■ Biography
Feng Kaiwen, born in October 1949, a native of Tai'an, Shandong, is the chairman of the National Public Security Photographers Association, the former director of the China Photographers Association, the director of the China Photographic Copyright Association, the executive director of the Chinese Military Culture Research Association, and the executive director of the China Art Photography Society. He has won the Golden Road Award for Chinese Photography, the Golden Horse Award for Chinese Art Photography, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Chinese Popular Literature and Art, and the Lifetime Achievement Award for International Photography Art in Shanghai Langjingshan, and has been rated as the "Cultural Star" of the national public security system.
Beauty is a kind of spiritual sublimation and fusion that can be admired, resonated, and even transcends the experiential level. In nature, beauty is everywhere and often needs to be discovered, captured and celebrated.
In the era of reading pictures, the art of photography has become an important form of expression for recording, witnessing and praising beauty.
With the advent of the digital age, hundreds of millions of pixels of high-definition digital cameras, mobile phones have been popularized, the public can take exquisite images at their fingertips, and the new technology of the new era has spawned a number of excellent photography artists. On December 8th, the reporter of this magazine approached the famous photographer Feng Kevin and learned that he has been pursuing the art of photography for more than 50 years, and uses the lens to capture the great beauty and love of life.
Heart of the Ice Sea
"Looking at the Golden Autumn"
"Let the most primitive beauty awaken human beings to protect nature"
Persistence and diligence are traits common to successful people. The American writer Gladwell proposed the "law of ten thousand hours" in the book "The Alien", that is, ten thousand hours of tempering is a necessary condition for anyone to change from ordinary to master.
If you invest three hours a day, 10,000 hours is equivalent to ten years, but Feng Kevin has been obsessed with the art of photography for more than 50 years.
"Before I retired, I used to shoot on weekends and holidays, and after I retired, I basically devoted myself to research and creation." According to Kevin Feng, this stems from his heartfelt love for photography.
In 1968, Feng Kaiwen joined the army as a soldier in the People's Liberation Army. At that time, the troops purchased a Seagull brand camera and asked him to leave some video works on the development and construction of his unit. He has since become associated with photography.
In early 1985, Feng Kaiwen was transferred to the Inner Mongolia Forest Police Corps to take charge of propaganda work. Here, he was exposed to a large amount of information on the decline in forest coverage and changes in the living environment of human beings, which made him sigh: "Destroying forests and vegetation is equivalent to destroying the most basic conditions for human survival." Not only do I have to be a qualified forest guard, but I also want to use photos to awaken human beings to protect the natural ecology. ”
Since then, in addition to focusing his lens on the fiery life of the police camp, he has also been paying attention to natural ecological civilization in addition to shooting thousands of police-themed photographic works such as "Special Police Attack", "Strengthening Actual Combat", and "I Guard Peace for the Masses". He set a goal for himself, "I will strive to photograph the most beautiful natural ecology, so that the most primitive beauty awakens human beings to protect nature." So, he used the holidays and the time after his retirement in 2007 to enter Tibet 23 times, 3 times into Metuo; 27 times into Xinjiang, 3 times into Kanas White Lake by horseback camping; 4 times to step on the 4,600-meter mountain at the source of the Yellow River in Qinghai; and 6 times through the Badain Jaran Desert in Inner Mongolia... There are also hundreds of millions of years of glaciers in antarctica and the Arctic, he has experienced the critical boundary between life and death for many times, has photographed tens of thousands of natural worlds that are difficult for ordinary people to see, and published the album "Surge of Time", of which 6 photographic works are included in the scenery album of China's National Geographic "Extreme Beauty".
"Only the world is sincere, in order to be able to do its best... If you can fulfill the nature of things, you can praise the cultivation of heaven and earth. Feng Kevin pointed to "Heart of the Ice Sea" filmed in the Arctic in August 2016 and told reporters. Nature is ingenious, and photographers should be craftsmanes to show the incomparable beauty of nature.
