In the sixties, Hsu Ching-po was one of those who truly had the right stuff, be it in photography, writing, or criticism. He maintained his own principles, not reaching for the moon, using a natural style without forced interpretations of the subject matter. Yet he always captured, amidst the confusion of reality, the essence, the significance, and the purity of a situation. His vivid compositions are full of humanity, and through them runs a thread of warmth and hope.
In "The Tile Factory" (1955), we see two furnaces as incredible creatures, consuming the sweat and strain of the workmen. The angle of the sunlight creates layers of shadow and light. The picture is replete with focal points. The black smoke establishes the feeling of movement of work in progress and also of suffocation. Hsu used a high-speed shutter to save for eternity a scene now impossible to find.
In "Secret Chat" (1956), "The Frequent Passenger" (1956), and "The Musician" (1968), we can feel how good Hsu is at capturing personality, and how the suddenly taken unposed photo can grab the moment; this is Hsu's understanding of "realism."
And as in the works "Piety" (1961), "Selling Rain Hats" (1955), and "The Happy Life on the Farm" (1957), Hsu subtly handles the relationship between people and the environment, and his careful and harmonious blending of his own personal style of art with real life; they also reveal his fondness for the local land and people.
Born in 1930 in Panchiao, Hsu's first contact with a camera came coincidentally, when a friend left one at his home. Later, with two friends, Hsu took up the study of painting, but found the photographs he took of scenery which he intended to use as subjects for painting more compelling and meaningful. Still, photos like "The Happy Life on the Farm," with the women chatting amiably as they work, show Hsu's deep feeling for naturalist and realist painting; he simply captured on film what he couldn't bring off on the canvas.
His creativity was perhaps at its peak in the years from 1955 to 1966. As a young and enthusiastic novice, he often set out for the suburbs of Panchiao in search of photographic prey, like that of "Selling Rain Hats," taken with one hand on his bicycle and one on the camera. By his second year he was able to win a prize at a photo exhibition in Japan.
Hsu's roaming took him one day to a great discovery: the strange rock formations at Yeliu, still virgin territory for tourists and artists alike. Hsu went every Sunday to there for months on end. He showed his photos to the local fishermen, who turned to selling them when there were no fish to market in the winter. Hsu spent most of that period in his darkroom filling orders for his pictures of the rocks.
Hsu was instrumental in introducing Yeliu to others; many magazines carried his photos of the locale. Nevertheless, the first exhibition with Yeliu as the theme was held by Hwang Tse-hsiu and Wu Tung-hsing in 1962--"Forgotten Paradise." Though beaten to the punch, Hsu did not care. For him, photography is not a competition, and one need not fight to get ahead or fear falling behind.
Hsu also undertook a series of over 3,000 photos recording the lives of the Lin family of Panchiao. An exhibition was cut short by lack of funds, however, and most of the negatives have since succumbed to water damage or inadequate care. Similarly, most of the more than 200 lanternslides taken on a 1964 trip to Lanyu Island and back, which resulted in Hsu's only "personal exhibition," have since disappeared. Alas, from Yeliu to the Lins to Lanyu, it seems that many of the memories and hopes can only be incomplete ones.
Hsu believes that photography is a form of self-expression--it comes from the heart. It is not "beauty" or "composition" that matters, but content. In "The Frequent Passenger," for example, the main subject's expression and clothing bespeak both his era and the timeless toil of life, while the somewhat confused smile of the slightly out of focus boatman serves as a contrast with, and means to bring out in greater relief, the main subject. The photo manifests the nature of man as persevering in an uncertain world.
Hsu's photos reveal his skill at using different lenses to emphasize that which he sought to bring out. In "The Frequent Passenger" he uses the effect of depth to make the subject stand out; in "Vendor" (1956), he employs a long lens to achieve a compressed effect, piling the Great Buddha at Changhwa together with the array of visitors before it to create a tension of full to exploding. In "Wintry Feeling" (1954), the bicycle tire sets the form while two hazy figures amble across a perfectly flat horizon, summarizing neatly Hsu's own feeling of coldness.
Children are another of the subjects Hsu concerns himself with. In "Playful Children on Lanyu" (1965), Hsu uses an upward-looking angle to achieve a sharp contrast of shapes in the forefront against the empty sky; he is able to paradoxically make the children appear frozen as statues while still effusing the vitality of youth.
In "Greeting the Water Lamp" (1958), Hsu ingeniously managed to secretly capture this scene of night offerings during Ghost Festival. The unaware bodies amidst the firelight of the rocking lanterns seem to be leading the spirits of the children into the very myths of that special night. The picture has a dark mystery, and though it seems but a glance in time, it is still fresh and moving today.
Since 1968, when Hsu opened the Chang-an Advertising Company, and 1969, when Hsu began a twelve-year stint as a teacher of photography at Ming-chuan Women's College of Commerce, and 1972, when he began serving as a columnist for Photography Magazine and China Photography, Hsu has had little time for his photography. This fact makes his earlier photos all the more precious.
Looking at Hsu's realist style, it is clear that he has been able to reflect the emotions and concerns of life in his pure, prudent compositions. In his work, reality is perhaps reality, yet it also takes one away from reality for a while, to look anew at now forgotten lives. These works form an essential part of the development and progress of photography in Taiwan in the 1960's.
[Picture Caption]
Hsu Ching-po at age 34, 1964.
The Tile Factory, 1955.
Piety, 1961.
Secret Chat, 1956.
Selling Rain Hats, 1955.
The Happy Life on the Farm, 1957.
Vendor, 1956.
The Musician, 1968.
Playful Children on Lanyu, 1964.
The Frequent Passenger, 1956.
Greeting the Water Lamp, 1958.
Wintry Feeling, 1954.
The Happy Life on the Farm, 1957.
Playful Children on Lanyu, 1964.
The Frequent Passenger, 1956.
Greeting the Water Lamp, 1958.
