and later shaped the development of photography in
the 1930s, as Mao Zedong and the Communit Revo-
lution shaped the history of China.
CHEN Wanli is the most influential photogra-
pher during this period of time. He started his
study of photography in 1919, coming from a back-
ground in medicine. He was concerned with photo-
graphic composition and the photographer’s artistic
interpretation of motifs. His workThe Forbidden
City in the Year of 1924is regarded as the first
documentary photography in China. In this series
of photos, he documents the scenes of the last
emperor of the Chin dynasty, banished from the
Forbidden City. In 1928, he selected some photo-
graphs from this series and published them as a
photographic album through a Shanghai bookstore.
HisDafengji(1924) is the first photography album
created by an individual photographer in China and
includes 12 photographs selected from his solo exhi-
bition in Guan Shen in 1924. These photos depict
landscape and still life according to the traditional
Chinese aesthetic. The photographs express the
abstract and pictorial quality of motifs, rather than
any realistic association. For him, the art of photo-
graphy is to express the color of Chinese art and to
further develop its characteristics.Dafengjiwas cre-
ated to reflect upon this understanding of photogra-
phy.The Journal to the West, 1925, is an album that
presents photographs he took during his visit to
Tun Wong with American anthropologists. He
shot over 300 photos, using motifs of desert and
rural costume.
Chen was also a leading member of the photo-
graphers’ association in China. In 1923, and in
conjunction with WU Yuzhuo and WU Jix, he
organized the first photographic association for
amateurs. This group was commonly known as
the Guang (literally meaning light) Association.
From 1924 to 1927, the association actively held
group exhibitions to display its members’ works.
In 1928 and 1929, those works were published in
two volumes of yearbooks, the first of their kind
in China.
LIU Bannong (1891–1934) was well known as a
poet and scholar of language, literature, and edu-
cation, and also as a promoter of the May 30th
Movement. In photography, he was the leading
exponent of theories on photography in China.
He had studied in Britain and France and com-
pleted a PhD in literature. He had learned photo-
graphy during his study in Paris in the early 1920’s,
and he joinedGuang Associationin 1926, becoming
very active in the photographic field. He was editor
of two photographic yearbook volumes. He also
translated photographic essays in Chinese. In 1927,
he published Talking about Photography, which
summarizes his views about photography. The
book was publicly distributed and became very
influential. One of his arguments in the book tries
to show that photography is a type of art, and then
to emphasize the principles of aesthetics in photo-
graphy, such as composition, lighting, and tonal-
ity. He promoted photography as a means of
expression and creation, and his ideas remain
influential today.
LONG Chin-san (also Jinshan; 1892–1995) was
born in Zhejiang province in China and died in
Taipei. Between 1903 and 1906, he was trained in
Chinese ink painting and later photography in a
high school in Shanghai. He had been working for
newspaper publishers in China and is regarded as
the first photojournalist in China. In 1911, he took
a job in an advertising department at a newspaper
publisher in Shanghai, where he could observe
photography at close hand. Between 1926 and
1937, he worked as a photographer for the Shang-
haiTimes.
In 1928, Long Chin-san, together with HU Box-
iang (1896–1989), HUANG Baohui, HUANG
Zhengyu, and ZHANG Zhenhuo, founded the
China Photography Societyin Shanghai, one of
the earliest photographic associations in south
China and the most influential nation-wide photo-
graphy organization in China. Long was a leading
photographer in Shanghai during the time. In
March, 1926, he had a solo exhibition, which in-
spired other photographers to hold photographic
exhibitions. In 1930, he lectured on photography
at Nanyang High School, a girls’ school in Shang-
hai, and this perhaps encouraged the spreading of
formal education in photography throughout
China. After World War II, Long moved to Tai-
wan and by 1961 was creating montage pictor-
ial photography.Social Documentary and Reportage
Photography During Anti-Japanese War and
Civil War in the 1930s
Photography during the rise of China’s Communist
Party is associated with reportage photography
around motifs of war and portraits of Communist
leaders. In 1937, SA Fe joined the Communist
Eighth Route Army, and two years later he estab-
lished a propaganda department to develop repor-
tage photography for the Party. This department
initiated photojournalism in the Party. In 1938, SU
Jing held the first workshop on photojournalism to
train Party photographers. An alternate way ofCHINA AND TAIWAN, PHOTOGRAPHY IN