Huang Ya: Why do we take pictures?

For photography, let’s take a look at a few pictures first. It is very difficult to really enter the language of photography, very difficult. Therefore, for many students, if they come from painting, the pictures they take will always be composed of some golden section compositions. It is very clear that this There is no way to throw away the baggage, so when should we talk about composition? What is important about photography? The important thing is our personal experience and feelings. In the future, we can reach the corresponding state of enlightenment, that is, in an instant, we can get the most essential and core things of objects. And the so-called composition, I think it is an inevitable thing. If we can really impress ourselves when we see this object, and can impress others through this, it is not the composition at all, but the inside of the object. . For example, there are many pictures in our National Geographic, all of which have a very central content. The charm of this content itself arouses our interest, instead of saying that these compositions have long shots, medium shots, and close shots as we often say. I feel that in our many years of teaching at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, no one mentioned composition. What we really talked about was our image language itself. In other words, what should we do next? We can put a classic thing, a kind of beauty, and something truly valuable in painting, so many contemporary works have a sense of painting, but it is not in the composition, but in the color and its creation. some organizational issues. From this point on, we got started with photography, truly respected ourselves, and felt that it was an art that could exist independently. This is the work of Weston, an American photographer. His contribution is in the form, tone and level of photography. It is the energy that photography has as a technology. This focus is placed here, and then it is a formal abstract shape. When we finally realize that the concept of photography is very valuable, what is it? It’s time. This is a French photographer named Brozon. This is what he officially proposed. It’s called the decisive moment. In other words, where is the key point? It’s the most critical moment when all the lenses are aligned. All things, at a certain time, constitute a very important collection of geometric shapes. The geometric shapes were organized just right at that time, emphasizing the importance of that point and that moment. Only then do we understand the temporal nature of photography. Important, for example, our time, some things that are not critical to us, once we press the shutter, although the time is fixed, in fact, the photo will continue to change from then on. What is the change? Why did we press that section? How can the most ordinary photos give us great meaning? This is because photography is different from other paintings. Like this reality, it is a simulation of reality, a simulated world. In other words, only photography can provide us with more realistic information, because they are too close to reality. Its characteristics are too close to reality. From then on, as time drifts away, the farther away the time is from the time we took the photo, the more meaningful it becomes to us. If you don’t believe it, go back and look through your photo books. If you look at some ordinary life photos, we all think they are much more interesting than these so-called art photos and these wedding photos. Why is this? Because the things fixed in this photo are unchanging and will always remain the same, but the reality at that moment has been constantly changing, which has given us many strange things. In other words, the farther the distance in time, the more unfamiliar things are. , the conflict it generates will be bigger and more intense, and then more meaningful, and it must have a surreal message. At this time, some image language and time appeared, as well as the photographer's personal feelings, personal qualities and their cultural background, and the resulting photos were classic photos of decisive moments. This one belongs to Brass. There are some very large scenes below, and some details will appear on them. From some small details, we can find some detailed plots in them. Get a feel for the general direction, the research and exploration of this language below. From the relationship between this environment and individuals at that moment, we want information and some hints.

