The memory of the city in black and white light and shadow, I will select the preface for Wang Ting's [Recording China's Qingdao 1985-1995"].
The selection of the famous documentary photographer Wang Ting's "Qingdao 1985-1995" was printed at the end of last year. This large album embodies decades of hard work in street photography, and also provides us with a precious memory carrier for looking back on the past of our hometown.
At the request of Mr. Wang Ting, Mr. Zang Jie and Mr. Sui Yijin were the three prefaces of the album, which was really a bit of a feeling of catching ducks on the shelves.
Wang Ting's Preface to the Collection of Photographs of Qingdao 1985-1995
In the streets and alleys of Qingdao, there are always some memories that only belong to the city, and with the passage of time, many have been lost, and many are still in our lives. Thanks to Mr. Wang Ting, in a golden decade, he recorded the changes of the times with his lens, left a warm memory, and provided us with a real image of looking back on the past of our hometown.
When the epidemic just passed this year, Mr. Wang Ting sent me this arrangement, planning to publish the picture scroll of "Qingdao 1985-1995" from my own visual point of view, which really made me a little scared, because I had no such experience before. In fact, as early as the beginning of 2021, he mentioned this matter to me many times, but the topic had not yet been decided at that time.
I know Wang Ting because he has been on the newspaper news many times in the early years. As his name suggests, he is known as the "beard artist" with a handful of beards all year round, and many people say that he is the most unique beard in Qingdao's literary circle. At the age of 26, he rode a bicycle alone to the Loess Plateau and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to investigate and photograph; As one of the "Volunteers for the Ecology and Tibetan Antelope Conservation of Hoh Xil National Reserve", he has been to Hoh Xil five times, and has since added the honor of "famous environmentalist". At that time, the feeling was that this "beard" was not simple, and it had some seemingly "mysterious" colors.
As an associate professor at Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Wang Ting is a major in fine arts and literature, and his painting and photography are already quite famous in the city. As far as the creation of "Qingdao 1985-1995" is concerned, from 1985, when he bought his first camera, he began to try photography, and in the decade from 1995, his main energy was put on photography, even painting. This decade was the first stage of his photographic career, and it was also the explosion period of his photographic creation. During this period, he mainly photographed the streets of Qingdao, and his creation was basically based on humanistic documentary photography, and through relatively real records such as snapshots and snaps, he left countless photographic works showing Qingdao's social style, cultural customs, and historical changes.
Readers often ask me why the photos are black and white during this time period. Mr. Wang Ting's reply is also very practical, in addition to the basic theme of documentary photography, during that time, tens of thousands of shots, the huge amount of film bearing capacity was also the main thing. At that time, I didn't really have any specific goals, and I didn't want to leave some memories for the future, and I didn't think that these things would become "old pictures", I just wanted to take good photos and good works. The shooting of documentary photos on the streets, when you have nothing to do, you can walk around the streets and alleys with your camera, and take pictures of what you feel is interested in. I started to shoot documentary photographs because of the influence of Bresson, and it was not long after I bought my first camera, and the black and white photos taken in Tibet in the future also carried the shadow of cloth.
In fact, as a black and white photograph, even in the era of color, it still has its own unique charm. The black-and-white images under Wang Ting's lens are not only black or white, but also the countless colors of that era and those years that circulate between black and white. In the image capture of black and white photos, we can locate and find the unique market culture and homeland feelings of the city.
I met Mr. Wang Ting, and after reading a picture and text of "Give Up Shooting" in his official account, I deeply understood his slightly regretful loneliness, but it also made my eyes shine, isn't this the city memory that many of us are looking for? After getting in touch with Mr. Wang Ting and getting his consent, he began to edit and publish "Qingdao Series of Pictures and Texts under Wang Ting's Lens" in early 2018. In more than 40 articles and more than 1,000 old photos taken by Mr. Wang Ting, it vividly reproduces the simple years of Qingdao's urban style and people's livelihood in the past 30 years, which is a precious city memory, and it is also a precious information to understand the urban conditions and folk customs of Qingdao in the 80s and 90s of the last century.
I am grateful for my relationship with Mr. Wang Ting, and I am also impressed by his life experience and knowledge, and admire his seriousness, prudence and approachability. Sometimes he finds a photo that he is interested in, no matter how late it is, he will send it to me immediately, and then send me an excited expression like a child~ Sometimes he will discuss with me for a long time about the location of a few photos......
Speaking of actually meeting Mr. Wang Ting, it was at the "Dissident Opinion - Wang Ting Street Photography Document Exhibition" of Liangyou Bookstore in September 2020, and the two people who were very familiar with online communication were finally able to meet. To the surprise of many friends, this was the first meeting of a pair of recorders and editors who had jointly published dozens of pictures and texts of urban memory.
This time, Mr. Wang Ting asked me to choose films at will, which also gave me a problem. Of course, as a creator and editor of urban documentary materials, I will still stick to my choice of field, that is, urban memory, and find the most authentic past of the city in photos.
The city is developing with each passing day, and those familiar scenes in the photos are the various situations of the market around us and the memory of our city. The taste of the market is the most simple life, with the most down-to-earth taste, it is full of the atmosphere of fireworks in the world, and in the photos taken by Mr. Wang Ting, it reflects more of the purest and most simple living space in old Qingdao. With the rapid development of urban construction, many old streets have been demolished and renovated one after another, more and more new citizens continue to integrate, and market life is gradually declining, which is actually a loss of culture. The derivation of urban memory is also the gradual disappearance of a simple taste. The image of the memory of the city, perhaps in the near future, can only be glimpsed in the photo, which will be the first and most sincere touch in the depths of memory.
It is difficult to choose among thousands of photos, and there seems to be a low-key teacher Wang Ting's still not very pure Qingdao dialect in my ears:
"I have a wish, I hope that I, a foreigner, can leave some meaningful images for Qingdao, which is not my hometown but is more like my hometown."
"Photography" is the picture taken by the "photographer" that only the "photographer" can see, while "recording" is the picture taken by the "recorder" that can be seen by ordinary people.
As a photographer and a city documentary, Mr. Wang Ting has indeed realized his original intention and left a precious memory for the city.
In the long river of years and history, ten years is just a short moment. And this decade has carried different memories for several generations. This memory is also the common memory of all Qingdao people who were born and grew up in Sri Lanka.