Camera Obscura » Xiaomei Chen (陈小枚)

Interview with Xiaomei Chen

Xiaomei Chen (陈小枚) — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:40:19 +0000

Following interview by Xiaomei Chen (陈小枚) and Yuhui Liao-Fan.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: What does “photography” mean to you?

Xiaomei Chen: To me, photography is first of all a tool of exploration and expression. The camera is my passport; it gives me a reason to travel, observe, explore and understand among different cultures and geographic locations. Because of the camera, my horizon is being continuously expanded. My cognition of this world becomes more tangible, and my feeling more real. I understand myself better, too. Each time, no matter what theme I am working on – documentary, artistic, I am always like a curious child, who tries to understand the world and herself through lenses.

In the meantime, although I no longer believe that photography can change the world, still I hope that they can provide people with visual information, and inform people of social problems, so that they can reflect upon them.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Can you write a biographical introduction?

Xiaomei Chen: My parents gave me the name of Chen Xiaomei, and I changed one character by myself when I was in elementary school. I was born in Heyuan, Guangdong in China in 1974, and grew up in a traditional Hakka cultural environment. I currently live in Dallas, United States. Initially I had a degree in education, and after teaching English in a teaching college for six years, I turned to Journalism and got a Master degree in Journalism from Jinan University in Guangzhou. Then I became interested in anthropology. In 2004 I went to America and studied anthropology in University of Colorado, and obtained a master degree in anthropology in 2006. In the same year I gave up a PHD scholarship offered by the University of Wisconsin, and started my career as a photographer. I got a Master degree in photography from Ohio University in 2010. Now I work as an independent photographer.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: How did you become a photographer?

Xiaomei Chen: I always admire artists. My younger brother is an artist and he is very gifted. I almost adore him, and I would never think that I could do creative work like him. How did you become a photographer Nor did I think I could do anything related to visual art. In the eyes of myself, my family, or friends and classmates, I am supposed to be a teacher who works with pen. Now I still write for the media in China from time to time.

The first time I picked up a camera was when I traveled to Inner Mongolia during the summer vacation of my sophomore year. I borrowed a point-and-shoot camera and took snapshots of the landscape. They are intolerable when I look at them today, but at that time I really enjoyed the process of looking at the world from a viewfinder. In 1999, I travelled to the Tibet, and for the first time I used an SLR, Nikon FM2, but I had no single idea about aperture and shutter speed at all, and of course they were just tourism photos. When I got back, the local media reported my trip and asked me to write a series of travel journals of my journey to Tibet. Along with that some photographs were published. That was the first time I publish my photos. But I didn’t think about becoming a photographer, and I didn’t dare to, because I thought a pen is easier to use than a camera.

When I studied Journalism in Jinan University, I became an amateur photographer. Since it was not my major, I knew little about photography, and there were not many materials available to learn, so it was purely a leisure activity without any restrictions. I took tourism photographs, I shot plants, and sometimes street scenes as well. Occasionally I even received some praises. When I was about to graduate, I photographed Xiaoguwei, a disappearing historic village in the suburb of Guangzhou. Later, my photos were exhibited by Jiangnanliguo in Guangzhou.

When I studied anthropology in the US, photography became a seasoning of my life, because academic research was very monotonous. I sat in on lectures on fine art photography in the department of Arts, and lectures on photojournalism in the department of Journalism. I got acquainted with Kevin Moloney, the photographer with New York Times and his father Paul Moloney. With their encouragement, I seriously started to consider being a professional photographer. In the end I gave up the PHD scholarship and became a full time photographer.

After working for nearly one year for a newspaper in Colorado, I was encouraged by Rich Clarkson, the former photography director of National Geographic, to accept the Enlight Fellowship from University of Ohio. I studied visual communication and documentary photography.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Can you describe your work? How would you define your photographs?