This is from Delson in the United States, and this is from Frant. This stage is an important stage. Our current situation in China just does not exist and has been ignored, because when we really proposed this independent value in photography, we Just after the Anti-Japanese War, World War II and our War of Liberation, including the founding of the People's Republic of China and reform and opening up, during this period, the world developed rapidly, and the teams of this class also achieved many achievements. This group, mainly our Photographers Association, seems to It is still the same as before, with no changes. I see many textbooks still talking about the composition of photography. They are all very ridiculous things, and they fail to see what the focus is that we really care about. Now our independent exploration of the language of photography has not yet been established. It has not yet started, let alone developed and grown. Suddenly, post-modern art and post-modern photography came in, including digital and many things came in. Now we teach students It is difficult to teach. As soon as they come in, they are taught how to play with ideas, play games, and do some conceptual things. They do not have any accumulation of the language of photography itself, and their accumulation is limited to some conceptual things, so I will give you more have a look. I think everyone has seen these two works. Photos like these have some suggestive effects, and we can interpret them from various angles. For example, the little girl is a very weak being, and there is a large cemetery behind her. We can see the subtle relationship between life and death. The large area behind is gray, but the little girl is very bright. We think it is Another way of existence of life is also a hint of death. There are many meanings in photography. This is Brasseur, who specializes in photographing Paris at night. This one was taken by Kudka from the Czech Republic, this one was taken by Ladig, a French artist, and this one was taken by Delson. This was taken by Brassa? in Mexico, and this was taken by Cortez in France. These are very famous. This is from Cortez, a young man from Eastern Europe. Everything he shoots is a bit surreal. This is France's Beppon. This is the scene he arranged. This is the artist himself. He used puppets, all of which are children's images, to arrange some games and scenes from his childhood, and then photographed the scene. This is the result of the final image. At this time, photography has become that we do not come from reality, we can reproduce a scene or a dream in our hearts, and now we have some exploration. But at this time, it is not particularly important. One of the more important ones now is the classification of photography. It was the Bethea couple who really proposed the classification of photography. The Bethea couple had a studio and trained a large number of contemporary photographic image artists. In fact, this classification system started from Augustin Sander (a German). This photo is very famous. This photo shows three farmers in the countryside. When they went to the city to attend a dance, they took a picture on the road. Scenario, what does taxonomy mean? It is the same form, the same type, the same nature, putting all the same factors together, forcing the audience to find their differences in the sameness through the sameness, and through this difference, meaning is generated. This is classification principles of law. Three farmers have the same top hat, the same black clothes, and the same crutches, including the same shoes. At first glance, there is not much difference. This is the function of classification. They are the same, they are all farmers. , they dress up according to the same rules, but as an instinct, we cannot look at this picture like this. We must find potential differences from the similarities. Let’s start with the hats. You can see that we The person in the front wears a crooked hat and is not particularly serious. The person in the back wears the hat very carefully and tightly. The person in the middle wears the hat slightly more appropriately. From their hats to their demeanor, and from the cigarettes they smoke, we can see their cultural backgrounds. The look of the person at the end feels a bit reserved and serious. He feels that he cannot deal with what he is being photographed, which makes him very uncomfortable and nervous. . Let’s look at the clothes again. The clothes in the front are wrinkled. It can be seen that the clothes are not particularly neat. It can be seen that he does not often attend dance parties. His personal accomplishments can show his differences among the three people. The clothes of the man inside were just made and put on temporarily for a dance. They were very inappropriate. They were more decent in the middle and didn't have much outstanding performance. Let's look further down. When this hand grasps the crutch, it also depends on the type. The person in front does not know what effect the crutch has on the person's identity. The person in the back is very nervous. It can be seen that the person in the middle looks like a person who can hold a cane.

The shoes and pants underneath, including the overall posture, are all different. Therefore, the purpose of photographic classification at that time was already this. Sander photographed people from all walks of life, professions, and all kinds of people in Germany. His purpose was also to classify, and he was already doing it. I recorded everything, but didn’t really bring it up. It was Mrs. Bethea who really brought it up when she was taking pictures of the water tower. This is the Bethea couple. Their classification is a classification of similar shapes of water towers. From the classification, he finds out the differences in this type. These buildings are all industrial buildings built between World War I and World War II. This It's the cooling tower, and the walls on the side of the building. Another way of saying the classification is that this photographic system is more real than other paintings, but because it is too real, it often denies this side of the information based on the information we