|
Li Mingfu did not expect watching an event in a town near his
village could change his life so much.
A 52-year-old Hani ethnic minority farmer living in a small
village of Jinghong County in Xishuangbanna Prefecture of Southwest
China's Yunnan Province, Li has become a star photographer, with
works published and exhibited nationwide.
From last Wednesday until Sunday, Li, along with other four
ethnic minority farmer photographers from Yunnan, showcased his
photos at Beijing's Capital Library in an exhibition entitled "Rice
from a Farmer's Perspective."
Sponsored by Greenpeace, the exhibition, which demonstrated
Chinese farmers' deep love of rice as well as their colorful life
surrounding the rice fields, will tour Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
Amazing start
It all happened by chance.
One October day two years ago, Li went to the nearby town on an
errand. "I found many people crowded on the street," Li
recalled.
Curious, he joined the crowd. Some city people were distributing
small cameras to the local onlookers and encouraging them to try
taking photos.
"We distributed some cameras to create a more lively and
interactive atmosphere," explained Wang Luxia, a representative
from Greenpeace China, the sponsor of the exhibit, during the
opening ceremony.
Wang and her colleagues were there promoting the value and
importance of rice culture to indigenous residents in the Chinese
countryside as part of a campaign called "The Road of Green Rice."
"We did not have plans to find some photographers," said Wang.
Li got one of the cameras, took several photos in the town and
then returned the camera and film to Wang and her colleagues.
The photos created by the local people and collected by
Greenpeace China during their tour in Yunnan Province under the
campaign in 2004 surprised Geng Yunsheng, a freelance photographer
based in Kunming, the provincial capital.
"They were so vivid," said Geng.
He managed to find what he called five photographic "geniuses,"
including Li, and decided to launch a program to support them to
record their life with cameras.
Thanks to his suggestions and lobbying, the Netherlands-based
Greenpeace headquarters decided to support the program, providing
each of the five grass-roots photographers with a 4,000-yuan
middle-level automatic camera and 100 rolls of film.
With Geng as their coach, they used the cameras to create a
record of their life as rice-farmers from last March to April this
year.
The farmer-photographers spread out in remote villages in four
different prefectures in this mountainous province.
As a dutiful coach, Geng spent one or two days once every two
months, checking their progress and helping them with their
problems and questions about photography.
It took about four to five weeks to finish one round, Geng told
China Daily.
Each time, Geng brought back 20 rolls from each photographer and
developed 20 photos. Next time, he would bring the 20 photos to
them, sharing with them his ideas of why one photo was good, and
another was not so good.
"I had very simple guidelines," Geng said.
After only a few rounds of visits, Geng said his five farmer
students started to produce so many good photos that it was very
difficult to decide which ones should be chosen for the
exhibition.
Recording life
Meanwhile, Li said he was very excited about his new assignment,
as he and his fellow farmers still considered photography as
something they could not afford to do.
However, he found it quite natural to take up the camera and
take photos to record the lives of his fellow farmers, Li said.
And he was also a conscientious pupil, often thinking of what
Geng said, looking at his own previous photos and finding new
angles or subjects to improve his skills.
The photo Li felt proudest of features women during their
celebration of the International Woman's Day on March 8 last
year.
"In our culture, women have to eat poorer food and work more.
But on that day, all women from nearby villages gathered together,
enjoying singing and dancing performances and tug-of-war contests,"
Li said.
"At this moment, they were so free, so joyful, as if they were
the happiest persons in the world," he said.
For Bai Yunxian, a 21-year-old Dai woman in Xinping County, Yuxi
Prefecture, taking the photographs helped her discover a great deal
about the lives of local people.
Every day, whether she went to the field or wove clothes at
home, Bai took her camera along. She took photos whenever she found
something interesting.
Once, she heard songs from another hill and she set off at once,
running to that hill, where she found a group of people planting
rice seedlings.
Another time, Bai found her best friend on a date with her
boyfriend. Following an ancient tradition, they were feeding a
piece of cake to each other, showing their mutual love and
commitment to future marriage.
Bai silently approached them, crawled below the small dune where
they were, and took the photo without alerting them.
"At first, my friend reproached me, but I knew she was happy in
the heart because I recorded the true love between her and her
boyfriend," Bai said.
Bai's village is near an area visited by tourists, so Bai was
not unfamiliar with cameras.
However, when she had her own camera, Bai found there were so
many wonders in her daily life.
Among the five photographers, Li Zikang is the only one with
some basic art training in painting.
"While taking photos, I always tried to form a picture in my
brain," said Li from Honghe Prefecture.
His four daughters are now working in Kunming, so he and his
wife help raise two sons of their eldest daughter.
"Each time I took photos at home, my grandsons would come to me,
asking what I was doing. Gradually, I formed the habit of asking
myself what I was doing," he recalled.
Li Zikang then took photos to reflect more on their daily life,
and less about unusual activities. Most of the protagonists in his
photos are elderly people and children chatting and playing.
Hard work
Wang said that except the camera and films, Greenpeace gave no
money to the farmers.
"Sometimes I have to lose some time planting my crops, because I
must try to capture the good scenes every minute and those scenes
do not replay themselves," Li Mingfu said.
As a result, Li's plot yielded a lower output than those of his
fellow farmers.
On some occasions, the farmer photographers found they had to
pay extra money in order to take good photos.
"Various ceremonies in our countryside, such as weddings,
funerals and births are the most vivid to photograph, but I had to
offer a small sum of money in order to be allowed to do this," Li
Mingfu explained.
Each time, Li Mingfu would spend five (63 US cents) or 10 yuan
(US$1.25), which is a big sum for him, as his annual income is less
than 2,000 yuan (US$250).
At other times, farmer photographers had to travel far, often
walking for an entire day across mountains and rivers, to
interesting events where they believed there would be good photo
opportunities.
No matter how difficult it was, keeping their camera intact was
their primary task.
Last summer, when Li Zikang took photos of a harvest, there was
a sudden downpour.
"I immediately took off my clothes to wrap around the camera,
and used my body to shield it from the rain as I was running home,"
he said.
The camera was not damaged, but he lost several rolls of
film.
These difficulties have not stopped the farmer
photographers.
"It is not only a joy for myself, but to many of my village
fellows, whose daily life were recorded in photos for the first
time," Li Minfu said.
According to Geng, Greenpeace will give the cameras to these
photographers.
"Now we will not be able to afford taking photos randomly, but
we will save some money for the films and carefully take photos of
some precious scenes. It enables us to express our feelings," said
Xiong Guizhi, a 41-year-old Pumi woman from Weixi County in Diqing
Prefecture.
(China Daily June 13, 2006)
|
