【CNN 20150331】王文斓镜头下的中国

满仓

【中文标题】王文斓镜头下的中国
【原文标题】Photographer Wang Wenlan chronicles China's dramatic changes
【登载媒体】CNN
【原文作者】Shen Lu、Katie Hunt
【原文链接】http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/31/asia/china-photojournalist-wang-wenlan/index.html



1991年，上海广西路上人们骑着自行车。王文斓最著名的摄影作品系列是讲述中国人与自行车的关系，从80年代到90年代初，自行车是人们最常用的交通工具。


1998年，广西一家人靠自行车出行。自行车曾经是一个家庭最宝贵的财产。


自行车逐渐被摩托车和汽车所取代，现在自行车已经几乎在中国的街道上消失了。


2007年，吉林省白山县，一位新郎背着新娘走过田地，一位老人在旁观。王的作品总是会展示中国的传统与现代的碰撞。


王还会关注中国过去四十年里发生的重大历史事件。上图，1976年，人们自发在北京天安门广场集会，悼念已故总理周恩来。他在私下里拍摄这张照片，直到80年代才公之于众。


1976年，人们扛着铲子救援唐山大地震。这张照片在十年后才发表。


人们聚集在北京庆祝四人帮倒台，四人帮的领头人是毛泽东的最后一任妻子江青，他们被政府认为是文化大革命的罪魁祸首。


在80年代初，飞行员太阳镜是年轻新潮人士的必备物品。它在美国电视剧《大西洋底来的人》在中国上映之后流行起来。


1984年，一个男人背着石头行走在长城上。中国在1984年开始修整八达岭长城，让它更方便接待游客。这是北京最著名的旅游景区之一。


1988年的广西省三江村。门牌上写的字是“毛主席万岁”，这时文化大革命期间最常见的政治口号。


1998年，一位老女士在北京龙潭湖公园观察着行人。在80年代，中国女人从乏味的革命制服中解放出来，开始穿着更加女性化的衣服。


1995年，北京的一个西瓜小贩在打盹。王说他喜欢捕捉生活中平凡的瞬间。


2004年，新疆喀什葛尔的一个男人用自行车销售葡萄。王文斓走遍中国记录不同地区人民的生活，比如新疆这个穆斯林维吾尔人的聚居区。


2010年新疆伊犁附近，一个游牧家庭的男孩躺在毯子上。


北京的保安举着5个铁环摆出奥林匹克的造型。北京主办了2008年夏季奥运会。


北京昌平的一座垃圾处理厂。


2012年，北京，一个男孩在中国美术馆中画画。


王文斓是中国最优秀的摄影记者之一，他从事摄影工作已经五十年了。

中国摄影师王文斓第一次按下相机的快门是在1967年，那是一部借来的苏联照相机。他还是个十几岁的孩子，在毛泽东的文化大革命期间借此打发时间。王说：“我找到了一卷电影底片，用它来拍摄照片。相纸是印刷毛的肖像剩余下来的材料。”

五十年之后，61岁的王是这个国家最著名的摄影记者之一。他的作品蕴含着中国社会快速发展的节奏。他说：“图像仅仅是连接历史的碎片、局部和点。中国过去四十年来的改革历程，无论是前进还是停滞，我都要想办法记录下来。”

他最著名的一个作品系列是描述中国人与自行车的关系——这个一度是家庭中最宝贵财产的物品现在已经几乎从街道上消失了。

转折点

在文化大革命期间，中国被阶级斗争的暴力所席卷，摄影是王在黑暗日子里的唯一消遣。他的家庭被贴上“资本主义路线”标签，他不能像其他孩子一样加入红卫兵。14岁的王与其他有类似遭遇的孩子沮丧地在北京闲逛，拍摄风景和人像照片来打发时间。

1976年1月，摄影对他来说不再是消遣了。周恩来总理去世，他受到很多人的爱戴，因为他在文化大革命期间起到了缓和毛过分行为的重要作用。王带着相机来到天安门广场，捕捉到自发前来悼念的人群。当年4月份人群再一次汇集。王说：“我的内心非常悲痛，我觉得需要记录下人们的痛苦。”为了躲避军方，他把胶卷藏起来。但后来他们成了朋友，王变成了军队摄影师。这些照片在80年代初得以发表。

从那时开始，王觉得他的相机不仅仅是一个保存记忆的工具。他说：“于是我开始了摄影记者的工作。我最大的遗憾是没能在文化大革命期间捕捉到有意义的景象，那都是珍贵的记录。”

