From napping schoolchildren to busy streets, from portraits of young women to country farming scenes, Hsu An-ting's lyrical yet realistic photographic sketches offer us a chance to savor the emotional life of long-vanished people and places.
"Two Young Women" is an example. Simply dressed in the fashions of the 1950s, they stand side by side: one smiling ingenuously, the other shyly forcing back a grin. The faces are not classically beautiful but, captured in an unprepared moment by the click of the shutter, they radiate congeniality and naturalness.
Hsu An-ting was born in Taipei in 1929 but grew up in Hualien, on the east coast of Taiwan, where his family, which was engaged in the lumber business, moved when he was little. He graduated from the Hualien Industrial School in 1945, the same year that Taiwan was freed from the Japanese occupation. To earn a living, he became a teacher at Ming Yi Elementary School, attending Hualien Teachers College for further training. His teaching career lasted thirty years.
During his rather humdrum life at the school he gradually cultivated an interest in photography. He would borrow a camera whenever he could to take souvenir snapshots for the students on class outings and field trips, and thanks to his knowledge of Japanese, he read many Japanese photo magazines, thereby acquiring a knowledgeable appreciation for realistic photography.
"An Education in Beauty" and "Eating Boxed Lunches" are records of school life from his early period. The classic composition of the children grouped around the painter is characteristic of the realistic style of the 1950s, while the objective snapshot of the row of students eating their lunches (the one with shoes holds a sandwich) enables us to realize the simplicity and frugality of the era.
As a teacher, Hsu naturally felt a keen interest in children, and his early photos often focused on their interests. In "Repairing Shoes" three children stare intently at a shoe repairmen, whose work tools are set out neatly before him. More intent little faces are shown in "Desire": the object of their interest here is a cotton-candy vendor. And "One Big Happy World," centered on a swing made out of tires, offers angles and layers of motion and stillness that combine to produce an interesting effect.
During the early 1960's Hualien was still rather difficult to travel to and lagged far behind Taipei and Kaohsiung in terms of cultural information. To study and learn from one another a number of amateur photographers in the area joined together in 1964 to form the Hualien Photographic Society, selecting Hsu as president. He served for six years, doing much to develop the art of photography in the Hualien area.
Hsu's guiding principle at the time was to emphasize scenes of human interest from the place he had grown up. In "One Nap, an Inch Bigger" he lets us glimpse something of the intimacy and hardship of farming life through a portrait of young mother and her infant as she helps out during the busy season. The figures in the background supply distance.
"Autumn Harvest" is another record of farming life from days past. The sullen sky adds a feeling of oppressive melancholy to the scene.
In 1976 Hsu retired from teaching and moved to Taipei, where he worked for six years in the T'ai Li Natural Color Developing Co. and was eventually promoted to the position of director of the technical service department. In Taipei, busy with darkroom work and far removed from his familiar surroundings in the south, he gradually gave up the black-and-white photography of the past.
In 1969 Hsu's series "An Ami Melody" earned him the title "honorary master of photography" from the China Photography Society, the Taiwan Province Photography Society, and the Taipei Photography Society. His series was able to win the favor of both the salon and the realistic schools mainly because it skirted the border between them. He expressed the rhythmic motion of aboriginal dances using remote, slow-motion shots taken from a low, wide angle with an extendible lens. The technique may have appeared fresh and attention-getting at the time, but today it seems superficial compared to the depth of his earlier, more straightforward works, which are filled with spirit and personality.
In "The Little General," a small boy carrying a short sword rides a water buffalo into the sunlight. His back facing us, we can't see his expression, but the sunlight intimates warmth and joy. Taken by Hsu twenty years ago, this scene can perhaps be met with in the countryside even today. The difference is that the photographer and the boy have changed with the years and gone away. Viewing this they must certainly feel a sense of nostalgia and love for what has gone. Photography here can be said to have performed its duty to the full.
[Picture Caption]
Hsu An-ting at age 27, 1956.
Two Young Women, 1955.
One Nap, an Inch Bigger, 1970.
An Education in Beauty, 1955.
Repairing Shoes, 1958.
Desire, 1966.
Eating Boxed Lunches, 1956.
One Big Happy World, 1965.
Autumn Harvest, 1954.
The Little General, 1968.
One Nap, an Inch Bigger, 1970.
An Education in Beauty, 1955.
Eating Boxed Lunches, 1956.
One Big Happy World, 1965.
The Little General, 1968.
