「Look at the Picture and Talk about the Painting」He Fan: The Chinese Photography Master Who Captured the Flavors of Life

He is known as the “Bresson of the East”. He picked up a camera at the age of 13 and won nearly 300 photography awards before the age of 32. Despite being a second-generation rich man, he spent his days on the streets photographing laborers and chasing after children. His erotic films grossed over ten million, but he turned down Hollywood and chose to retire from the film industry. He, He Fan, turned photography into a spiritual practice with light and shadow!

He is the most obsessive light and shadow hunter and also the most “unconventional” second-generation rich kid. While others take photos by “chance”, he waits from dawn till dusk for the right moment, waiting for rickshaw pullers at the docks and for the light at street corners. He even uses dramatic light and shadow to connect scenes, calculating the diagonals of wall shadows to the extreme and hiding the perfect composition in the corners of the city. The window grids reflecting the silhouettes of people are like an oriental version of “Rear Window”, and the foggy backlight wraps around the rickshaw puller’s pole and pedestrians, with the black and white film full of the poetic charm of ink wash.

He turned his back on his family business and spent his days wandering the streets with a camera slung over his shoulder. His lens captured not the opulence of the upper class but the warmth and simplicity of ordinary life. He did not magnify the hardships of the underprivileged but instead immortalized their resilience, their determination to live well despite the odds. The bustling spirit of Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s was thus preserved in every frame he shot.

He is also the most stubborn cross-over artist. At the peak of his photography career at the age of 30, he gave it up and entered the film industry, starting as a production assistant and eventually becoming a director. After his art films flopped at the box office, he was forced to make erotic films and directed the first erotic film in Hong Kong to break the 10 million mark, “Three Temptations”. However, at the age of 65, he turned down an offer from Hollywood and returned to photography. He admitted, “Actually, I prefer black and white. I don’t refuse to shoot in color, but I’ve found that color doesn’t suit my world as much.”

He was never a copy of “Bresson of the East”. He spent his entire life proving that good photos do not lie in the camera, but in the patience to wait, in the visible world of humanity. To live and turn every frame of light and shadow into art is the best response to passion!

The tea for today is all gone. Next time, I’ll brew a fresh pot and enjoy art with you again.