honorable mention
Qinfa Ye chinaPhoto © Qinfa Ye
title
A Chinese farmer
He was successively under the leadership of 5 Chinese top leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, and experienced all significant nationwide events after the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, including the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1970, the anti-Deng Xiaoping movement, the issue of the reform and opening up policy in 1978, the urbanization campaign, the renovation of rural areas, etc. He said that, as a farmer of little education, he couldn't tell right from wrong, and that he knew life has been improving. I could sense his satisfaction with his present life. He chose to live in this old poorly-decorated bungalow though he could have gone to live in a flat in the nearby town. He said this was his lifelong home to which his soul is tightly attached.
back to gallery
entry description
I took this picture in a village in Dongyang of Zhejiang province, China on Oct. 3 2020. Mr. Cai, nearly 80, was a retired member of the village council. What first attracted me was the portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi, the picture of the god of fortune, and all the framed photos of himself and his family.He was successively under the leadership of 5 Chinese top leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, and experienced all significant nationwide events after the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, including the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1970, the anti-Deng Xiaoping movement, the issue of the reform and opening up policy in 1978, the urbanization campaign, the renovation of rural areas, etc. He said that, as a farmer of little education, he couldn't tell right from wrong, and that he knew life has been improving. I could sense his satisfaction with his present life. He chose to live in this old poorly-decorated bungalow though he could have gone to live in a flat in the nearby town. He said this was his lifelong home to which his soul is tightly attached.
about the photographer
Based in Ningbo, China, I am a teacher teaching English to Chinese students in Ningbotech University. I started an interest in photography 35 years ago, when I was a sophomore in Hangzhou University, which was merged into Zhejiang University in 1998. In those days, I couldn't afford to buy a camera and could only occasionally borrow one from my friend to fulfill my desire of photographing. I did't really resume my hobby until 2007, when I bought my first portable digital canon camera for a half-month trip to the United States. Initially, I focused my subjects on landscapes. After I got my Canon Mark II in 2010, I shifted my focus to documenting mainly people of my city and villagers around it. Often on weekends, I would spend a day strolling over a dozen kilometers down the main streets and backstreets, cruising a square or a park hunting for any target attractive to me. I am especially interested in shooting candid portraits. I strive to understand and capture their soundless and wordless thoughts and feelings revealed by their postures and facial expressions. Over the decade, I have visited so many times Sun Yat-sen Park in my city, which is often full of visitors and activities (hard to imagine if you never witnessed it), that I have become an ignored photographer. That's a grand help, for I can walk around at will shooting the realest undisturbed portraits. Besides portraits, I also shoot street photos. China is undergoing unprecedented transformation. Photographers have the responsibility to take as many memories of today as possible to generations of tomorrow.back to gallery