Xiaomei Chen: My job is a lot of fun, but at the same time it is very demanding, both physically and mentally. When doing academic research I felt it rather tiring and boring, and I admired people who do art because I thought their job is very easy and full of fun. But when I became a full time photographer, I find that photography is sometimes even more difficult than academic research. Doing academic study only requires hard work and accumulation, and as long as you keep thinking, you will gain achievement. However, creative art work is really hard, and accumulation might turn out to be repetition and restrictions.

A Chinese proverb says, “You cannot know the shape of a mountain when you stand in the mountain.” It is very difficult for me to judge my own work. You may want to seek comments from those people in this field who are familiar with my work. For example, Terry Eiler, the director of Faculty of Visual Communication, photographer Tom Ondrey, Bill Alen, the former chief editor of National Geographic.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Can you say a few words about your technique?

Xiaomei Chen: Maybe because of my academic background in Journalism and Anthropology, basically my approach is quite straightforward. Most of my work is documentary. In addition, under the influence of photojournlistic ethics in the US, do very little retouching except the traditional dodging and burning. Generally I don’t change the original look of the photograph.

I mainly use Nikon DSLR, sometimes 135mm and 120mm films as well. I got a 4×5 view camera recently, so I hope I can do more film photography.

I like to try different ways, and I do not want myself constrained by techniques or styles.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Does the technical aspects that you mentioned are important or what really matters is only the final result?

Xiaomei Chen: Post processing is not very important in my work. Whether it is documentary or studio photography, I emphasize more the photograph per se and the message it conveys. If I want to get a specific effect, I’d rather get it from the shooting than the post processing.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: How do you approach strangers? Do you ask if they accept to be photographed or otherwise you try not to be noticed? What are their typical reactions?

Xiaomei Chen: Usually before I take a photograph, I will ask for permission from the subject. However, if I have to capture a fabulous moment that can’t be missed out, I will take the photograph first, and tell the subject that I just took a photo of him or her. In the States, most people are very friendly, and they don’t mind being photographed. But if they ask me not to shoot them, I will stop, except for some special news events, such as photographing the detainees.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: When you are working in China, do you think that being Chinese and -as a consequence- to have a certain invisibility compared to a foreign photographer, is a major advantage?

Xiaomei Chen: I don’t think I have certain invisibility as a Chinese to photograph in China. The camera itself unveils your desire to photograph. On the contrary, I think that photographing in China is indeed more difficult, because Chinese people seem to be shy in front of the camera, and meanwhile they are more alert.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Do you think that being a women modifies the reactions people have when you take their photographs? Do you think that shooting reportage can put yourself in difficult context for a women or the danger is the same for everyone? Have you ever find your self in this kind of situations?

Xiaomei Chen: In the US, it is an advantage for me to be a female photographer and a foreigner as well. It is because a woman, compared to a man, does not pose any threat to the subject, so the subject may feel relatively relaxed. Moreover, as a foreign female, it is quite often that people are curious about me and they would love to talk to me. Therefore they give me the chance to express my friendliness, and it is easier for me to get access to photograph them.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: One of your first work was a trip to Tibet, a special autonomous region where Chinese peoples usually need special authorizations to visit it. Did you had complete freedom or you experienced any form of pressure from the authorities? More generally, what is your personal experience concerning the freedom of the press in China?

Xiaomei Chen: When I first went to Tibet years ago, rather than as a photographer or a journalist, I was just a tourist. Therefore I did not need any special authorization. Also it might be that the time and social circumstance then was rather different from nowadays, so I didn’t find any restrictions.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Can you describe the two projects you have chosen to illustrate the interview?

Xiaomei Chen: The photographs of these two series are projects in progress. The beginning of Zen of Fire is rather accidental — the house of my boyfriend’s mother was on fire. The purpose of this project is to explore the meaning behind disasters, and make people rethink of disasters. Laozi once said, weal and woe come side by side. Woe may be a blessing in disguise, and luck can be the next neighbour to misfortune. What I want to express is just a simple philosophy as such. Because of this project, I found myself having quite different thinking compared to the western photographers, and the influence of Chinese culture is very penetrating.