have recorded. In other words, if this person stretches out this , and then we photographed this face, and what we accepted was this one. We had no way of knowing whether there was a scar behind it or something else. We didn’t know, because the authenticity of this photography had a negative effect on other faces. This is the development of a new vision. In all art photography exhibitions in Europe and the United States, including China, we can see that the scene is very large. There is a lot of content in the scene, and there are many small units. There are some things happening inside, just in the small units. With such a few people, we can form several stories, and there will be some unexpected things. When we look at it at a glance, what really shocks us is the overall atmosphere, and then under the influence of the overall atmosphere, we will still be patient. Look carefully, what is going on here? From the principles created in the classification of photography, a new perspective is extended. It is different from the large scenes captured by our wide-angle lens. The objects in the front are very big, and the objects in the back are very big. It's very small, and this one basically seems to be squeezed together, which is completely different. What is this? Use this telephoto, which is a telephoto of several hundred millimeters. Pull it over and use digital technology to put it together. The telephoto shows a wide angle of view and a wide-angle information, not the telephoto. We know that it Often the things that are pulled over are flat, that is, their sizes are not very different. After the relative distance begins to change, these things will be squeezed together. What is the benefit of being squeezed together? It is tantamount to intensifying their plot conflicts. In any photography, some big scenes are of this type. The same goes for taking pictures of people. Taking pictures of people is the same as taking pictures of water towers. The representative figure at this time is Gursky. He has photographed the Hong Kong stock market. He is the representative figure at this time. At this time, a very important trend will emerge. This is a Canadian photographer, Jack Waugh. Husband, reproduce and reorganize a scene so that we can see it is very real, and then this scene gives us a feeling of what happened in an instant, but this system is organized, we can't happen, and we find traces of this kind of director's scheduling, Let’s look at the authenticity of photography from another angle and see how big the difference is. I think this photographer is a very important person for us Asians. This is a Japanese photographer named Dr. Yamamoto. How was this photo taken? He found a movie and opened the lens. This is a movie theater. After opening the lens, he started playing the movie. After the movie ended, he closed the lens. Now what we see is the final result. Our topic There is nothing in it, just a blank. I think his understanding of time and space is completely the same as our ancient Chinese philosophy, especially the concepts in Buddhism. To put it simply, everything that happens in the world, no matter how dramatic it is, , or some trivial little things or big things, after this time, they all become a void and become no doubt. We talk about Buddha’s belief in emptiness, which is the essence of the world. Many of us here are Buddhists, and we should know that form is emptiness, emptiness is color, all objects in the world are emptiness, and emptiness is the essence of the world. So, what we see here is that what he left is a blank. To really leave details, what we need to consider is the reflection of this screen, which illuminates these details. What we care about here, what we really expect Things, things that interest us, we don’t get, we don’t get what we want, and what we don’t want appears in front of us.

There are Eastern things, like ours in China, if we are engaged in art, I think ancient Chinese philosophy should provide us with a lot of broad horizons, but no one is really doing this now. Including the sea, he also took pictures after a long exposure. After the exposure, a very simple pattern remained. He took a lot of seas like this, just one sky and one sea surface, no matter how rough the sea surface is. Or the weather changes. After this time, it all returns to calm. We in the East imagine the world as one, and the unity of man and nature is this concept. Now that I’m talking about this issue, why do we talk about why we take pictures today? Nowadays, not only photography, but also some other media, I feel as if they are getting further and further away from our lives and our society. They are becoming more and more like a small group of people playing some games. In this case, we are not big I understand the current state of art, so if I talk about it, you may find it a bit unbelievable. Where is the mainstream of art now? The mainstream is in 798, not in the Camera Association. We used to be a subject, but now we are marginalized. There are many problems happening here. Now let’s take a rough look at the current situation of Chinese contemporary art. This is from the world, this is from China, and this is from the United States. If we browse the works, I can’t stand it anymore. I used to like them very much and thought they were creative. Now that I’ve seen them, I can’t say they’re disgusting, but I don’t want to watch them a second time. I think we here are far away from the small circle of real art. The people here are Relatively kind. This is a Chinese work. Take a look at these works. Some of them are good and some are bad. Take a look and feel for yourself. What is the problem? These artists are all very good friends of mine. Why do these problems occur? I didn’t dare to talk about this issue before, because I knew some things, but I pretended to be confused, but I didn’t want to pretend to be confused. It can be seen that there are various reasons. We see contemporary art, including photography. , all of them were evil and bloody, very violent, perverted, chaotic, very vulgar, very weird to watch, and they said they were very artistic and very emotional. But I think this is a very dangerous thing, and