Photographer/creator/photographic lecturer Zhang Nan
Zhang Nan
History started to engage in photography recording in 2015. Currently, there are two directions of research in photography. The first is artistic creation and the second is commercial photography. These creative experiences and thinking are also shared with students through courses.
Art photography is an experiment on the confrontation between real emotions and anxiety. When some things realize their beauty, they begin to disappear quickly. Images are the best way for Zhang Nan to communicate with them.
In commercial photography, he also tries to incorporate his own ways, such as the subtle emotions of the characters and the presentation of the body.
Since 2017, Zhang Nan has continued to record emotions for the depression people by taking images, so that the public can see and feel the life state of this group. The combination of photography works in this series is the album "Wrinkled Fog", which has attracted the attention and reports from many media such as CCTV and People's Photography.
Photographer Zhang Nan | Interview and writing in the center of a house in memory
- Interview and writing/ Liu Siyuan
- Image provided/ Zhang Nan
- This article is written for "Natural Growth FOTO Improvisation Competition". It was first published in the "Natural Growth Art Project"
"Times Literature Supplement" (TLS) has a column for writers called "Twenty Questions". For example, who do you think is the most overrated writer, who is the most underrated, what is the most difficult topic to write, and what book to bring when you are on vacation...
In the field of literature, if you want to know a writer, you must not only look at his well-received beautiful works, but also his works that he feels ashamed of, because there are often hidden his deepest secrets.
If this sentence is slightly changed, if you want to know a photographer, you must not only look at his widely circulated works, but also his works that he treasures in a folder that have not been published yet, because there is often a secret garden hidden there. Just like the above question for writers, behind the concise logic, the conclusion is: you are your likes and dislikes. Strive for all your life to be partial.
In the collection of photographer Zhang Nan, it is a house that existed in his childhood. I tried to find a secret path leading to the house in the northern countryside that Zhang Nan was concerned about. Although he did not describe it in detail, I guess the experience of living there must be endless fun, because those graceful feelings - dreamy, naive, humorous, nonsensical, all appear in Zhang Nan's works. Importantly, they seem to be drowned in everything that has nothing to do with it.
@Zhang Nan
6pence and moon
"The inspiration explodes at night. It's really lucky to be able to do photography all the time! Photography has brought me so many changes!"
In the circle of friends, seeing Zhang Nan's childish expression as if he had just come into contact with a novel toy made people smile. He is a photographer with a lot of creative desire. You can tell this by looking at his works one after another on Weibo , so he is not afraid or deliberately hides his expression. It seems that he has been in a state of being filmed or being planned, with no signs of fatigue or enthusiasm.
His creative photography related to business has brought him a self-sufficiency and stability material guarantee. In the current environment, it is an inexplicable comforting thing to hear a young man expressing his dual satisfaction with the current material and spirituality without any burden and vitality.
compared with Zhang Nan's so many wonderful ideas, exquisite and dazzling business and creative creations, his daily casual and warm sketch records are also very touching, and it is easy to pull out some warm colors in people's hearts, making people relaxed and their eyebrows are raised. It is "Memories after supper" , warm and warm.
He is like two images that often appear in Maugham's works. One is the successful person who is settled in the manufacturing of cultural goods and has gained a foothold in the world. The other is the burning posture of pursuing the glow of the moon and moving towards the " Tahiti ". , however, there is no awkwardness of identity switching between the two, but instead constitutes a self-consistent and complementary flexibility.
@Zhang Nan
@Zhang Nan
Secret Garden
Zhang Nan has been shooting for many years, photographing his relatives, those who are regarded as the most important in his life. He will understand the shooting of the ", one-time, one-time, " campaign that is advocated by the tea ceremony. In this kind of creation, you can experience the expression of "loyalty to yourself". Despite the lengthy and no clear deadline for the shooting, he believes it is doing something more important than something more right.
His family series, mother, grandma, grandma, father, second aunt, uncle, etc., are independent individual existences that have stripped away the sticky family atmosphere. For example, the grandma in the bathroom, the old-fashioned white tiled space with walls, gray short hair, thin and smooth naked back, warm light atmosphere, and the lace-edged white gauze skirt around her waist, instantly jumping from the crowded and trivial old space. At that moment, the old man standing in the bathroom may not be his mother or grandma, but just a woman who is still beautiful in the years that are about to end.