“Embrace Pain” aims to explore some marginalized American people from an anthropological point of view. I photograph them, not simply because their behaviour is quite odd in the eyes of the “ordinary people”, but because I am curious about their inner world, and I would like to re-contemplate about the contemporary society through their eyes. I want to question again “what is normal?”, and this project reveals the very fact that to me, that photography is an instrument of exploration.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: A lot of photographers complain about the actual situation of documentary photography. Do you think that reportage has a major crisis now and why? What an be a possible solution?

Xiaomei Chen: It is rather difficult to judge whether we are facing crisis in documentary photography, but it seems that we are experiencing a transition, a bit uncertain state. According to the traditional Chinese philosophy, “crisis” breeds “opportunity.” Possibly we will embrace a whole new opportunity in documentary photography, or even the entire photography realm. The only thing is that we haven’t found it yet.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Do you think that the situation is the same in the Western world and in China?

Xiaomei Chen: Maybe there are some differences in theory and practice between the Chinese and western photography. However, in China as in the West, technological developments, changes of opinion and the economic situations influence more or less the mindset, approaches, techniques and means of disseminating photographs. With globalization the gap between Asia and the Western world is diminishing.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: More generally, do you think that the Chinese contemporary photography is different from the Western one? If yes what are those differences and how do you explain them? Do you think we can speak of a “Chinese school” or photography today is globalized?

Xiaomei Chen: I am not really familiar with the specific distinctions between the modern photography of China and that of the West. But I think unlike words, photography is a language without national boarders. It is true that the environment and culture in which we grow up will leave marks on us and influence the way how we work, but every photographer has his or her own way, no matter in the west or in China. It is difficult to judge the photographer’s nationality from an image.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: What do you like and dislike in the contemporary Chinese photography?

Xiaomei Chen: A very small number of photojournalists do staged photography, or do a lot of post processing work, and I don’t agree with that. I am not against the post production of art photography, but for journalism and documentary photography, it is better not do post production in order to reflect the reality.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Do you have a wish or a photographic dream?

Xiaomei Chen: Practice photography in an honest manner, and meanwhile don’t have to be starved.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Do you think is fundamental to live in a big and important city, or -for example thanks to Internet- the city in which you live is no longer a contraint?

Xiaomei Chen: Geographic location is not a restriction. Restrictions come from a closed mind, as well as economic constraints.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Do you think it’s important to have a website or a blog? Is it is essential to have it translated into various languages? How the Internet contributes to the spread contemporary photography?

Xiaomei Chen: The blog is indeed a very personal way of expression. It can help people see and know more about the photographer’s work. But in an era when blogs are flooded, there are very few photography blogs that can receive much attention. I have a blog, but the purpose is not to promote my work, but share with friends. However, I do think photographers should have their own websites. I designed and established my own website.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: How would you describe the artistic and photographic scene in China? Is it that there are often exhibitions, festivals, events, etc.? What about commercial photography?

Xiaomei Chen: The relation between the art world and the commercial community is very tricky. Art needs commercial support, but might be undermined by the commercial world. The resistance and attraction are going on at the same time.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: What are your sources of reference for contemporary photography in China?

Xiaomei Chen: The blog of Ren Yue, a teacher of China Renmin University, is very informative.

Yuhui Liao-Fab: Can you tell some names of Chinese photographers that you particularly like and why?

Xiaomei Chen: Gu Zheng’s fine art photography is quite in-depth. The documentary photography of Lu Guang very much deserves attention.

Please read Xiaomei Chen’s contributed article Between In and Out and visit Xiaomei Chen website for more informations and documentary photographs.

Between In and Out, by Xiaomei Chen (陈小枚)

Xiaomei Chen (陈小枚) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 05:14:45 +0000

Text and photographs by Xiaomei Chen (陈小枚).

