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A Report On the China Travelers! By Dennie Cody
Posted: Thursday, October 7, 2004
Bangkok - October 6, 2004
Dear Fellow ASMP Members,
We have just returned from the six-day trip to Duyun, China. There were
14 of us (see the list of attendees at the bottom) who made the trip.
Most of the group came into Beijing on the 29th and had a formal
welcoming dinner with the rank and file of the Chinese Photographers
Association (CPA). We were met at the airport in Guiyang on the 30th by
Ms. Qin Di from the CPA and several of the volunteers who stayed with us
throughout the trip. We were transported to Duyun after dinner by bus
and cars as we arrived in small groups or individually at different
times. The hotel was fine although not luxurious by our standards. We
ate all of our meals there and the food was good if a bit Chinese for
some tastes. The CPA people were always around to help out and tried
their best to make it a pleasant experience for us. There were also an
estimated 200 Chinese, Korean, Thai, Japanese and a few European
photographers attending the festival.
Duyun is a city of 500,000 located northeast of Kunming City in Guizhou
Province of China. It is a very mountainous region and is considered to
be the center of the ethnic hilltribe people of China with 31 different
minorities in the area. The Jianjiang River flows through the city,
which is known as the “City of Bridges”.
We were attending the 2nd International Photography Exhibition in Duyun,
which is the 6th Photographic Arts Festival of China. Exhibits from
Peru, Thailand, and many other countries were featured but the majority
of the photography was from Chinese photographers.
Our first day, October 1st, happened to fall on “National Day” in China,
which is the equivalent of our July Fourth. So it was the beginning of a
7-day holiday for the Chinese with the first day bringing huge
celebrations all over the country.
In Duyun the celebration took place in large outdoor stadium with
grandstands on three sides, which were completely packed with the
locals. We were seated under the only section with a roof along with all
of the dignitaries that included the daughter-in-law of Chairman Mao
(who drew crowds each time she stood up or took a photo with her Canon
80-200 zoom) and the daughter of Ansel Adams, Anne Helms, (who was
seated next our group). It was a grand morning of endless speeches and
groups of costumed local minorities and residents marching past the
stands playing music and executing all manner of dances and drills. The
groups gathered in the center of the arena after they had marched past
the stands until it was filled with thousands of people all in bright
colors, blowing horns, singing, waving flags and banners. As the
speeches ran too long, we missed the bullfights and the horse racing
that followed. It was a true spectacle and all before lunch.
After lunch we went to the Museum of Art of Duyun for the grand opening
of the photographic exhibitions. Our exhibit was in a second much larger
exhibition hall. The ribbon cutting brought more speeches, more
beautiful girls in white Chinese style dresses, and more crowds of
people. At any event (or even sometimes non-events) in China there will
always be a crowd of curious onlookers, mostly peasants from the
countryside, who likely have never seen a westerner before. This is
especially true when they are blondes and we had several blondes with
long hair in the group, which meant we were mobbed constantly with
requests for autographs, photos and interviews. How do you like Duyun?
How do you like Chinese food? What do you like most about China? At
times we were completely surrounded by Chinese photographers (remember
the 200 attendees) taking pictures of us. They were constantly shooting
us as we went from the Museum to the old section of Duyun called the Old
Stone Street so named for the ancient stone paving on the street and the
original style of wooden architecture. In this area the Buyi hilltribe
staged a mock wedding ceremony with costumed performers singing and
dancing up and down the street. It was a jam of people and photographers
trying to get a shot of the festivities and us.
That evening there was a bonfire and fireworks display, which brought an
end to a day of surprises and fun for us.
On day two we were taken by bus up into the mountains to a hilltribe
village of the Miao people. Singing and clapping village girls in their
ethnic dress greeted us at the gate. People blowing horns and singing
followed them. There were also loud firecrackers being set off near the
main gate. It was a scene. After we got into the village, we went to the
main square where dancers and musicians entertained us with ethnic
dances. Chinese photographers follow a different protocol than
westerners. They will go right into the performance to get close-ups and
action shots with no regard for the others. This made it difficult for
us to shoot without getting many other photographers in every shot. It
was a lesson in cultural differences. Following the performances we were
permitted to go up into the village and into peoples’ homes to shoot
them in their natural environment. We got a lot of good shots during
this time.
After lunch we were driven to another ethnic village for a similar round
of performances and free shooting. This village was the Rao tribe, who
like the Miao people are also found in northern Thailand. There were
demonstrations of weaving and handicrafts back in the village, which
provided some real photo ops.
The drive up and back was through a valley of some of the most beautiful
rice, tobacco and tea farms we have seen in China but the buses would
not stop for us to shoot. On the next day we were supposed to go to more
villages but the Florida group decided we had to deviate from the plan
and rent our own bus and go out into the countryside to shoot where we
wanted and when we wanted. It took hours of discussion, which is the
Chinese “way” to get them to allow us to do so, but they finally
relented and said ok.
