely China, the second one is Untitled Paris Stills, the third one is Looking for Cangyang Jiacuo, the fourth one is Umbrella, and another one will be published soon, called Twilight Planet-so it just forms Lonely Planet.

Untitled stills in Paris and Looking for Cangyang Gyatso experimented with the dialogue between images and poems. They should be at arm's length like tango, even love and hate. They resist each other's naming and become each other's dreams.

Umbrella tends to be documentary. I try to think of myself as a young man on the street. I looked at the bonfire, smoke, tear gas and tent in his eyes. There were more than a dozen poems in it, which belonged to the painful experience of going home to lick the wound every day.

Now this book "Dark Planet" can be said to be the best photo album of the rover I expected. I have extracted some of the most ambiguous moments from my travels at home and abroad for more than ten years-just like Twilight in the title, which is not only the moment when the planet is about to enter the night, but also the moment when people are sad and look back.

The photo albums are arranged from A to Z according to the city where they were shot. The first photo was taken in Andalusia, Spain ―― maybe Grenada or Serbia, and the last photo was taken in Xi 'an. The former is two hats of flamenco singers, and the latter is a tramp. I think he is very similar to bischoff (19 16- 1954)' s On the Road to Cuzco' (also known as The Pied Boy in the Andes), with the same structure, except that the Andes in his background have been changed. Bischoff is one of my favorite photographers, and there is always melancholy poetry in his photos. The Indian boy he photographed walked intently and firmly, and the flute seemed to still reverberate in Qian Shan.

So I dedicate this book, The Dark Planet, to bischoff. His contribution to an Indian teenager is equal to that of a Japanese monk and a pair of Parisian lovers. So is my photo album. For places like Paris and Rome, I have been to several times and stayed for dozens of days. I only choose one or two photos, and one or two photos seem to be taken casually. And I also choose one or two photos of many cities that pass by in a hurry, such as heavy photos taken by people who have lived and loved in my life.

This is not a travel photo album, and there is no beautiful scenery; This is not a photo collection of so-called humanistic practice curiosity in the name of field trip, but full of ordinary people who are not close to anyone. I didn't slow down the shutter when the planet was getting dark. I just want to shoot the darkness.

(The picture is selected from Liao's photo collection "Dark Planet", which will be published by Kubrick Bookstore soon. )

For more exciting original content, please pay attention to WeChat official account: Lan? (qdlanshe)