For a long time, I liked to look out and travel to distant places, like a dreamer.

“If there were a hell, I know you’d run there just to take a peek,” my mother once said, with great agony. She was right. If hell existed, I’d go to find out what were happening there. I am always curious about places and cultures different than what I am familiar with.

My first trip to Tibet was a turning point that pushed me to look farther out. Instead of traveling to distant places on my annual vacations, I wanted to be on the road all the time. One way to make this a reality was to be a journalist and writer who traveled all over the country – and the world, to tell stories from different cultures.

A year after the two-month trip to Tibet, I quit my teaching job at a junior college in south China to study journalism.

When I first started journalism, I had a lot of romantic dreams. I dreamed I sent articles back to magazines or newspapers from Middle East, Africa, South America…I’d ask unrelenting questions like Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci did.

It was quite nice to study and work for a dream, not knowing, or not willing to know that it would sooner or later be broken like soap bubbles. My first soap bubbles started to break soon after I got my MA in journalism, when I suddenly realized all the skills I had meant almost nothing. I finally admitted I didn’t fit into China’s media system. Besides that, I was told many times that I was like an exile in my own country.

Desperate as I was, I refused to quit dreaming and looking out. I came to the United States to study anthropology, which I believed would indeed take me to all the exotic places – as a scholar this time.

My two years of studying anthropology was eye opening. I learned a completely different way to look at different cultures. Meanwhile, I started to look at my own culture with the theories I was studying. I was trying to verify what I was taught about my own culture. I guess it was at this time that I began to look in, not only into my own culture, but also into myself, though unconsciously. My major interest was still looking out into other peoples.

In 2006, when I was about move to Madison, WI, to study for a Ph.D. degree in anthropology, I took another unexpected turn. I decided to give up my Ph.D. scholarship and became a photographer.

The decision must have been shocking to my family. No one, not even myself, had ever expected me to be a photographer. I could be a writer or professor. Me being a photographer? This was something quite strange. I didn’t even touch a camera, a point-and-shoot camera, until my second year in college!

Yet while an anthropology major at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I audited two photojournalism classes taught by a New York Times photographer Kevin Moloney. Kevin was an inspiring teacher. His enthusiasm for photojournalism was contagious. I soon found myself spending more time on photography than I should have.

Until the end of my master’s program in anthropology, I considered photography an escape from my heavy academic workload. It was fun. That was it.

As it got closer to the day to move to Madison, I grew uneasy. I was not so sure if I really wanted to spend years, maybe the rest of my life, studying one specific culture, digging theories, teaching, debating and researching. That would mean I would spend all my life at school. I had never left school so far. Even before I reached school age, I already lived at school as both my parents worked for a high school and we lived on the campus. After college, I was a teacher… How I wanted to get out of school!

As it became unbearable to think that I would spend my whole life at school – the ivory tower, traveling with a camera and entering other people’s lives seemed so intriguing and inviting. The camera would truly take me to many different places and lives and in a fun way.

As I was debating myself and tried to make a decision, Kevin said to me one day, “The Greeley Tribune (in northern Colorado) needs a photo intern.”

This helped me to make the decision. I gave up my scholarship for the Ph.D. degree and did my first internship with a community newspaper, The Greeley Tribune.

My camera was a passport to enter people’s lives. Every day, I learned something new about America and its people, which I couldn’t have from the classroom. Every day, I went to work with sparkling passion. I looked, and looked and looked… with a camera, and clicked. I was amazed by what I saw and learned.

I kept looking out with my camera and almost forgot to look in until 2009.

2009 was my second year at Ohio University, studying photography with a fellowship. By then, I was a little overwhelmed or confused by what was happening in the world of photojournalism. It seemed all the photojournalistic contests produced similar kinds of work. Winning images were usually dramas of suffering. A lot of my classmates were photographing poverty, homeless people, drug addicts, teenage pregnancy, domestic violence and other negative subjects.

I was not sure if I wanted to do the same thing, though I was sure I still wanted to be a photographer.

