Why doesn’t Chinese photography have its own style?

I read the tutorial online at Old B Company, and Old B came up to me and asked me, “What are you looking at?”

“Oh, I’m looking at how to adjust the Japanese tone.”

Old B looks like a dog in the sun.

“That’s what you learned. Come on, help me adjust one, and help me adjust it into Japanese fresh.”

……

“The content of this shooting is neither Japanese nor fresh. How can I adjust it…”

“That’s right! The content is the most important thing! There is no inherent color mixing method to bring out the so-called Japanese taste. It is true that Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, which are often hung in the mouth of photographers, will have different aesthetics, but the color and other things only account for a small part, and the details displayed in the shooting pictures are important.”

Old B took a sip of water and continued.

“The style of Europe and the United States is fundamentally wrong. Europe is Europe and the United States, and the style of Japan and South Korea is also wrong. Japan is Japan and South Korea. To be exact, the aesthetic logic of Europe and Japan is relatively close. The aesthetic logic of the United States and South Korea is relatively close, with the old aristocrats and the upstart on the one hand.”

To say this well requires a lot of cultural knowledge. Since we are talking about “Japanese color mixing”, I can only briefly analyze it from the photographic images.

Which Europe is Europe, what is America, whose Japan is Japan, and when is Korea? As for the picture elements, they really need to read thousands of books and walk thousands of miles to understand.

1、 Whose day is it

First of all, what “wind” can only represent a kind of general aesthetics in this region, for example, Senshan Avenue, Shinoyama Jixin, Araki Jingwei, and their descendant Miyara Kangzheng, who represents our common “Japanese style” photography?

It should be Keishin Shinoyama, and nothing else. The big contrast of Senshan is actually American.

Mihara’s set-top shot is a straight shot. Even if it is a beautiful woman, it is close to some modern news photography, documentary and concepts.

Araki is very elegant and pays attention to the dark tones, which is pure Japanese aesthetics, but it is not what we call “Japanese style” today (I want to understand, don’t look at the people he shoots, look at the flowers he shoots). Only the gentle transition, bright colors, and light colors of Yoshiyama are what we call today’s “Japanese style”.

To tell you the truth, Araki truly represents the aesthetics of the Japanese nation – “the most beautiful thing is the blooming before the withering of life”. The aesthetic logic of fireworks and incisions is deeply embedded in every detail of Japanese culture. Without understanding this, how can we understand real Japanese photography?

Of course, the Japanese style we see today is like this.

It can be seen that Japanese photography emphasizes the soft transition and low contrast. Although this modified Japanese style is not the original aesthetics of the Japanese nation, it is more in line with the “introverted” in the oriental aesthetics and is not a very stimulating contrast. Therefore, it is easier to accept that it is the image of Japanese photography. It is not Miyara Kangzheng.

Speaking of this, we probably already know that brightness, soft transition, slightly lower saturation, sunshine and warmth meet these conditions, and then there is a little less Japanese element in the picture, which is very Japanese. Reducing saturation, reducing contrast and slightly increasing light are all good ways to achieve this effect.

2、 Which is Europe

European style is best understood as “classical Europe” and “simple Europe”. The complex patterns, beautiful carvings, the great Baroque, the great Victorian era that have been inherited from ancient Greece and Rome, and the extremely simple Nordic style of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, which are really popular in the world today, the frigid sex, IKEA and Nordic household appliances are two completely different “European styles”.

No matter which kind, in fact, Europeans still attach great importance to the three-dimensional sense. They still prefer more dark tones on the picture. It is not difficult to see that the Nordic style is very close to the current Japanese style, but the Japanese style is a little brighter than the Nordic style.

The “European-American style” in photography we talk about today, many people actually refer to the Nordic style, which is very similar to the Japanese style. As for the different places, let’s put aside the color and other factors and use a color scale to roughly explain.

In both Japanese and European styles, the gray block should be pulled to the left, and then the black block should be moved to the right to raise the shadow, while the white block should be moved to the left to raise the light.

In addition, northern Europe is colder than Japanese style, and the color is slightly cold.

3、 What is beauty

Old America is an upstart.

American aesthetics is stimulation — huge conflict, wide opening and closing, huge color or brightness contrast, bold black and bold exposure. Modern advertising photography is most affected by American style

The United States is a fan of highlights and contour lights. It emphasizes texture and structure, and has a strong style. In photography, the contour light is the first method. It is a common method to use narrow light to illuminate the part after the contour is drawn out. It is worthy of being a leaping nation.

So it is not difficult to imagine the American style. The conflict of color blocks is that the middle gray part is darker, the highlight is warmer, and the dark part is cooler (the common purple to yellow gradient mapping is an example). To understand the color scale diagram just now, black and white are closer to the middle, and the gray block is slightly to the right. Overlay a gradient map with highlights and shades slightly blue. Increase conflict, make it more dramatic and exciting.

Yes, it’s very American.

4、 When is Han

The universe is of the Republic of Korea, and the Korean wind is the most extreme form. In terms of cultural history, it is hard to say that a nation whose women were not wearing clothes at the beginning of the 20th century. Even if Xinluo and Koguryo are involved, the history textbook cannot be read or read

The national character of this nation is inferiority complex. The fact cannot be refuted. Otherwise, what about the world-leading cosmetic technology?

Of course, China will not be any better after the 19th century.

But it is reasonable to say that South Korea has made too fast progress in the past decade. They are essentially American aesthetic, but they also like the Japanese culture.

This sounds derogatory. How can it be the same as “quite a bitch wants to set up a chastity archway”??

Actually, the Korean people are a little intelligent. The Japanese style next to them has suddenly shaped the oriental face into a very good model. At the beginning, the photography style of South Korea is also very similar to that of Japan, but they actually made a highly symbolic effect by hard-wired edge innovation.

The Japanese brilliance and the American strong color contrast are combined, and the upper-case clothes are better than the smecta.

This is really hard to adjust. Its brightness is brighter than that of the Japanese style. It is basically close to the American style by matching the colors. It is different from the American style of red and purple. The Korean style is a piece of pink and purple girl heart. OK, you win.

5、 What is China?

Unfortunately, it has not become popular for the time being.

The current situation is that in the domestic photography circle, in addition to the “old mage tone”, which has been criticized the most – the uniform rich color, the HDR that does not know how to handle the scale, it seems that everyone is seeking “European and American tone” and “Japanese tone”. How can we have a popular Chinese style?

Once, we also had a master like Lang Jingshan, who injected the core of Chinese elements into photography, not only in terms of content, but also in terms of techniques, integrating Chinese aesthetics into photography.

Lang Jingshan’s collection photography imitates traditional Chinese painting, focuses on artistic conception, learns from ancient methods, and imitates traditional Chinese painting in form. Its themes and themes are mostly from ancient paintings and poems, which is the unity of Chinese painting style and photography techniques.

Today, we also have such pathfinders as Sun Jun, but we still have a long way to go to form a regional aesthetic style.

I hope that every photographer can think independently like them, not blindly.

Ladies and gentlemen, which style do you prefer in your photos?

What do you think of Chinese photography?

Please tell us in the comments.