A picture is worth a thousand words, but it is not enough

As a photographer, I’m constantly thinking about how to make a photo more interesting and compelling for a reader.

At the same time, I am also wondering how these images have been filtered into our consciousness, and given the abundant amount of coverage of China, especially during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, what can we conclude about the country?

While recent coverage of China can lend itself in one direction or the other, the sheer size of the country makes it very difficult to really put a firm finger on what China is really like.

I imagined what the limitations of photographing in China were going to be like. I knew getting images of workers and personalizing their story was going to prove difficult. After all, I had never set foot in China before. Who was I to try to get personal with a country I knew very little about?

But getting personalized images is probably one of the easier ways to get a reader connected. It has the opportunity to humanize the lives of workers you may not otherwise see. It could suddenly be a face behind the UCLA sweatshirt, connecting you to the worker and realizing that UCLA’s existence doesn’t just start at the student bookstores.

At the end of the day, I have to think about what I’m shooting the image for. What kind of impact could a photo like this make?

I thought about the serious repercussions and retaliations workers face when publicly speaking out about conditions at a factory – especially to media.

I had to be sensitive about that, and I wanted to make sure Audrey and I were not going to put any of the workers in any danger.

However, trying to get an understanding of the environment that workers are operating in also made me realize how personalized images may not be enough to convey how nuanced and complex China’s situation is.

During the two weeks in China, I found myself often overwhelmed and awed by the images and landscapes of the country and sometimes I just forgot to shoot. At other times I would sense a strange mask of familiarity when I saw young girls resting their heads on their boyfriends’ shoulders as they were whisked away in Zhongshan on rickety busses with seats made of metal rods.

There is also a sense of modern influences having a profound effect on the self-identity of an entire generation trying to adapt to an environment that is perhaps not quite ready. These nuances and subtle changes add the shades of grey to what is black and white in China. It is reminiscent of the forming and reworking of China’s path towards self-discovery on its own terms.

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