Shanghai-based travel photographer Scott Turner likes to document real life, often taking an anthropological approach to his work. He regards people and their lives to be the most rewarding and challenging subject to photograph. In his travels, he admits that he likes to go deep in the places that he visits, opting to stay longer to really invest himself and understand more about the local culture. Avoiding areas that are touristy, he prefers instead to visit less popular destinations, places that Scott says “usually have the most open people and the most interesting stories”.
主要活动于上海的旅行摄影师Scott Turner喜欢用镜头记录真实生活，常以人类学的方法进行创作。他认为人与生活是摄影中最具价值和挑战的主题。他坦言，在行程中他不喜欢蜻蜓点水，更喜欢在一个地方呆上一段时间，充实自己，了解当地文化。他尽量避免一些热门旅游景点，更愿意前往小众之地，在Scott看来，在有热情本地人的地方，才能找到最有趣的故事。
Scott has lived in Shanghai for two years now, and has visited many of the major metropolises in China. But what he is most curious about are what he calls “the spaces in between”. He plans to spend some time to explore some of the smaller cities and towns in China, as well as other remote parts of Asia in the coming year, and potentially make a book about it. He has been to Xinjiang, the far west region of China, Kyrgyzstan, Turkestan, as well as India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. For him, the region is multifaceted, complex, and wild. “These places are already widely photographed,” Scott says, “so coming up with something new there can be challenging.”
Scott已在上海生活了两年，也游访过中国许多大城市。但他最感兴趣的，还是那些他称之为“中间地带”。他计划花一段时间去游览一些中国的小城与边镇，同时在未来的一年，也希望走访亚洲其他偏远地区，并有可能为此出一本书。他曾去过中国新疆、吉尔吉斯斯坦、土耳其斯坦、印度、巴基斯坦、尼泊尔和斯里兰卡。对他来说，这些地区多彩多姿，狂野又复杂。“已经有很多摄影作品取材于这些地方，” Scott表示，“所以创作出不同的作品，很有挑战性。”
On his way to Kyrgyzstan, Scott passed through Kashgar, the westernmost city in China, located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. A former outpost on the Silk Road, its history stretches back 2,000 years, and today is known for its famous bazaar, a bustling and vibrant daily market. Some parts of the old city, Scott describes, almost felt like scenes that were straight out of Aladdin, while other parts of the city appeared to be undergoing extensive development and were being rebuilt.
去吉尔吉斯斯坦的路上，Scott途径新疆维吾尔自治区的喀什。这个中国最西边的城市，曾是历史悠久的丝绸之路上的前哨战，历史绵延2000年。如今，这里熙熙攘攘的集市每日人流攒动，生机勃勃，闻名遐迩。Scott表示，这个古老的城市中不少地方就像是从《阿拉丁神灯》中走出来的场景，而同时，另一些地区也看上去正在经历全面的发展和广泛的重建。
It was at the end of 2013 when Scott quit his job as an engineer and decided to travel around Asia for a year. The main reason behind this was because he just wanted to get out of his nine to five routine, explore the world more, and really work on his travel photography. During his travels, Scott did what was probably the wildest thing that he had ever done in his life, which was buy a horse from a local livestock market in Kyrgyzstan and ride it through the mountains by himself for a month. Prior to this experience, he had never even ridden a horse before.
在2013年底，Scott辞去了工程师的工作，并决心前往亚洲旅行一年。此举只是因为他想跳出朝九晚五的生活，探索这个世界，也正式开启他的旅行摄影。在旅行中，Scott做了一件也许是他一生中最为疯狂大胆的事情：从吉尔吉斯斯坦的一个当地的畜牧市场上买了一匹马，然后骑着它在山区穿梭了一个月。在此之前，他可是完全没有任何骑马的经验。
While up in the mountains, Scott met a few Kyrgyz shepherds. After his return, he spent some time talking to a few of his Kyrgyz friends about what he had seen and found out that the shepherds had played an important role in sustaining the local economy in hard times. For Scott, this was a beautiful story, considering that what he had witnessed was the legacy and heritage of the local culture.
