The soul of the city

Ever since he moved to Shanghai in 2013, London-born photographer Alexis Goodwin has been fascinated by the city. He immediately found it “atmospheric, epic, and visually stimulating,” with high rises stretching into the clouds and bustling little alleyways coexisting in a strange harmony. Wherever he turned, there always seemed to be something to record, and he set out capture his experiences on film. The result is his new photography series, Shanghai Dreams.

自从五年前踏足上海并在此生活的那一刻起，来自伦敦的摄影师 Alexis Goodwin 就深深地为之吸引。和很多人一样，Alexis 对这座城市的第一感觉，就是“大气、史诗般的壮阔和强烈的视觉冲击”，擎天入云的高楼和充满生活气息的羊肠小道，奇妙又毫不冲突地结合在一起。因此在每一个你转身的地方，好像都有一些特别的东西可以入镜，于是，他的新摄影系列《上海梦》（Shanghai Dreams）诞生了。

Living in the city, Goodwin slowly began to discover the lives of the people who live behind its prosperous façade, hawking goods in street stalls, playing chess or cards, or dancing in the plazas at dusk. And of course, he saw plenty of demolition crews.

Shanghai Dreams benefited from the fact that Alexis lived near Laoximen when large-scale demolitions were just getting underway. “I realized the region was changing fast, with entire blocks being demolished and street food vendors disappearing.”

在这座城市里生活，Alexis 慢慢发现了淹没在繁华背后的小人物的生活，有街头叫卖、柴米油盐，也有下棋打牌、跳广场舞，当然，还有拆迁的工地。

这个项目《上海梦》的开始，就得益于当时的 Alexis 住在老西门附近，而大规模的拆迁运动也正在同期进行。“我发现这片地区的面貌在迅速改变，房屋推倒、整个街区被拆空，街头叫卖小商贩也逐渐销声匿迹。”

Goodwin works in advertising and knows his way around post-production software. In this series, he used the same methods. “I chose to keep only the characters I was interested in and strip away everything else, creating an ethereal gradient background with just enough of the original ground to give an echo of reality,” he says. “But I used street photography of real people, which I hope is a little unexpected.”

从事广告摄影的 Alexis，很熟悉后期处理照片的程序。在他这个系列，他也用了一样的方法：“（后期处理）我选择只保留我感兴趣的角色，并删除所有的其他东西，创造一个飘渺的梯度背景，仅有足够的背景基础，以提供一个生态的现实。但我使用的是街头摄影的真实的人，我想创造一些意外感。”

Goodwin’s fragmentary moments of anonymous people—office workers navigating intersections as they cycle to work, street vendors scrolling through their phones in their downtime—are what “reflect the soul of the city,” in his view. “Theses scenes are a distillation of a real Shanghai moment.”

Perhaps the other Shanghai, the “Bewitching City” of concrete and glass towers, is just a mirage. What really leaves a mark are the people, or life itself. “I hope to show the soul of a city,” he says. “I hope these images serve as a record and an homage to the magic of Shanghai life.”

在 Alexis 的镜头中，无论是在建筑工地吸烟的女孩，还是骑着自行车正准备在路口拐弯的上班族，或者是市场里的小摊贩闲来无事翻着手机……这些不知名的小人物所呈现的零星片刻，却恰恰是 Alexis 心目中“反映了城市的灵魂”的所在。“这些场景是真实的上海的升华。”他说。

而钢筋水泥与反光玻璃搭建出来的“魔都”，那不过是海市蜃楼般的光景，真正能留下印记的，是人，和生活本身。“我希望通过这些照片来展示一个城市的灵魂，也希望借此表示对上海生活的一种记录和致敬。”