Behind the seemingly mundane and boring appearance of daily life, there is always a hidden order rooted in the movement and change of people, things, and objects. Such an order will naturally not be allowed to change in a regular manner that is easy to grasp by the arrangement of any person or organization. On the contrary, such an order is always impacting the neat and orderly stable state constructed by humans. There is no doubt that this hidden order is much more interesting and more vital than the man-made, uniform order. When we inadvertently realize the existence of this hidden order, we may be secretly happy that we accidentally glimpsed this huge and unique life form. However, to glimpse such a hidden order requires keen and delicate sensitivity. Without such sensitivity, we may be unconsciously shrouded and assimilated by the feeling of mediocrity and boredom. Shi Yang is undoubtedly a person with such sensitivity.
In my opinion, Shi Yang has two identities. One is the owner and chef of a restaurant. He is the only staff in the restaurant. On weekdays, he needs to take care of all the trivial matters in the store, concentrate on cooking, and run the business carefully. The other identity is a photographer, which can probably be felt from the photographs displayed in his store. After I got his WeChat, I often saw his photos in his Moments. In the Moments, his photos are mainly divided into two ‘series’, one is ‘mai cai lu shang’ (on the way to procurement), and the other is ‘da yang lu shang’ (on the way after closed). The identity of a photographer is thus dispersed and interspersed in the work of running a restaurant. The photos were all taken with a mobile phone, after seeing them, I couldn't help but sigh that a mobile phone could take such photos, and it turned out that the seemingly ordinary daily life could be so unique.
In Shi Yang's works, the glimpse we are accustomed to is not only the only thing we can trust, but also can lead us to another unexpected world. He uses the vague but implied order of reality cutting method to euphemistically show the possibilities behind it. The core factor in his photography creation should be the appearance of daily life that seems to be ordinary and boring under his lens, the ordinary scenes that have long been forgotten and ignored by us, and we are unwilling to take a second look, and the fragments of time and space that are wandering on the edge of life and are ordinary and can't be more ordinary. However, these fragments of time and space, through his daily, gentle and keen observation and shooting, appear in the most ordinary way in the simplest viewing line of sight, but can collide with beautiful scenes that make people's hearts beat and brighten their eyes, and arouse great visual pleasure in the viewer. Such a line of sight can be said to be an improvement of daily life.
It should be noted that it may be difficult to directly point out what Shi Yang photographed in his photos. We will see him photographing a corner of his restaurant kitchen, some objects on the street wall, a sprayer covered with white paint, a dog in a cafe, or a human model stuffed in an excavated sewer... etc. But we all know that what really attracts him, or what really touches our hearts, is not the points described above, but the implicit order revealed in the whole picture.
The so-called implicit order is not the horizontal, vertical, and uniform order we are used to understanding. It is not the forced elimination of differences and seeking common ground, or what is left after cleaning up all the elements that appear to be substandard and abnormal. The kind of compulsory order that is single, indifferent and easy to understand, but an order that treats everything in reality equally, fully respects it, and allows everything to interact randomly and organically, thus creating an order naturally in chaos. Such an order cannot be constructed, but can only be perceived and discovered by thoughtful people using their own sensibilities. The mobile phone in Shi Yang's hands has undoubtedly become some kind of special sensor, capable of detecting and capturing the fleeting sense of balance in the chaos.
I can't help but imagine his usual shooting state - on the way to buy groceries, he accidentally passed by a familiar street corner. Under the sunlight, a certain place suddenly glowed with a ray of light. He felt it, and his eyes changed with the distant light and shadow, and the feelings in his heart also experienced similar agitation. In that animal-like "body dynamics", there are some words from the sun running through it. The truly strong and silent echo can only be objectively presented in an extremely calm way of expression, because it is an absolute negation of artificial order, and an openness and embrace of chaos. The moment the shutter is pressed, the pure, clear and sober state of balance suddenly appears. In stark contrast to the desperate chaos and the equally desperate order, this is a world created only to achieve the photographer's own peace. When the viewer quietly travels to the world that Shi Yang sensed at that time and place through these photographs, he naturally shares that world. These fragmented worlds are like deep and peaceful lakes, with an infinite temptation to accommodate, making people willing to indulge in them.
The complexity of this order derived from chaos lies in its ability to demonstrate the inherent infinity of real life. Whether in its most external appearance or in its underlying essence, it denies the deliberately created pleasing formal purity, as well as any artificial style, harmony and perfection with a clear purpose.
Having seen this kind of world created just for the photographer to achieve his own peace, it is probably difficult not to be attracted by this invisible order, because it is a reflection of one's own heart and a call from the world to oneself. If he does not transform such invisible things into reality through photography, what else will he do?
