Motherland

Shanghai VII, 2016

For Chinese American photographer Daniel Lee Postaer, his interest in photography originates from his endless fascination with the relationship between cities and their inhabitants. Through his lens, he strives to capture the overlooked beauty of ordinary moments in urban settings around the world. “There’s an un-staged theatricality to our everyday world that I search for through picture-making,” he says. “So, whether it’s San Francisco, Tokyo, or Chongqing – I’m trying to make sense of time and place through my photography… A photo has the ability to say something about the larger moment in time that we collectively live in. It’s an inherent value of the medium that I deeply respect.”

华裔美国摄影师李强（Daniel Lee Postaer）对摄影的兴趣源于他对城市和居民之间关系的迷恋。透过自己的镜头,他在平凡生活中，努力捕捉住那些被人们所忽视的美。他解释道：“在我们的日常生活中, 有一种不经排练、自然发生的戏剧性, 我正是要通过照片来寻找这种戏剧性。所以，无论是在旧金山、东京, 还是重庆, 我都试图通过摄影来了解自己所在的时间和空间……每张照片可以讲述出比那一个时刻更广阔的时间，那是我们共同生活着的时代。对于摄影这种媒介，我一向满怀敬畏，而这也正是摄影的内在价值。”

Beijing VIII, 2015

Shanghai XV, 2016

Shanghai XII, 2016

In his ongoing photo series, Motherland, Postaer explores the ever-changing urban fabric of modern-day China, a country that, to him – as someone who’s half-Chinese – feels both familiar yet foreign. “I’m both an insider and outsider. I’ve lived, worked, and sweated here in China,” Postaer says. “But I’m American and was born with that perspective. So I inherently come with that outsider perspective and sensibility. That being said, even on the streets of Los Angeles I can feel like an outsider.”

他目前正在创作的摄影系列《故土》（Motherland）探讨了现代中国不断变化的城市景象。对于有着一半中国血统的他来说,这个国家既熟悉又陌生。李强说：“我既是局内人，也是局外人。我在中国生活过、工作过，在这里努力过。但我也是美国人, 这是我从出生起就有的观念。所以我天生就有一种局外人的观点和感悟。也就是说，即使是在洛杉矶的街头，我也会觉得自己是局外人。”

Shanghai XVI, 2015

Shanghai VII, 2014

Chongqing II, 2015

Shanghai II, 2014

Postaer regards photos that only exist digitally as unfinished products, believing that a photograph isn’t truly a photograph until it’s seen in print, He wants to encourage people to experience photography in a tangible form, as something that can be physically held and shared with others. “In our Instagram-image-saturated, iPhone-picture-billboarded world, I still revere the experience of a finely printed photograph in a book or framed on a wall,” he says. “I believe the photographic print can deliver and emote a tactile visual experience like no other medium.”

在Postaer看来，只有冲印出来后的照片才算得上是真正的照片，到于那些数字媒体里的照片都是未完成的作品。他希望人们能够亲身感受摄影，将它拿到手上，以可触可感的形式与他人分享。他说：“现在这个年代，Instagram 上图片泛滥，iPhone 图片拿来当广告，但我还是更喜欢那种书中或墙上装裱的印刷精致的照片，那是一种令人敬畏的体验。我相信，打印出来的照片可以提供和表现出带有触觉感受的视觉体验，这一点是其它媒体所缺乏的。

Beijing III, 2015

Shanghai XXII, 2016

To experience Postaer’s large-format photos in person for yourself, drop by his solo exhibition, Daniel Lee Postaer: Motherland, which will be showcasing 32 prints from his Motherland series that contains over 200 works. The exhibition will be kicking off later this week at Shanghai’s Longmen Art Projects and will run from August 12th to September 16th.

他的的个人作品展览《李强：故土》将于本周在上海龙门雅集（Shanghai’s Longmen Art Projects）开幕，开放时间为8月12日至9月16日。整个《故土》系列包含超过200张摄影作品，而本次展览将会展系列中的32幅作品。快来亲临现场，体验大画幅摄影作品的震撼力量吧。