接下来的几十年，王的镜头不仅对准了重大历史事件——从1976年唐山大地震和四人帮倒台，到2008年北京奥运会，而且还捕捉到了中国迅速变化的农村和城市中那些私密的瞬间。

5次海外巡展

从4月3日开始，王的作品首次在美国衣阿华大学进行海外展览。馆长朱迪•波伦鲍姆是一位中国媒体学者，也是王以前的同事。她说他的作品是了解当代中国的重要窗口。“它不仅体现了中国社会在过去几十年里的诸多变化，而且还有传统的继承，往往会出现有趣，甚至是令人震惊的传统与改变的碰撞。”

传统与现代的碰撞在第一张照片中凸显出来，一位老农民看着一个新郎背着新娘走过田地。她说：“这对夫妇西式的婚礼装扮与悠久的传统形成鲜明的对比。”


1986年，北京天安门广场，模特身着皮草进行时装表演。

“特殊时刻”

王大部分的职业生涯在《中国日报》度过，这是这个国家官方的英文报纸，王在1980年正式发行之前就已经加入。他说，当时这家报纸打破常规，用大幅照片替代其它中文报纸所试用的邮票大小的图片。而且它还毫无顾忌地展现普通人的图片，而不是千篇一律的国家领导人，这是王擅长的领域。“感谢《中国日报》，我有机会展现自己，这是一个不可替代的平台。”

王觉得自己很怀念80年代，那个新思想层出不穷、文化大革命结束的年代。他说：“人们认为一切皆有可能。我们回顾过去，走向未来。那时一个特殊的年代，空气中充满新思想、新朝气和一切的可能性。”

他说，今天的中国不一样了。“从90年代开始，国家的目标开始转向市场经济，个人也从理想主义向消费主义转化。”

“尚未完成”

在职业生涯中，王所关注的焦点也发生了巨大的变化。


1973年，摄影师王文斓在北京颐和园。

他说他曾经追求摄影的技术和美学，但是现在，随着智能手机的普及，他说每个人都是摄影师。他指着自己的脑袋说，关键是角度。他说自己感到有一种责任，多年来通过镜头进行观察和批判。“我的工作不是唱赞歌。我会拍照片，如果能发表，那很好。如果不能发表，它们也是历史的一部分。”

明年是王从事新闻摄影工作40周年，他打算开办一个展览，名字叫做“尚未完成”，来源于弗朗茨•舒伯特第八交响曲的俗称。

王也是经典乐曲的鉴赏家，他说：“中国尚未完成，永远有工作要继续。”



原文：

Cyclists pedal on Guangxin Road, Shanghai in 1991. Wang Wenlan's most famous series of photographs of bicycles tracks China's relationship with the bicycle -- the most common means of transport in the 1980s and early 1990s.

A family travels by bike in Guangxi, 1988. The bicycle once was a family's most precious asset.

Bicycles were gradually replaced by motors and cars and have now almost vanished from the streets in China.

A groom carries his bride through a field in Baishan, Jilin province in 2007 as an old man looks on. Wang's work often reveals the clashes between tradition and modernity in China.

Wang has also covered most major news events in China of the past four decades. Here, people gather in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in an unprompted outpouring of grief for late Premier Zhou Enlai in 1976. He took the photos secretly and they weren't published until the 1980s.

Men with shovels run to the rescue in the aftermath of the massive Tangshan earthquake in 1976. The photo was published a decade later.

People gather in Beijing to celebrate the downfall of the Gang of Four. The gang's leading figure was Mao's Zedong's last wife Jiang Qing and they were blamed by the government for the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution.

Aviator sunglasses were must-have items among the young and hip in the early 1980s. They became popular after U.S. TV series "The Man from Atlantis" was shown in China.

A man carries a load of stones on his back on the Great Wall in 1984. China restored the Great Wall at Badaling in 1984, making it more accessible. It's one of the most popular tourist sites in Beijing.

The village of Sanjiang, Guangxi photographed in 1988. The characters on the village gate read "Long live Chairman Mao" -- the most common political slogan during the Cultural Revolution.

An old lady looks at pedestrians at Beijing's Longtanhu park in 1988. In the 1980s, Chinese women were liberated from the dull revolutionary uniforms and started to wear more feminine clothing.

A watermelon vendor takes a nap in Beijing, 1995. Wang says he likes to capture life's more mundane moments.

A man sells grapes from his bicycle in Kashgar, Xinjiang province in 2004. Wang Wenlan has traveled across the nation to document life in different regions such as Xinjiang, which is home to the mainly Muslim Uyghurs.

