Free Shots with A Free Heart

by Hong Lei

Wu liang's photography is about capturing words. He is a spectator, or even a snooper , but he does not consider himself a recorder. These words possess a  predilection of freeing the subject from the state of self-restraint without any modification. A verb, with neither subject nor object, transitive but not signified, is like an act of knowledge. He is detached.

Wu Liang told me that he did not like scenery. After his eye surgery, he felt the world around him suddenly became clear, so he thought that he needed to take pictures. The world he had seen before was indistinct, there were not so many differences between landscapes from his perspective . In his younger age , he tried to understand the world by reading , solemnly and rationally . The geometric position and the logical position are two existences which can not overlap.

For example, he has a snapshot of a street scene which is rare in his photos. Street photo to him is just a scenery setting, meaningless and ambiguous. He is about to tell something, but from a distance, watching from afar, perhaps waiting. Waiting for whom? It is near the Postal Museum. Some indications? Hidden in the shadow? The people in the picture do not notice the camera.They have nothing to do with him. By reducing the meaning he creates silence in the picture and by breaking the paradigm, he insidiously produces the overlap of symbols. In that moment ,the pause of the language and the language stranding pull up a diaphragm, unlike the way most people shoot Shanghai , using their cameras to go deeper into this city. Wu Liang once told me that he did not like the term "Shanghai".

He prefers signifier. His approach to photograph people. perhaps also his attitude towards the street scenes, is to obtain words, not languages, and not to make definitions like August Sander. The collection of words is meaningless, but he is smug. As for Wu liang's balanced composition, tricky perspective, humorous attitude, and black and white effect, where does he get the aesthetic attainment?