而在那次山区之行中，Scott也认识了几个柯尔克孜族牧羊人。他回来后，他与柯尔克孜族的朋友相谈甚久，分享他的所见所闻，同时也了解了牧羊人在当地经济困难时期发挥的重要作用。在Scott看来，能够见识当地文化的传统，是一段非常美妙的经历。
Scott prefers to travel on the ground whenever possible. He says, “traveling slow provides me with an opportunity to observe and connect with the world around me in a way that flying does not.” Both times that he travelled to Kyrgyzstan, he spent three days on a slow train from Shanghai to Kashgar and then crossed the border by foot.
只要有机会，Scott更喜欢在陆地上旅行的感觉。他说：“放慢脚步才能给我观察的时间和机会，更好的理解我周围的世界，坐飞机旅行是无法体会的。”他曾两度走访来吉尔吉斯斯坦，都选择的是从上海做三天的慢车到喀什，然后走路越过边境线。
The images that Scott photographed during his travels in Kyrgyzstan now form the basis of his ongoing VSCO Artist Initiative project, which chronicles the situation of the local farming community in the Kyrgyz mountains. Scott notes that there are two distinctly different styles emerging in his work: one is a very graphic travel style which stems from his love of the landscape, while the other is a rougher and more emotionally driven reportage style, reminiscent of photographers like David Alan Harvey. While Scott has always enjoyed both styles, recently he’s been more attracted towards the latter. And in many ways, Scott feels that his VSCO Artist Initiative project is an investigation of this rougher reportage approach.
Scott在吉尔吉斯斯坦旅行中拍摄的照片如今成为了他创作中的VSCO Artist Initiative项目的基础，以时间为线索，记录吉尔吉斯斯坦山区的当地农业社区情况。Scott注意到他作品中呈现了两种泾渭分明的风格：一种是如精致画卷般的旅行记录，源自对山川大地之爱；另一种则受纪实文学影响而表现出更为粗犷和情绪化风格，让人想起此类的摄影大家David Alan Harvey。虽然Scott一直都很喜欢这两种不同的风格，但近来他明显更偏爱后者了。Scott觉得，他在VSCO上的艺术家倡议项目就是从不同方面来探索更为纪实粗犷的摄影方式。
At the moment, Scott is particularly interested in exploring climate issues, and in creating art photography books on specific subject matters. He is working on a book about a sport in Central Asia called Buzkashi, which translates literally as “goat grabbing” in Persian. The national sport of Afghanistan, Buzkashi is a game in which horse-mounted players attempt to place a headless goat in a goal. While a great deal of documentary reportage has already been done on the subject, Scott is more interested in capturing the emotions and motions of the sport itself, and in a more graphic and abstract way.
目前，Scott对人文风土问题尤为感兴趣，并在相关主题上进行艺术摄影书籍的创作。他正在着手进行书就是关于一项中亚运动，名为“Buzkashi”，用波斯语直译过来的意思就是 “抢山羊”。Buzkashi是阿富汗的举国热衷的赛事，竞技者们骑着马，目标是安放一只无头山羊的尸体，而其他人试图阻止。由于已经有大量的纪实性文章报道过这个活动，Scott更侧重于以图片和抽象的方式，捕捉运动本身所蕴含的激情和动感。
Scott aims to complete his VSCO Artist Initiative project by pairing his photo series from his travels in Kyrgyzstan with a more researched editorial about the local shepherding community. His ultimate goal for the project is “to document the lives of the shepherds, and the issues around modern pastoralism in relation to how it affects the lives of the Kyrgyz people today and for the future, as well as celebrate the deep heritage they have as a people group.”
Scott希望把他在吉尔吉斯斯坦的系列照片与当地牧羊社区深入研究后的文字相结合，用以完成他的VSCO Artist Initiative项目。他对该项目的最终期望在于“记录当地牧羊人的生活，以及围绕现代田园主义如何影响吉尔吉斯人现今的今天以及未来，同时也是对他们作为一个群体所承载深厚底蕴的一种赞歌。”
