by Shi Hantao

Zhang Lelu and Zhao Ming both love to take photos on the street. Whenever I meet them, they both have a small camera, and often when I am still unaware of it, they suddenly take it out of their pockets or small bags, and press the shutter on a certain scene around them. Sometimes they would even walk quickly to a certain object in unison, shoot in silence for a while, and then flip through the display to compare, marvel, argue, and tease each other. Our time together always passes in intermittent chats, photo shoots, and momentary glances.

If we put their photos together, we could tell whose work it was at a glance. Zhang Lelu is always as careful with the light as gold, a little bit or a light layer, a tiny part of the overall dark tone of the picture is illuminated, always hiding an accident. A ball is hovering in front of an unoccupied factory; a cat gazes coldly at the camera in the shadows; a person looking down at his cell phone in a bus late at night, not knowing where he is going; a girl's slender arms are behind her back, and the screen of the cell phone in her hand, which hasn't yet been extinguished, hides a story. Looking at his picture is like reading a snippet of a detective novel, a scene of suspense or thriller with no antecedents or consequences. The protagonist is in a moment of confusion or helplessness, when a crisis is about to unfold, leading to speculation about his identity and fate. These images also often carry the atmosphere of Hopper's paintings, where the city is a desolate place and the characters are lonely souls lost in the urban jungle.

In Zhao Ming's photographs, however, the elements of the picture always collide with each other, the subjects are often chopped or torn by light and shadow, and the light and darkness are intertwined, like the Shinjuku of Daido Moriyama, where it is hard to hide the desire and impulse in them. His images always stay at the moment of the climax of the drama, like the scene of a certain conflict or accident. In the night, pigeons suddenly take flight in the street, about to cross the stream of blinding headlights. Columns of water gush out in the sunlight, as if the tree trunks in the background have burst. The forlorn woman still wears her cosplay exaggerated costume, and the lethargic old man has the remnants of a cake in front of him. He never seems to skimp on showing his emotions, whether it's surprise and excitement or despondency and melancholy, it's about to overflow the frame. There is always a kind of power in his images, a power that also runs through the streets of the city, but at the moment of collision reveals a feeling of powerlessness.

Of course, despite their different styles, they share many common subjects. They both like to take pictures of cats, of people on the street, of people in and out of train or bus windows in a moment of trance or indulgence, of twisted and entangled branches, or of water rippling in a subtle shiver. These objects are all perishable, fragile, around us but unnoticed. They come from the daily life of the photographer, and seem to be immersed in a world beyond reality, a world that is elusive to the next person. These photographs are like mysterious signals sent from a corner of the city, revealing its secrets, and they, or the street photographers, are the messengers who receive them. They record these signals without telling us what they mean. While ancient channelers depicted anomalies or miracles that only they could see, today's street photographers are what Wu Liang calls revealers of the inner side of the city; or, to paraphrase Benjamin, they are wanderers, scavengers, or drunks, lyricists of modern urban life. They sing of the subtle moments of the everyday, revealing a hidden scene in the city.

Dim or blinding, quiet or noisy, sentimental or passionate, their photos have different styles, but each photo also contains different atmospheres. Just as cities always display contradictory qualities, photographers also have their own complex emotions and personalities. A city has countless possibilities, and different photographers see different cities. Gu Zheng once said that in street photography, the photographer puts himself down and integrates himself into the subject, and that taking photographs is actually a way of finding oneself through discovering the city. Perhaps due to the influence of contemporary art, more and more photographers have given up “taking” photographs and started to “do” photography, but I think Zhang Lelu and Zhao Ming are still true photographers. “Doing” photography is active, rational, and carefully constructed, with the help of art history and various theories. Taking photos is attracted by the object, driven by feelings, and therefore passive in the first place; however, it is fundamentally a “passive aggressive”- a kind of retreat to advance, in recognizing the object, and at the same time, trying to find the photographer's subjectivity.

Just as most people see Shanghai in the same way, many works about the city are similar. But there are always some marvelous and especially tolerant hearts, which are magical mirrors through which the more special and essential side of the city is reflected. In Zhang Lelu and Zhao Ming's photos, the Shanghai that looks mysterious and weird, but also has a sad or warm atmosphere, is exactly what they are looking for in their works. As they tell the story of the city through their photos, they also reveal their sincere feelings about life and living.