it is really a dangerous thing for a country and a nation. Why does this happen? The reason is very simple. It is not a problem of art. Art is just a superficial reason. The real reason is the external consciousness that changes our inner being. What model does this change use? Use the market model. This is very simple, and it is very simple to change. Some people may not know what this is. The situation that China is seeing now is the same as that in the former Soviet Union and Russia. In other words, we now have many artists in China. They are very popular in New York and have a huge market in the West. In the 1980s, there were still a group of artists from the Soviet Union who were also very popular in New York. They are the same as they are now. I don’t think I need to explain this in detail. You all know that they used This market model is used to induce these artists. If your work conforms to the consciousness of our country, our spirit, and our philosophy, your work can be sold for money. If it does not conform, there will be no chance. Induced by this situation, everyone does this. Another biggest feature is that you must be different. You can be irresponsible and messy. As long as you are different, you can make money. Contemporary art has this result under this inducement. . But our country can also do this, but there is no way, it cannot be done. Why? Because it is difficult to establish a group to deal with one ethnic group. If one ethnic group corresponds to another ethnic group, I think it is okay. But if it makes us feel that one interest group is dealing with another interest group, we lack the ** *The same sense of identity, so at this time, we have no choice. So the final result is 798. As the main body of our national consciousness in the past, the Photographers Association had no choice at all, because our system was a service group and a propaganda group. It was too direct, without any detours, and there was no room for the development of art. For decades, Nothing has changed. You can look at the purpose of the Photographers Association. It hasn’t changed at all. In fact, I really want to be a photographer, but I backed away after seeing the purpose of the Photographers Association. People asked me if I was a photographer, and I said no. I'm just a fan. I think we must establish a similar market operation, that is, don't spend money on groups and research institutions, these are just for leisure.

Teacher Wu Guanzhong once said about the problem of the system. We will buy and collect those that are truly in line with the national spirit and culture. In this way, some galleries will form a healthy market operation. I believe that we ordinary people also like the truly valuable artworks. You can understand it, everyone can understand it, and you like it from top to bottom. Now when everyone looks at it, you don’t dare to say you don’t know if you don’t know it. At most, you can say that it’s very unique and you have some ideas. You’re afraid that people will say you are uneducated. . You just accept it, but I don’t understand it. What’s so great about it, I just don’t understand it, and I don’t like it. Let’s speak based on our conscience. I talked to many friends and they said I couldn’t understand this thing. Can you tell me about it? I said, I'm telling you, I don't understand it at all. Why do we take pictures? This is the previous question. What I want to talk about is that when we hold this camera, we ask the camera to act. This is the consciousness. When we take pictures, we do things. What do we do? Do meaningful things, do valuable things, things that our own people like, what should we do? So there are many different opinions about why we take pictures. Art for enjoyment, this is a view, art for fame and fortune, this is what we just talked about. If you have money, you will go for it. I don’t know if this work will be dissatisfied with my younger brother after seeing it. , killed his parents. There is also the question of art for art’s sake. This question seems to have been raised a long time ago, but I think these artists who engage in art think so. This is what I like to shoot. This is my biggest interest. You can just make yourself comfortable. Art for fame and fortune is the phenomenon of 798. This is where we came from. Many artists are worth hundreds of millions or more than one billion. There is a lot of hot money flowing in it. Art for art's sake is a contributor. At least in the process of exploration, it can create a new artistic language. If this language has no appeal and no purpose, it is really art for art's sake. I think this role is limited. Such people are called heartless. Lungless. Why we engage in art is actually very simple. We have said before that a person who lacks a sense of responsibility and mission in photography, has rigid ideas, mediocre art, and no creativity cannot become an artist. Maybe the scenery in the past few decades has After these few decades, this society will allow you to exist, but it will not value you or choose you. This is a historical question. That day I picked up "Chairman Mao's Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art". Chairman Mao's speech at that time seemed to have already existed in 798. It really seemed to be speaking about 798. It was so well said. If you don’t believe me, go back and take a look. I’m not a party member, but I speak the truth. The question of how to establish it is that our Chinese culture has a long history and is profound. This space is very large, especially like photography. We haven’t started to take action yet, and we haven’t really faced up to this problem. We still follow money. People say that there is a pile of gold in the east. A lot of them just ran away, and no one thought about, where is the direction of our own art? We haven’t figured out what the value is or what we want to do, so we look back and see what our art is for. For thousands of years, our ancestors have proposed that the purpose of art is very simple, which is to “educate adults.” , Help human ethics." This has been the purpose of art for thousands of years, but now we are basically destroying education and messing up human ethics. I