Photographer: Ren Hang
Ren Hang is a Chinese photographer and poet. He is a photographer that my friends and I like very much. Ren Hang was born in Jilin, China in 1987 and started taking pictures in 2008. A large part of his works are naked bodies of men and women, so his works have been controversial. He was very interested in the Japanese artist Araki and was inspired by it. Besides, Ren Hang is a homosexual. Ren Hang also suffers from depression. In 2017, the 29-year-old Ren Hang ended his life.
（Ren‘s Photo from https://cn.nytimes.com/culture/20190306/ren-hang-paris/）
I choose some nude photos of people in his works which incorporating plant and animal life.
This photo consists of two women and a few green leaves. Two naked women puffed smoke into each other's mouths. I think the color in this photo is very clever because the large green leaves contrast with the lips of two women wearing lipstick. Its shooting angle should be eye-level angle. The lighting of the photo is focused on the faces and green leaves of the two. In addition, two women are the focus of the photo. They are placed in the center of the photo, with green leaves as the background but covering them, leaving only their heads. They were expressionless, their eyes opened slightly, and smoke spread from between their mouths. Such scenes create a sense of unreality.
This photo consists of a naked woman and several lotus leaves. A naked woman is standing in the water. Because her body is not in the water, the color becomes darker as she goes below her body. She covered her head with a big lotus leaf. Because of the lotus leaf, she only showed one eye, half of her nose and red mouth. The light in this photo focused on the woman's head and face. The shooting angle of the photo should be high-angle. In addition, Ren Hang still uses red lips and green lotus leaves for color contrast. In this photo, the woman is also at the center of the photo.
This photo consists of a naked woman and a peacock. The naked woman with her hair draped in, she leaned slightly. Her right eye looked at the camera, and the peacock was in front of her left eye. Her eyes are almost on the same horizontal line as the peacock's eyes. Her shooting angle should be eye-level angle. In terms of color contrast, Ren also used the red lips of the model and the blue-green of the peacock as a contrast. The focus of this photo should be the woman's face, because the lights are almost all on the woman's face. (It can be seen by the difference in skin color between face and body.)
[I personally like this photo very much. I think the female model and the peacock are very beautiful.]
This photo is composed of two models (a man and a woman) and several birds. It can be inferred from the photos that the two models are jumping, and the flying birds appropriately cover their naked bodies. The white bird is particularly bright in this photo, which indicates that the light is shining in the middle.
Many of Ren Hang's works are nude models. There are many more nudes in Ren Hang's works, and even male and female reproductive organs appear in the photos. His photos are grotesque but full of their own characteristics. He is very good at expressing his ideas through the human body. However, because his photos contain some postures considered pornographic and exposed genital organs, conservative people cannot accept his work.
For example, in China, his photos have always been controversial.
Ren Hang once said: "I love China and I like shooting Chinese people. I was born here and I feel a big connection with my hometown. True, I'm restricted here, but the more I'm limited by my country, the more I want my country to take me in and accept me for who I am and what I do."
Ren Hang really hopes that Chinese people can accept his work. He is often arrested and banned from exhibiting explicit photos, and even the printing shop may be closed for printing his photos. Even so, he continued to maintain his own photography and search for inspiration.
When I paid attention to this photographer for the first time, I could not fully accept his work. However, when I watched his explanation of his work, I thought he was very powerful. He uses the human body very well. He is also good at adding some animals and plants and shooting from different angles which can reflect the beauty of the human body. From his works, I can see that he thinks human bodies are very beautiful, and his models are all Chinese. In addition, I also see his love for photography.
The photos of nudes and plants impressed me the most. Because the contrast between green and red makes me feel very unreal. In addition, Ren Hang did not name his photos because he did not want to explain his work. His work is so unique that he can know that it is his work just by seeing his photos.
Ren Hang's photos have a great visual impact. My emotional change was probably from amazed to puzzled to a wry smile. What I can feel is that something is locked in the dark, trying to break free. In the end, it just choose to forget, because the cage is also pretty good. It is difficult for me to imagine the way people in his world or the models who admire him can really feel their bodies. Watching the documentary filmed by his artistic creation, I can feel that Ren Hang himself is such a cheerful person in the creative process.
In an interview with Ren Hang on Ponczblog, he thought "What my pictures are discussing about is survival. I don't wanna isolate human being from animals or plants, and I don't want others having the impression that Chinese people are robots with no cocks or pussies, or they do have sexual genitals but always keep them as some secret treasures, I wanna say that our cocks and pussies are not embarrassing at all. Therefore my works are not only showing the importance of sexual genitals but also explaining that human being is just a form of existence. True freedom should be forgetting the concept of freedom."
I admire this photographer very much because he dared to use his work to illustrate his ideals and goals. But when he passed away in 2017, this news made me feel very sad and sorry. Hope I can remember this unique photographer with this article.
Photo from Google
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