"Recalling the smiling innocence of childhood and searching for the vanished past, for those bits and pieces seared in us so deeply, be they the sweet, the grand, the happy dreams of memory or the disconsolate, the painful, and the lonely ones . . . that is the material that can thrill me or can fill my eyes with tears, and that is what has fascinated me with photography. It's like filling out the missing chapters in the diary of childhood." So wrote the 54-year-old Huang Chi-ying recollecting his photographic work as a young man.
Huang Chi-ying works at Wenkai Elementary School in Lukang. In his more than thirty years as a teacher there, photography has remained a rewarding spiritual companion during his leisure hours. His early black-and-white realistic photos, mainly of children at play and in school, are extremely natural and sensitive depictions of a subject he both understands and cares for. Among photographers active in the 1960's who concentrated on a single category of subjects or themes, Huang Chi-ying has left us one of the most significant bodies of work.
In "New Teacher," for example, which gives us a glimpse of the quiet, plain, and simple life of a village teacher, the construction, lighting, and contrast are all exceptional. The teacher's concentration on fixing her hair with one hand as she holds on to an armful of teaching material with the other is quietly amusing. What I think Huang was trying to capture here is the teacher's feeling of professional seriousness despite the spareness of village life.
Huang Chi-ying was born in Lukang in 1934. In teachers' college he majored in art, and after graduation in 1953 he returned to his hometown, where he has been teaching at Wenkai Elementary School ever since.
A teacher's pay on Taiwan in the 1960's didn't go far, and Huang had to save for two years to buy his first camera, a 28mm Canon 6L. His greatest influence was the older photographer Chang Shih-hsien and several Japanese magazines that advocated realistic photography. Of course, his boundless affection for childhood and his sensitive understanding of children are also crucial elements in his work.
In the first of the two pictures titled "Late to School," we see a pupil standing in front of the blackboard as punishment, his twisted, piqued expression contrasting interestingly with the stiff, upright characters of the moral injunctions written on the board behind him.
The other pupil late to school sits disconsolately beneath a tree, his nose dripping, and pokes at the ground with a stick to pass the time while the other students do their morning exercises. Huang crept up on him unawares to snap this shot of childhood sorrow and distress.
The mischievous and apprehensive student in "Hearing Test" and the dejected and despondent team portrayed in "Lost Game" display more of Huang's sensitivity toward children's emotions. Some people at the time criticized his works for lacking "artistry," but Huang believes that capturing the feeling of the moment and expressing an understanding of life are all that is important--the rest doesn't matter. His only regret is that he didn't preserve his film better; many precious pictures have disappeared over the years.
After he married and became a father, Huang's financial situation grew even more straitened, but his devotion to photography in no way decreased. Capturing children's innocent, naive expressions and actions is a natural reflection of his own impulsive, curious, and emotional personality.
"Puppets and Kids" offers a vivid emotional and compositional contrast between the joyful child showing off his puppets in the foreground and his quarreling playmates in back.
In "Two Girls and a Mask" and "Sunset Time," Huang uses a broad field of vision to add imaginative interest to the scene. The cartoon dreamscape of the sleeping child and the fantasy of acting as an adult hero by putting on a mask are warm memories from our childhood.
In "Girl Selling Eggs," the peeling wall, the bamboo basket, and the eggs on the sheet of clear plastic, together with the tightly knit hands and the sad eyes of the waiting girl, represent the essence of Huang's theory of photography: using a truthful and empathetic vision to express social reality and concern for the life around us.
"Fishing Village" is distinguished for using a brick wall hung with fishing nets to set off shadows of playing children, an effect which adds considerable interest to the work. Because of their ingenious conception and emotional truth, Huang's pictures have won him many prizes over the years, including awards from contests and photo magazines in both Japan and Taiwan.
After the mid-1970's, Huang gradually turned away from children as a subject and eventually abandoned black-and-white photography altogether. Because his financial situation improved, he bought a better camera, and he began to take color pictures of people and local customs, most recently traveling abroad. Comparatively speaking, however, his black-and-white photos of twenty years ago are much richer in significance for their human interest and emotional truth accumulated over a long period of time.
Besides offering us precious memories and stirring beauty, Huang Chi-ying's photographs should also serve as a model and an inspiration to young photographers today.
[Picture Caption]
Huang Chi-ying at age 33, 1967.
New Teacher, 1963.
Late to School, 1965.
Late to School, 1965.
(left)Two Girls and a Mask, 1966.
(right)Puppets and Kids, 1961.
Hearing Test, 1963.
Sunset Time, 1966.
Lost Game, 1966.
Girl Selling Eggs, 1960.
Fishing Village, 1956.
（left）Two Girls and a Mask, 1966.
（right）Puppets and Kids, 1961.
