Feng Fei could not forget the first camera he saw when he was a middle school student in Urumqi, capital of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The father of a classmate of his was working as an interpreter for experts from the former Soviet Union. He had a camera and took photos of his son and his classmates.
"When I saw the camera and the photos, I thought the camera would work as if by magic," Feng recalled.
When he graduated from the middle school, he worked during the summer before taking up a job as a primary school teacher in a local school. He earned 60 yuan (US$7.25) and immediately bought a camera, a Hua-3 brand with a plastic body.
He set out on his bicycle and finished one roll of film in one day. Returning home, he developed the film under the big table at home.
"I didn't understand how the aperture and speed worked, so the photos came out blank," he said.
Forty years later, Feng, who still has his first camera, works at the Xinjiang Museum, where he has risen to become one of the leading photographers of cultural relics, especially the ancient mural Buddhist paintings in Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves and other grottoes of the ancient Kucha (or Qiuci) kingdom.
Recently, the revised edition of his photo album, "The Nude Art of the Qiuci (Kucha) Grottoes," was published by China Photography Publishing House, with the help of a 240,000 yuan (US$29,000) donation from a private company.
Difficult journeys
"Few would imagine how hard it was to take those pictures," Feng said, recalling the sometimes even dangerous experience in Xinjiang.
Feng started his first job as a primary school teacher, but he kept on his hobby of photography. In the late 1960s, he became one of the leading amateur photographers in Xinjiang and, in 1972, he joined the Xinjiang Museum.
In 1982, Feng's new assignment took him to Kuqa County, where the Kizil caves are located, to take pictures of ancient mural paintings there.
He had been in high spirits when he set off from busy and bustling Urumqi.
But, when he reached the county of Kuqa, after traveling nearly 800 kilometers in a journey which involved crossing the Tianshan Mountains, he was surprised at the tough conditions there.
He had to drink briny water, which was a result of alkaline soil.
He had to live in a room transformed from a sheepfold, because there was no other place to stay.
And he had to ride on a donkey cart when commuting between the county town and the caves.
But Feng said such hardships were a piece of cake compared with the difficulties he met while taking pictures on site.
It was very dark inside most of the caves, which made it almost impossible to shoot pictures.
And a flash did not resolve his problems, as it would tone down the pictures' warmth and make them appear greener than they should be.
Besides, there was no place to charge the camera, and the use of a flash light would consume a lot of electricity.
After considering many solutions, Feng decided to use paper to glisten the sunlight into the cave.
At first he used silver paper, but the result was not as pleasing as he had expected. The color was still too drab.
He then mixed tinfoil with newsprint, and achieved a better effect.
Feng claimed that the photos maintained their original vivid color of the pictures and the result surprised many cultural relics experts.
There was also a great deal of danger.
The Kucha caves are scattered on mountain slopes. The roads linking some caves are very narrow, only allowing one person to pass at the same time. One side of the road is slope, and the other is a 100-metre-deep valley.
It was very dangerous to walk on such roads. Before Feng got there, two young people had fallen to their deaths.
"In order to secure my safety, the local government thought of many methods," Feng recalled.
The final solution was that Feng tied a rope around his waist, then another person walked with the rope to the other cave and waited there for Feng. In this case, even if Feng fell off the road, he would not bump into the bottom of the valley.
Feng was not scared by these difficulties. Every year he would go to Kucha several times, staying there for at least 20 days at a time.
"The Nude Art of the Qiuci (Kucha) Grottoes" was one of the results of his fruitful trips.
Understanding
After years of working at the Kucha grottoes, Feng has established his own understanding of ancient mural art in China.
He said he has been especially impressed by the nude art in the ancient murals.
"The Kucha caves are like an enormous gallery of nude art," Feng said.
Kucha was once a big state in the ancient Western Regions. It was located on the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert.
Its capital and central region were within the limits of present-day Kuqa County.
The Kucha caves include the Kizil, Kumtura, Simsem, Kizilgahar and Tuglukerkin caves. In these caves numerous magnificent Buddhist art murals are preserved. Quite a number of them display the human body in their own unique religious style.
Many paintings also reflect the contents of secular activities. As for the images on the paintings, some are serious and dignified, others alluring and coy, and still others are regal and graceful.
"The nude bodies on the paintings are very beautiful and of high aesthetic value," Feng said.
The photographer denied that he was an expert on Kucha paintings.
"I only happen to be familiar with them," he said.
He said, from the murals, he felt that the ancient people living in the western regions had quite a natural attitude towards the human body.
Besides "The Nude Art of the Qiuci (Kucha) Grottoes," Feng has so far published a total of 16 photo albums, most of which are on grottoes in Xinjiang.
Through these publications, he had made a name for himself and made many friends.
Feng is proficient in the local Uygur language. He has easily won the confidence of the local ethnic people.
Sometimes, some local people, who were curious about his cameras and lens, would surround him and watch while he was working. But, there would be many others who understood what he was doing and helped to maintain some order at the same time.
Once he was assigned to take pictures of the inner structure of a big Mosque in Kucha. Knowing that many Muslims wear traditional white hats, he also put a white handkerchief on his head. He wrapped the four corners of the handkerchief and made it look like a hat.
This won him the trust of the imam, who then was willing to accept him into the Mosque.
The list of his friends stretches far and wide, including Japanese scholar and Buddhist thinker Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International, who has been one of Feng's close friends for many years.
Their friendship has motivated Daisaku Ikeda to donate tens of millions of yuan to the protection of cultural relics in Xinjiang.
Feng said he felt proud of being able to make a contribution to Xinjiang, the land he loves so much.
(Xinhua News Agency December 24, 2002)