"Here"
"Good photography must have a living vitality"
"Art comes from life, but it must be higher than life. A beautiful photographic work must be vivid, vivid, and have vitality to impress and infect people. Feng Kevin pointed to a photo he took and said-
"Here" was filmed on December 7, 2020, and in the picture, two police officers of the Patrol Brigade of the Gongbei Port Branch of the Zhuhai Municipal Public Security Bureau are on duty in the port square, they insist here every day, and next to them, there are pedestrians who rush by in an illusory hurry. One movement and one stillness truly shows the firm will of the police to always be loyal and guard the peace of the police "here";
"Safety Barrier" was filmed on August 19, 2019, during the closure of the Forbidden City on Monday, and the footage recorded a group photo of the firefighters of the Forbidden City Fire Squadron after training. The gray world, ancient buildings, red fire fighting equipment, horizontal stretching of the picture, and the contrast of various colors set off the safety barrier cast by the energetic firefighters to protect the 600-year-old Forbidden City;
"Little Master" was filmed on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year in 2004, when dozens of Tibetans in Aba, Sichuan Province, rested on the way to the temple to worship, looked back, but found a little girl in full costume leading two yaks down the hillside, and when she found someone capturing, she shyly put her finger to her mouth. "Two small flowers on the head, a red dress, two black yaks on the white snow, that is a living oil painting."
"Wrestler", "Happy Hour", "Yeosu SWAT"... Natural movements, vivid expressions, and vivid life scenes are all in the camera.
Calligraphy, painting, sculpture, music, mountains and rivers, vast starry skies... In Feng Kevin's eyes, they are all living beings, so full of vitality, infectiousness, and creativity, so he strives to capture them with the lens to present the eternal beauty of nature.
"Nature has given mankind a beautiful living space, and we must write down these beautiful worlds." Feng Kevin said that "beauty" is not just a skill, "beauty" is the bloom after the accumulation of history, and it is the spiritual transmission between people.
The Wrestler
"Little Master"
"Everyone can make a classic"
Feng Kevin introduced that it is not difficult to shoot a beautiful photographic work, just grasp the "beauty" and "thought" on the basis of hardware. Without beauty, without thought, civilization cannot be achieved. Mutual learning among civilizations is also the transmission of beauty and the resonance of common appreciation.
"The threshold for photography is low, but the corridors for photography are long. Everyone may not be able to go to the end, but they can shoot classic works. Feng Kevin introduced that the current mobile phone pixels are very high, and has an autofocus beautification function, so it is crucial to grasp the shooting skills.
——When shooting documentary works, we must be good at capturing moving moments, and we must select and record the most characteristics of the times and typical people, things and events into the mirror, and the real, touching and connotative works will have more social value and artistic appeal;
——When shooting works of art, it is necessary to highlight the appreciation value, so that people can constantly feel the connotation and inner beauty of the work in the process of appreciation, and the wider the appreciation space left by the work, the greater the artistic value of the work;
——Take scenery photos, you can first take a large scene, then arrange the scene, and finally capture the local highlights, when shooting the part, it may be mutilated, hazy, tortuous, but these local moments are often more attractive, with depth, story, taste...
Feng Kaiwen said that the art of photography is similar to other arts, and when he photographed the local work "Forest Movement" of bracken young leaf buds in Lotus Mountain, Guangxi, he seemed to see the stave; when he shot "Looking at the Golden Autumn in the Distance", he seemed to hear the roar of heaven and earth...
A picture, a piece of emotion, a story, in the process of Feng Kevin's pursuit of "beauty" with the lens is brilliantly displayed.
Professor Jing Du of Jining Normal College in Inner Mongolia looked at Feng Kaiwen's photographic works and left a message: All dynamic situations will be in silence, waiting for the reconstruction of your art. Every picture under your lens is talking.
"The Song of the Earth"
Picture 丨 Feng Kevin