To be sure, there are parts of Pingtung where it's hard to take a bad picture. Manzhou, for instance, or Laiyi. You can go to those places, point your camera (or phone) in any direction, and be fairly confident that at least half of your pictures will look good. Sure, you'll get some bad ones, but the ratio of good to bad pictures won't be discouraging.
Other places are more of a challenge. Wandan, for example. Wandan is very flat, it has almost no tourist sites, and as you move away from central Wandan it's just farmland stretching away to the horizon. I want to take an evocative picture in Wandan, I want to capture an image that will speak to the agricultural heart of that place, but it's hard. There are a few interesting temples in Wandan, but that's about it.
Then again we're easily distracted by beautiful vistas. I could, for example, visit Taitung City, and if I pointed my camera just right all you would see was emerald mountainsides and stunning beaches. But is that the reality of Taitung City? Is that what most people see when they visit that place? Probably not. A trip north up the coast might give you that impression, but not a day in Taitung City. There's trickery involved in making most places look like paradise.
On the other hand there are places like Wandan or Jhutian, which are both flat and have a long, long history of farming. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make either of these places look like paradise. At best I could make them look like everyone's idea of small town Taiwan, at worst they'd look like a wasteland stretching endlessly in every direction. And which portrayal is more accurate? Probably something between the two extremes, which, in photographic terms, means the most "average" series of pictures.
I do, however, enjoy places like Wandan and Jhutian. They're not exactly Taroko National Park, but they have a certain bleak utility that I find attractive. I go to somewhere like that and wonder, "What do people DO here? How do they make a living? How have they shaped this place over time?"
And if you look, the details of this process are written in the soil, cement or stone beneath your feet. You can see these details in the abandoned factories and the water recycling facilities, in the shapes of fields and the meandering courses that roads and canals take. You can even see these details in the names of places, which often evoke geographical features and ways of living that passed away long ago.
Is there beauty in a place like Wandan? Of course there is, but it's a beauty harder to see. And if I can capture that kind of beauty in a photograph I feel like I've really done something. It's not an easy thing to do, and I often fail in the attempt, but when I manage to do it I feel very happy.
You could also say there's a kind of dishonesty in pictures that make a place look better than it is. Even in Manzhou you'll encounter solar panels blighting the landscape, and people throwing trash into nearby waterways. No place in Taiwan is pristine, and leading others to that conclusion can, at times, be an act of deception.
Besides that, what I find most interesting is the interaction between people and their local geography. If you look at it the right way these two things evolve together, and not always to the detriment of some exalted "Nature," whatever that is. Sure, I like the high mountains; I like to get away from crowds, but there's a story behind every industrial area, apartment building and decaying village, and these stories can be very interesting. These stories also point the way to the future, and to ways of doing it better next time.
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe so. I just think it's good to reflect on what a given picture is saying - and also what it's not saying - about a place. Is a picture that's pleasing to the eye always good? Is it honest? And is a picture that's ugly always bad? If it's showing you something about a place, something you might not know or might not have fully realized, is it worth seeing?
I, of course, don't have all the answers, but I do think there's something beautiful or interesting to be found in every place, especially if that place is somewhere most people pass by.
Related Entries:
沒有留言:
張貼留言