A boy from a nomadic family leans on a rug in 2010 near Ili, Xinjiang.

Security guards in Beijing hold five rings to make the Olympic symbol. Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008.

A garbage disposal plant Changping, Beijing.

A boy draws in the National Art Museum of China, Beijing 2012.

Wang Wenlan is one of China's top photojournalists and has been taking photos for five decades.

When Chinese photographer Wang Wenlan first pressed the shutter on a borrowed Soviet camera in 1967, he was a teenager taking photos to kill time during Chairman Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.

"I made rolls of film out of a motion-picture reel I found. The photographic paper was left over from printing Mao's portraits," Wang told CNN.

Five decades later, Wang, 61, is one of the country's top photojournalists. His work is a rich chronicle of China's fast-changing society.

"Still images are fragments, sections and points that connect the history," Wang says.

"The whole process of China's reform over the past four decades -- whether going forward or stalling -- I've been determined to and have managed to document it all."

One of his most famous series of photographs tracks China's relationship with the bicycle -- once a family's most precious asset but now fast vanishing from the streets.

Turning point

Photography was an outlet for Wang during the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, when China was convulsed by violent class struggle.

His family were labeled "capitalist roaders" and unlike most other kids, he couldn't join the red guards.

Despondent, 14-year-old Wang wandered around Beijing with friends in similar situations, snapping pictures and portraits to distract himself.

Taking photos turned into more than a pastime in January 1976, when Premier Zhou Enlai died - beloved by many for his role in tempering the worst of Mao's excesses.

Wang went to Tiananmen Square with his camera, capturing the unprompted outpouring of grief, both then, and again in April that year.

"I was in deep grief," Wang said, "And I felt I should record the collective grief." He kept the film secret from the military, which then employed him as a photographer, transferring it to friends. The photos were published in the early 1980s.

From then on, Wang saw that his camera was much more than a memory keeper.

"I didn't get photojournalism until then," he said. "My biggest regret was not to capture anything meaningful during the Cultural Revolution period; it would've been a precious record."

In the decades following, Wang has photographed not only major events -- from Tangshan Earthquake in 1976 and the overthrow of the Gang of Four, to the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 -- but also intimate moments captured in China's changing countryside and growing cities.

First overseas exhibit

From April 3, Wang will have the first overseas exhibition of his work in the United States at the University of Iowa.

Curator Judy Polumbaum -- a Chinese media scholar and former colleague of Wang -- said his work is a great window to examine contemporary China.

"It reflects not only the many changes in Chinese society emerging over the past several decades but also the endurance of tradition, and the often striking and sometimes amusing clashes between tradition and change," she said.

The clash between tradition and modernity is stark in the lead picture of the exhibit — an elderly farmer looks on as a groom carries his bride through the field and "the couple's Western wedding garb contrasting with this longstanding custom," she says.

Models wearing fur at a fashion show at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, 1986.

'Special time'

Wang has spent most of his career at the China Daily, the country's official English-language paper, which he joined in 1980 before its official launch.

Back then, it broke the mold, using large photographs rather than the stamp-sized images used in most other Chinese newspapers at the time, he says.

It was also unafraid to feature ordinary people on its pages, rather than national leaders -- something Wang found he excelled at.

"Thanks to the China Daily, I stood out. It was an irreplaceable platform."

Wang finds himself nostalgic for the 1980s, when ideas emerged and collided after the Cultural Revolution ended.

"People thought nothing was impossible," he said.

"We reflected on the past and were determined to move on. It was a special time; the air was filled with ideals, enthusiasm and all kinds of possibilities."

Today's China is different, he said.

"The country's goal has shifted toward a transition to a market economy since the 1990s," he said. "Individuals also have since switched their focus onto consumerism and incomes from ideals."

'Unfinished'

Throughout his career, Wang's focus has changed a great deal as well.

Photographer Wang Wenlan pictured at the Summer Palace in Beijing in 1973.

He said he used to focus on the technical and artistic aspects of photography, but now, with smart phones, he says anyone can be a photographer.

To Wang, what matters is the perspective, he said, pointing at his head. Wang says he's felt obligated to observe and criticize through his lens over the years.

"My job isn't to chant slogans."

"I take photos first. It's great if they can be published; if not, they'll eventually be part of the history."

Next year will mark Wang's 40th year in photojournalism. He is planning to have a photo exhibition and wants to call it "Unfinished."

The name was inspired by the alternative title of Franz Schubert's Symphony No.8.

"China is unfinished," said Wang, who is also fan and critic of classic music. "It's always a work in progress."