So on day three we took off and just drove into the valley stopping here
and there to shoot the rice harvest under way. The harvesters were still
using the old style threshing method where they use a wooden box and
simply swing the bundles of rice against the sides of the box until the
grains are knocked out of the head. This will soon be a thing of the
past as many farmers are now using metal threshers which are operated by
a foot petal like the old sewing machine to turn the heads inside to
knock the grains out of the head while they hold a bunch of rice stalks
into the opening. Of course gas-powered machines will also replace this
manual method in the future. Thus we were really recording an historical
event.
We also saw a brick factory, a village with a market including an
open-air butcher shop, tea farms, tobacco farms and other things. We met
many people several of whom invited us all into their homes, which we
declined as they were busy harvesting and we were such a large group. It
was a great day of shooting and cultural interaction. The last shot was
a man fishing with a net on a boat in a lake which we shoot from the top
of the dam looking across the lake back up the valley with rice terraces
and farms ringed by the wonderful pointed mountains so famous in that
part of China. It was a great way to end the day.
On day four we stayed in town and went back to the two exhibition halls
to see our exhibit again and to really look at all of the thousands of
photos. There were some very powerful images and some very unusual
techniques. One Japanese photographer had painted on his black and white
prints to get a different effect. There was a good pinhole exhibit and
the Hong Kong Photographers association had a good group show. Our ASMP
show was just as interesting as any of the others and the quality of our
prints was among the best in the show. Chinese photographers, as a rule,
tend to over saturate their prints but they had some outstanding
collections. Two Thai photographer collections were also quite good. It
was very educational and we learned a lot about what we should do next
time as we have been invited to attend next years festival at Pingyou.
We spent the rest of the day shopping and seeing the town while meeting
so many very friendly and curious people. Our CPA hosts are to be
commended for their efforts on our behalf and for the program they put
together for us. The same goes for the volunteers, mostly local college
students, who acted as guides and interpreters to improve their English.
One girl even modeled for one of our students who did a fashion shoot as
part of her class work. We enjoyed learning about their lives and
helping them with their English while getting to know them. We will
likely exchange e-mail with several of them in the future. Our ASMP
group had an excellent experience as a group and we really enjoyed our
time together. There are lots of other good stories to tell about
individual adventures but as an overview it was a very positive
experience.
The festival continued through the 5th but most of us left that day with
the main group going on to Beijing where they will see the “Forbidden
City” and the other highlights of Beijing including the Great Wall. They
will have to report on their activities there. Dk and I returned to
Bangkok with a load of exposed film and lots of good memories.
* Photo by unknown street person
Attendees:Ms. Ellen Beach
Ms. Nancy Brown
Ms. Chari Cuthbert
Mr. Dennie Cody
Ms. Jane Frances Decle
Ms. Danielle Lee Durbak
Mr. David Durbak
Ms. Duangkamon Khattiya
Ms. Jillen Lippincott
Mr. Glenn McLaughlin
Ms. Paul Morris
Ms. Julia Pearce
Mr. Tom Salyer
* ASMP members shown in photos do not necessarily represent actual China Travelers.
In Memoriam; Richard Avedon dies at 81
Posted: Friday, October 1, 2004
In Memorium: Richard Avedon, 81
Richard Avedon, an ASMP Life Member and winner of the ASMP Memorial Award for 1956, was perhaps the best-known photographer in the world. His contributions to the specialties of portrait and fashion photography will long be remembered, appreciated, and studied. As Alexey Brodovitch said at the presentation of the ASMP Memorial Award, "Avedon's work has surprise, shock and originality. His work arrests the eye, and he has the sharpest eyes I know, like a stage director's, not a push-button photographer as so many."
Born in 1923, he dropped out of high school to serve in the Merchant Marine during World War II. He was assigned to the photo unit, taking pictures of thousands of sailors, and after the war he enrolled to study photography with Alexey Brodovitch at The Design Laboratory of New York's New School for Social Research. Soon afterward, he began working as Staff photographer for Harper's Bazaar.
In 1950, he earned a Highest Achievement Medal from the Art Directors Club. He went on to feature in major public exhibitions and to garner other accolades, many of which are listed at his business website, www.richardavedon.com.
In 1993, he became the first staff photographer to be hired at The New Yorker, under the editorship of Tina Brown.
He is widely quoted for saying, "All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth." His portraits included Brigitte Bardot, Jacques Cousteau, Jimmy Durante, Lena Horne, Jean Genet, Georgia O'Keeffe, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Pablo Picasso, Gloria Vanderbilt, Andy Warhol, Mae West, Frank Lloyd Wright and many another famous personality. His images inspired either awed respect or antipathy; few pictures left viewers unmoved.
While on assignment for The New Yorker in Texas, he died on October 1 from a cerebral hemorrhage suffered a few days earlier. He was 81.
Richard Avedon, Dean of Photographers, Is Dead at 81 by Andy Grundberg
Published in the New York Times, October 1, 2004
Richard Avedon, whose fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century, died today in a hospital in San Antonio, Tex. He was 81 and lived in Manhattan. Read the entire article in the New York Times. - registration will be required to gain acces to this article
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