The Many Faces of Beijing
by Jocelyn Garwood
I love faces. I particularly love Chinese faces.
I also love photography. Consequently, for me, Beijing has become a camera buff's
paradise.
The most intriguing faces are those of the very old. Heavily lined, tired, and often coarsely textured, these faces, to me, reveal an ultimate beauty. I like to reflect upon the very old: what their eyes have seen and what their hearts have experienced.
However, the urge to capture these beautiful images invariably gives rise to an internal conflict. To take a photograph of an individual, particularly one of the older generation without first asking permission would seem to violate their privacy. But, in asking permission, one then loses the spontaneity of the moment.
One of the most beautiful Chinese faces I have ever seen was that of an extremely old
woman gazing out of a window in one of the hutongs leading off Xidamochang Jie. There was
something in her expression at that moment that simply mesmerized me. But when she turned
her head and saw me, she quickly closed the curtains and disappeared from view.
Children are often delightful subjects to photograph. Furthermore, their parents are usually more than receptive to having their child's picture taken albeit reluctant to be included in it themselves. However, these shots are usually "posed" at considerable cost to spontaneity.
The more interesting situations involving children usually present a small problem: these youngsters move around with lightning speed so by the time an amateur photographer such as myself has focused on one spot, the child has scurried off to another.
Members of the middle-aged generation, on
the whole, are quite amenable to being photographed, although they often register utter
bewilderment as to why anyone would want to photograph them in the first place. The
individuals in this group are particularly interesting because, from a Western
perspective, they all appear years younger than they actually are, much to the envy of
Westerners.
An artist's canvas, of course, is much more revealing as it incorporates nuances of moods over the span of its creation. However, pragmatism ultimately prevails, and consequently, photography -- which captures only a moment in time -- becomes the only option for the lover of Chinese faces.