In the small courtyard where he once grew up in the north, Zhang Nan had seen many plants and insects, and many life forms that shocked the children growing up in the city, which was an integral part of his memory. As an adult, he often thinks of some fragments of the past, but it is not a kind of nostalgia. It is his current way of looking at the world that makes him realize that it is the one who makes the present that not only keeps him alive but also keeps him getting inflamed.
with a sense of familiarity and strangeness. With the participation of all family members, he gained a kind of supportive interest and freedom, such as placing his mother dressed as a scarecrow in the snow, putting the broom on his father who was dressed like a comedian, and the cool grandma lit a cigarette at the candle burning on the cake, grandma leaned on her shoulder like a girl, and she hid under the table and stole the cake... It was like a Japanese drama, making people laugh and laugh, and couldn't help but feel warm and humorous. No matter what form it is recorded in, Zhang Nan hopes that his works have certain visual elements that transcend reality, a kind of agility confined to heavy reality. Therefore, he continued to design various dream spaces for his family year after year, recording the elegance and horse-catching that were different from the daily expressions of the people.
This seems to be the fun of Zhang Nan's shooting. He shines his daily life in that real and illusory mirror. In the ruthlessness of life being deprived of some force majeure, he tightly holds the key to the house that accommodates his wild and wild. At a distance from it and in a long time, when he thinks of it, it is rich and gentle.
@Zhang Nan
@Zhang Nan
@Zhang Nan
wrinkled fog
In Zhang Nan's works, what cannot be bypassed is a practice of connecting with the public, about emotional records of people with depression. Under this gray claw, countless living individuals are trapped in it, and the sticky, damp and depressed states that seem to be out of sight make the suffocation scream.
Zhang Nan named this series "Wrinkled Fog". When it comes to the motivation for creation, it is lighter and tasteless than any story. That was when he experienced a period of almost autistic to depression, he decided to go out of the house and do some face-to-face communication with others. He naturally thought of such a project, so he launched a brief solicitation of information on the social platform. This project has continued until its seventh year.
If it were not for "depression" as a prominent psychological problem in the current society, it was repeatedly used for social personality and psychological analysis, and more and more terrifying inner experiences were exposed and stripped away, Zhang Nan might not have entered the eyes of the central media and the public with such a theme.
can be felt that he intends to weaken the emotional rendering on this topic. The public has always had exaggerated concerns or ridicule about the demonization and misunderstanding of this group. His plainness is a proper placement, just as you understand a person, you don’t have to perform under the gaze of everyone, but hug silently or wait quietly when he is alone and sad.
Zhang Nan gained trust in this process and was also cured by these trusts. This is one of the many gifts that he brought to him by taking a photo.
@Zhang Nan "Wrinkled Fog"
@Zhang Nan "Wrinkled Fog"
@Zhang Nan "Wrinkled Fog"
@Zhang Nan "Wrinkled Fog"
@Zhang Nan "Wrinkled Fog"
@Zhang Nan's "Wrinkled Fog"
@Zhang Nan's "Wrinkled Fog"
@Zhang Nan's "Wrinkled Fog"
is not sure. When and how to meet the public, it is undoubtedly something worth looking forward to. Thinking of Nabokov, he also had a house in his childhood called "Vera". He wrote that the gift his mother passed to him in "Vera":
loves the whole soul, and leave the rest to fate. She has always followed this simple rule. She would like to pay attention to the things we love in "Villa", and the tone seemed to be conspiring with something - the ascending lark in the sky where curd and whey blended in spring, the silent lightning in the twilight of summer leaves a snapshot of a narrow forest far away, the palette of maple leaves surrounded by brown sand, and the cuneiform text of birds stepping on the fresh snow. Just as the part of the world that I felt could touch would die within a few years, my mother developed an unusual sensitivity to the various marks of the seasons scattered in our countryside residences. She cherishes her past, and now I think of her with the same passion and my own past. So, I can say that I inherited an exquisite illusion - the beauty of an invisible manor and an illusory manor - and later proved that this was a graceful training that allowed me to bear the future loss.
Zhang Nan's house in the northern countryside is not such an existence. Although his tone sounded calm and calm when he told all this, a faint burning sensation of no one else could still be truly perceived.