am talking very seriously here. If you enter 798, you will know that if those artists listen to what I say, they will be eager to come up and give me a two-punch. What is really important in the East? The most important thing is to protect our lives and live well. Our lives must be lived well. There are many levels and aspects, that is, how to live more wonderfully and with more levels. In our artistic realm, we talk about The beauty of life is divided into five aspects. When it comes to the overall beauty of life and the unity of nature and man, I think everyone knows better than me. I just concentrated on it. You are all experts, but you are just a little curious about photography. So I'm just going to do a little bit today. It includes two aspects. One emphasizes the harmony between man and nature, and also talks about the blending of scenes. The second aspect is the true beauty of life. Just show our true feelings and real things. This contains Wang Yangming’s knowledge and practice. Unity, when we see something we hate, it means that when we see this thing and our emotions have an impact, knowledge and action become one. Life creates beauty, where does this beauty come from? In our Tao Te Ching, it is said that Tao follows nature, man follows earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows Tao, and Tao follows nature.

Our highest wisdom, for us in China, should be the wisdom of Buddhism, Ayintara Samyak Sambodhi, supreme enlightenment and supreme wisdom. And the beauty of life’s forms. I just talked about the composition of photography. At this time, we come out of photography, not just sticking to a few decisive moments in our photography, nor a few lenses, wide angles, or a few colors, but integrating photography into nature, nature, heaven and earth Putting the three people together, we present its truest, most exciting and valuable side. That’s why our ancestor Confucius opposed this kind of thing thousands of years ago. Weird things will not be done. Yes, although being weird can make you famous, I won’t do this kind of thing. Another thing is that he doesn’t talk about weird things, chaos, or superstitious things. There is also the famous painter Huang Gongwang who said that painting is mainly to eliminate evil, sweetness, vulgarity and laziness. Evil is evil and is the opposite of good. Sweetness means there is no creativity and no depth. It is like a business card. The only thing to take pictures is the sunset. , it’s really boring to take pictures of lotus flowers in full bloom. Why take pictures of that? Nothing valuable or new, vulgar! Vulgarity means there is no realm, it is too vulgar. Even an abnormal person, after gaining such a reputation, will do something even more abnormal, either filming a hair salon, a brothel, or a psychopath. What's the point of this? It's really not interesting. What is the purpose of a photographer? First, this person must establish a sense of mission. Needless to say if you are lazy, it doesn’t matter, just shoot and play, I like it, there is nothing insightful, and then to show the beauty of life and truly understand the beauty of life, what should we do? It's very simple. We Chinese are all about doing things according to conscience, that is, talking about the heart. If we want to have a grasp of the nature of life, we must go back to our hearts, and then through our practice, we can straighten our hearts and improve the level of our hearts. Continuous improvement, like in Buddhism, first from the word Prajna to the consciousness Prajna, these different levels are raised, and then we can discover the different essences of life. If we take a nap like Buddha, and Sun Wukong has been trapped under a stone for 500 years, looking at it this way, the world must be empty. Do we need to talk about it? In the blink of an eye, 500 years have passed since Sun Wukong. What happened? Therefore, everyone sees the changes in the world completely differently from different levels. Therefore, if we want to shoot wonderful films, make films that others will admire, and bring happiness and wisdom to ourselves, we must start from Starting from the heart, it is called images arising from the heart and following the heart. That’s the end of my lecture today, thank you! Huang Ya: This is a work from when I was a graduate student, and this is from Frog. What was my state of mind at this time, you can completely see what it means to follow the heart. When I took this photo, I was a soldier in the armed police. When I got married, I had to file a report. Here, I think people originally established such an order and a system for their own convenience or for their own betterment. We can survive, but this order is too huge and will hinder our freedom. From this picture, we can see dissatisfaction. We are called angry youths. "Very good?" This is a shelf for parrots, and now it's a frog. Do you agree? Pretty good? Definitely not, not a pet, but someone else put it up. This is "pass". We want to do something. If we want to do something, you can see the frog passing by and what the result will be. It has to pay a price. This is "allow". Two frogs can also be one. The tendency to anthropomorphize, the relationship between them, is a very relaxed, very free emotion. This is "feasible", this is a cage, these things were what I thought about at that time, this is what I thought, and this is the result when I shoot it. This is another stage, another batch of creations. Knowing the cause and effect, I am going to hell. I photographed an accident to warn the world. I didn’t even want to watch these films before. This is a new one, taken this year. Let me tell you about these three films. This is a cornfield. This cornfield lasts from noon to evening when the sun goes down. Then pick it up. There is a time issue here. The other one is a state of my own. Its name is "Continuous Smile". It talks about the continuation of time in a state. I hope that this time will be in this state. In the layer of change, the sun will not rise until evening. The sun will rise again tomorrow. Changes continue. I hope that my smile will be unchanged and long-lasting. I also hope that everyone’s smile will also be long-lasting.

