Remembering My Father, Mr. Jiaye Shao
On November 14, 2016, at exactly 5:57 in the morning, my father drew his last breath. The scene in that moment will be forever engraved in my mind. Even though I didn't want there to be such a moment, or at the very least wanted it to come later, it still finally arrived, and my father, who had long suffered from illness, really had left me behind.
My father was born on February 21, 1939, and under the artistic influence of my grandfather, Du Shao, started his photographic journey very early on in his childhood. In 1954, due to his family's financial struggles, he took on more financial responsibility as the eldest son. Even before he graduated from middle school, he had already joined and was working at Wenzhou's Chun Ye Studio, and later on was part of other photographic studios such as the Mei Shu studio, the Lu Tian studio, and the Nan Yang studio. He also became a teacher of the technical training of photography in Wenzhou, a position he held until he retired.
Even though his childhood was relatively calm compared to that of previous generations, during his youth he still experienced the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in addition to the Chinese Civil War, and in adulthood, he lived through the Great Cultural Revolution. Clearly, history and society unavoidably caused his generation many hardships. But even in turbulent times characterized by scarcity, famine, and cultural oppression, my father never gave up his diligent pursuit of photography.
My father was very dedicated to his photography, almost religious in his search for the perfect picture. When he was young, in order to capture the full beauty of a sunrise over the Ou River, he went to the West Gate Pier of Wenzhou before dawn almost every day for 10 years to take pictures before rushing to work. During the holidays, to get a good picture of sailboats on the Ou River, he would often wait on the riverbanks for an entire day. In 1975, while photographing for the Da Qing Report Group in Wenzhou, he climbed on top of a car to get a better angle; however, the driver accidentally started the car, causing my father to fall off and break two of his ribs. To complete the photographic assignment, he followed the Da Qing Report Group all the way to Taizhou, taking pictures through the immense pain.
My father was very dedicated to his photography, almost religious in his search for the perfect picture.
The late 1960s through the early 1990s was the period in which my father's photographic creation was at its peak. However, this was also a period in which resources were limited and travel was difficult. In order to photograph the Ou River, my father and his friends had to get on several buses, photographing and stopping and photographing and stopping along the way. A journey of about one hundred kilometers would take him several days before he returned home. I remember one time when I went with my father to photograph the central Yandang Mountains. At the time, the tourism industry hadn't really started yet in the area; there were no hotels on the mountain, and to stay the night there was only the Taoist temple near the peak available. We climbed the entire day, ate only rice mixed with soy sauce, slept on the cold, hard straw bed in the temple, and, at three in the morning, got up again to photograph the sunrise. I also remember that when I was little, due to less-than-ideal conditions at home, we had no extra space that we could use as a darkroom. As a result, my father used the cramped space below the stairs as his darkroom, which measured only about 4-5 square meters. Every time a person went up or down the wooden stairs, the entire enlarger would shake so much that my father had to wait until they finished before he turned on the enlarger again and continued exposing the photograph. It was under these conditions that he was able to create many masterpieces, including "Autumn," "Water and Sky in Harmony," "Fleet of Boats on the Ou River," "Farmland in Jiangnan," "Herdsmen in the Morning," etc.
In 1989, my father retired from his position as a teacher of the technical training of photography in Wenzhou. At the time, commercial and wedding photography in Wenzhou had just emerged in popularity, and many people urged him to leverage his reputation as the vice chairman of the Zhejiang Photographers Association and the chairman of the Wenzhou Photographers Association to start his own photography studio. However, my father was not motivated by money; he said that the reason for retiring early was to have more time and energy to devote to his passion, photographic creation. In 1993, his album "An Album of Jiaye Shao's Photos" was published the Liaoning People's Publishing House. The same year, "Jiaye Shao's Black and White Photography Art Exhibition" was displayed at the exhibition hall of the China Academy of Art. In 1995, "Jiaye Shao's Black and White Photography Art Exhibition" was invited to be exhibited at the Trento museum in Italy, and "An Album of Jiaye Shao's Black and White Photos" (Italy version) was also published. Even though he seldom published or exhibited his works in the last decade or so, he never stopped photographing until his illness forced him to put his camera down.
My father not only gave me life and nurtured me through my childhood, but he also taught me how to be an honest and upstanding person and how to do things in a down-to-earth manner. He held boundless love for his family and children. While he lived a relatively plain life himself, he made sure to provide good educational opportunities for my sister and me, supporting us all the way through college and through graduate school. He always was willing to buy us the best tools and textbooks needed for school. Later on, when I also started my own photographic journey, he always gave me the better cameras to use, leaving the slightly worse ones for himself. Every time I returned home to Wenzhou, I would give my Hasselblad camera to him, and every time without fail, he would have someone return it to me.
My father not only gave me life and nurtured me through my childhood, but he also taught me how to be an honest and upstanding person and how to do things in a down-to-earth manner.
Now, every time I see that Hasselblad camera in my home office, I can't help but cry. I will never be able to forget my father by the Ou Hai, teaching me how to press the shutter for the first time; I will never be able to forget him in the cramped darkroom, his hands guiding mine through the process of developing and enlarging photos; I will never be able to forget him taking me to Jiushan Lake and Cuiwei Mountain to take photos, and I also will never be able to forget walking with him on the snowy Inner Mongolia dam, or eating instant noodles with him on the Yellow Mountains during the Spring Festival....
My father was in love with photography his whole life. Even though he was tormented by illness and consequently unable to take photos for his last year of his life, even on his hospital bed he would repeatedly talk of his photography, his camera, his film.
Father, now you can happily take photos again; heaven too has beautiful landscapes to capture!
December 2016
This review was published in 2017, in the second issue of the "Chinese Photographers" magazine. See the article's PDF (in Chinese) for photos accompanying the review.