Anyhow, I found myself lost again.

I was stumbling and fumbling for my way to do photography.

2009 happened to be a very difficult year in my personal life, too. I was looking for my lost self. I spent a lot of time reading and thinking again. I asked about the meaning of photography, the meaning of, the relationship of life and death.

I didn’t have the answers to the big questions I asked myself, and I still don’t. But something started happening in me. I looked in more than I looked out. Photography might be more a medium to explore my inner world than to look out.

One day I noticed an incomplete skeleton dangling from my neighbor’s window. For the next few days, I found myself staring at the skeleton quite a lot. Then one evening, I borrowed it from my neighbor. I held the skeleton in my arms and walked home in the dark. It was quite bizarre, and a little scary, but I was excited.

I spent a whole week photographing the skeleton in my apartment. I didn’t have a very specific idea of what that would become. I simply followed my intuition and photographed it with an almost playful attitude. Not until I edited the images, did I realize it was a medium for me to explore the relationship between life and death. I had questioned why I existed. The question got louder, but the answer was nowhere to find. This project, titled “Between,” was not an answer, but part of the question.

Puzhu in Transition is another example photography is a medium for me to look in instead of looking out, although it is a documentary project and could be considered a historical record of the Hakka village and its people.

Puzhu in Transition is a multimedia project that includes a book and a video. It didn’t occur to me that I should photograph Puzhu, my mother’s home village, until I visited it again twenty years after my visit as a child.

I was struck by the beauty of this mountain village as if it were the first time I visited it. I was shocked by its population loss as a result of China’s industrialization and urbanization.

A few villagers recognized me. “Aren’t you that little girl who burnt your foot one summer?” They asked.

Yes, I was that little girl, and the daughter of a woman who was born and grew up there.

They were amazed that naughty little girl was now back to their village after a hiatus of twenty years. They were more curious how this little girl, later in her womanhood, could fly over the ocean to the other side of the Earth, where lives were beyond their imagination.

Because I was that little girl, they accepted me and my camera. But because I was not born there, I was not considered one of them. Yet my experiences in a foreign land made them break their rules for me so that I could witness their shrine ritual, which usually didn’t allow women to participate in.

The villagers all know my mother and her dramas when she was young. She was the first person to move to the city from Puzhu. Sometimes I wondered: Had my mother not moved away and then married my father, what would I have become? I sometimes imagined myself growing up in this beautiful but isolated mountain village. I asked many times how my fate as a village woman would be.

All my imagination was vague.

But no doubt the village is part of my identity because my mother comes from there. It is the root of my mother’s and part of mine. Documenting the changes of this village is partly exploring all the possibilities of fate and destiny, which my mother, and of course I, have escaped.

Sometimes I had to “flee” the village when several women preached to me the old Hakka values and urged me to get married and become a mother like any “normal’ woman should. Looking back, I see this as an example of my relationship to this village.

By then, the villagers had accepted me not as a guest or relative, but as a half-member of their community. However far I had traveled and however educated I was, I was still a Hakka woman and was expected to embrace our Hakka traditions and values. They considered it their responsibility to remind me of them. My escape, on the other hand, seemed to reveal my life in limbo partly as a result of being detached from the traditions.

I didn’t grasp the essence of my relationship to the village until after I started the project. Once I became aware of it, my interest to continue the documentation grew stronger. Originally inspired by anthropologist William Hinton’s ethnography about a village in north China over a span of three decades to show China’s history, I am now more certain that the documentation of Puzhu will be part of my life long journey to look into my own culture.

That said, I know a growing interest in looking in will not stop me from looking out. I recently started exploring a subject called “Apple,” trying to push my vision to go beyond limits. Though this subject has nothing obvious to do my personal history, I feel that I am looking out and looking in at the same time. Why? I can’t really explain in words. All I know is photography is my way of looking in and looking out, partly because I seem to be always in an awkward position between in and out.