Three Phases of My Self-Taught Photography Experience
In the mid-1820s, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the world’s earliest known photo. He needed at least eight hours of exposure in the camera to get the basic results. Today, anyone with a phone can take photos in an instant.
It is amazing to see how photography has changed over the past 200 years. When the threshold of taking a photo is easier, oddly enough it makes the art of photography more difficult. In the digital age, a great photo still must be meticulously composed, focused, exposed, and convey symbolic meanings; meanwhile, a talented photographer needs to face the challenge that even when someone else has the possibility to take a nearly identical picture, his/her work will still embody their unique artistic vision.
My self-taught photography journey has gone through three phases. It motivates me to probe more deeply into this city with new lenses. I hope this can also provide tips for people who want to explore photography and a city with their own visions.
Phase ONE: Imitating from the Masters
- Imitating is usually how beginners make the first step.
I did not go to a photography school, nor did I have a fine arts degree, but I was lucky to have met John, a professional photographer who has become a great friend and a true mentor to me during my photography journey.
John came to Shanghai in 2017 and we worked at the same institution. At that time, I was just starting to learn photography, so when John asked if I could be his local tourist guide in Shanghai, I said yes without hesitation.
When John was taking photos, I noticed that he selected unique angles. I was intrigued and impressed by his work, so I started to imitate by taking similar photos and then learn to perceive their artistic values; meanwhile, I also created a behind-the-scenes collection that documented how John took these photos as my review materials.
Practice makes perfect. To “steal” more visions from John, I often took him to tourist sites like the Bund, as well as many local Shanghai neighborhoods for photography. We had some special memories when visiting the dating corner at People’s Square. On weekends, many retirees gather here to find suitable partners for their unmarried children. Personal information such as age, height, job, education, income, and the criteria of spouse selection are traded openly on a piece of paper stuck to an umbrella. This type of matchmaking has triggered many controversial debates about values on love and marriage.
When we arrived, John was super excited and curious as he zigzagged his way across the colorful umbrellas. Another colleague going with us wrote down “ON SALE” on a notebook page and said, “John, hold this!” I immediately pressed my camera shutter before John could carefully read the words.
Both my colleague and I considered this as a well-timed “performance art” to satirize the commercialization of marriage. When we were still enjoying the picture, somehow John became the spotlight of the crowds because of this “ON SALE” sign he was holding. Things started to go beyond our expectations.
A young Chinese man passed by and asked in Mandarin, “How old is he? Um, I mean, is he looking for someone?”
“Oh NO! He’s married!” My colleague and I exclaimed with one voice…
My one-year experience of shooting photos with John was always filled with joy and laughter. Imitating some of John’s shooting angles helped me to grasp the basic compositional skills and develop a sense of moments and angles worth photographing.
Phase TWO: Finding Wonders with A Photographer’s Mind
- To discover is not just to see, but to observe. It can be a long process that requires patience.
The American photographer Alec Soth once said, “I fell in love with photography because it was an excuse to wander around alone.” After embarking on my photography journey, I soon started to walk around the city by myself with my camera, and sometimes I could spend a whole day walking on the streets.
I discovered the latest “field of fortune” in the area near Zhoujiapai Road by the Huangpu River. I first encountered this place on a bus crossing Yangpu Bridge to visit a friend. Inadvertently, I had a glance of a huge ruin area which was in dramatic contrast to the high rises on the other side of the river. My instinct told me that I needed to go there again with my camera.
When I got there, I walked into the area without climbing any wall or crawling a kennel’s hole. Being the only human being standing in the middle of the relics, I looked like a surviving warrior after a hard-fought battle.
Ten meters away, I was surrounded by shabby houses in various shapes. What was beneath my feet were bricks, weeds, and all kinds of disposed objects that you can never think of — a tattered curtain, a single IKEA kitchen glove, and even an erotic film CD disk…
Without a photographer’s mindset, I would never have thought about visiting this abandoned area or exploring these secret corners, nor would I realize how ignorant I was towards my hometown. Shanghai is usually tagged as “a modern international metropolis”. Yet Shanghai also has a sophisticated history. Here, one can find over 1,000 Art Deco style architectures, as well as secret longtangs (alleys in Shanghainese), painted with the character “拆” (meaning “demolition” in mandarin).
These photos I took myself remind me to appreciate another kind of beauty of this city. Beyond the night view of skyscraper towers that dominates the skyline that one often sees on postcards or TV shows, I have also discovered another side of the city through the worn-out red mattress lying in the relics under the sunset.
Phase THREE: Collaborating with Friends
- Creativity is the currency of the future, so go and create your body of work when it is the time.
2020 marked the third year of my photography journey. In my album, I have an archive of several good works. By this time, I thought I could start to create a cohesive body of work that connects these individual photography pieces together.
At the end of 2020, I started to collaborate with my friends and initiated a few photography projects for fun. The inspiration comes from one of my favorite books, This Equals That. It is a children’s book that teaches associative thinking and visual language, but I find it extremely inspiring for adults to play around with whimsical ideas.
Here is how I did my This Equals That project. My friends first send in a photo, and I will then contribute a second photo. These photos can be old ones that we shot before or new works that we intentionally create for the project. The pair of photos, while taken at different locations and different times, has to be visually connected by the shape, color, or symbolism.
Responding to others’ work is like waiting for the strong chemistry to happen. When a pair of work is done, my friends and I sometimes rave, “I never saw that coming!”, and this is exactly how I wish others to react when they look at the completed work. Meanwhile, the biggest challenge of this project is that my mind is often haunted with many uncertain possibilities until that “WOW” moment sparkles.
Once, John sent me a photo featuring the top end of a comb of bananas. When I saw it, several ideas flashed in my mind: I could connect this with something yellow and brown, or the head of a monkey, or a hollow structured object…I wanted to challenge myself further to shoot a photo that could be better connected with the bananas in more interesting ways. That morning when I was rushing to my office, the “WOW” moment appeared — banana-shaped pillars!
As I reflect on this photography learning journey, I am lucky enough to have come across wild-wacky thoughts and interesting friends. Therefore, my experience of learning photography can be a tool of learning useful for other fields too. To conclude, learning photography and taking the city as a classroom have taught me two things:
First, the process of photography requires time and patience. Spending time practicing taking photos is necessary, but it may not pay off every time. It is possible that I spend a whole day shooting and get almost nothing that I am happy with. So, the smart path to choose is to worry less about success or failure but enjoy the process.
Second, self-learning is an iterative trial-and-error journey not following a linear path. No matter how many phases you have experienced, it is still common to return to the starting point of learning. Take photography, for example, currently, it seems that I have moved to the advanced third phase, but in fact, I frequently go back to “imitate from the master”, either through reading their photo albums, art critiques, or photographic theories.
Art takes time, but life is short. Taking this city as my photography classroom somehow arouses my passion for self-directed learning. I enjoy my photography journey filled with amazement and romance and I never want to graduate from it.
Xinyi Qu is a freelance photographer and works at a design school in Shanghai; she was a journalist and has produced an assisted suicide/dying documentary film in the UK.
She would like to thank Yanyue Yuan, Sam Li, and Emily Tsiang for offering feedback on earlier drafts of this article.
Xinyi’s photo album: https://iamquxinyi.lofter.com