"Weak Vision", we see two people, two women, enjoying themselves. The house is an oriental house, and the two people are two foreigners. Our current association with the East is that we want to live like the West, each wants to make money, and want to travel. There were a lot of ideas, and I felt like the vision was weak, so the financial crisis happened. This is "The Melancholy Bearer of Precepts". People who are studying Buddhism should know this. The direction of our studying Buddhism is to be liberated from life and death, but before we reach the other side, we see bad situations and feel very depressed. This Troubles are growing, and in the process of continuous growth and practice, they are constantly growing upward. We can see this corn. This corn happens to be growing when we have the most troubles. So here, this is a box. , this is a chimney, you should be able to see that this chimney constantly releases worries, and life continues to grow. Worries and hopes are competing with each other, which is also the reason for our depression, because we are practitioners, not Taoists. He is not an ordinary person. Below are some small scenes, I hope to bring some Zen feeling into them. This is my latest work, and it is also my favorite. It is my most iconic thing. Returning to the Eastern aesthetics, this is a chrysanthemum. These are all Chrysanthemum, I believe you will like it very much after reading it. These are some photos of Chinese people. I like these very much. I took pictures of these people and gave them to them. They were very happy. This is a bit like National Geographic. There are many wonderful photos. Questions for communication and interaction: 1. Question Hello teacher, I would like to ask something. I don’t understand the vulgarity. Taking pictures of lotus flowers is particularly vulgar. I thought a lot of people like it. You just said that you took pictures of chrysanthemums. You went back and forth to take pictures. Showing the most beautiful side, how do you explain this? Is this also vulgar? Huang Ya, I just generally speaking, it’s hard to say if I have a good film personally, but I say that generally speaking, my chrysanthemums should be different from the lotus taken by ordinary people. I believe you can see it after the light is turned off. It is not like that, it is a universal beauty, not an unreserved and simple beauty. 2. Question Hello, I would like to ask, I just saw some works, it seems that there are more post-production, such as chimneys and old corns. If there is a lot of post-production, are they considered photography works? Huang Ya reckons. 3. Question what is the relationship between the proportions here? To answer this question we have been talking about now, we feel that if we find it in photography, these are not problems. If we are inside photography, it is a problem. I hope we can both find it and get it out. Our horizons will be broader. 4. Question: In November, a letter of apology appeared from National Geographic Magazine, saying that two photos taken in October were composited. National Geographic magazine said it objected to any photos that were later composited. Does the processed photo count as photography? ? You bet, what do you think of the composite photo? To answer this question, we should ask our editor-in-chief. This is based on the authenticity of your magazine. I think it is a functional thing, which is different from art. 5. Question to the teacher: I would like to ask, what attitude do we adopt towards some perverted performance art now? The answer should be that we have an attitude but no action. Our society is very large and very tolerant, but we have choices in our hearts. There should be a choice. History will also have choices. China National Geographic Member Club 2008.11