China Photo Studio on Wangfujing Boulevard in Beijing in September 2016. Founded in 1937, the company is one of China's oldest photo studios. Zou Hong/China Daily
The son of one of Beijing's most renowned portrait photographers sheds light on the industry's past.
"If it wasn't for the China Photo Studio, I wouldn't have been born in Beijing," said Yao Jianzhong, 55. In 1956, Yao Jianzhong's late father, Yao Jingcai, a renowned portrait photographer in Shanghai, boarded a train bound for the Chinese capital, together with his beloved camera - don't think of a handheld single-lens reflex, think of a wheeled bulk of a camera that requires the insertion of a silver plate and weighs about 80 kilograms.
"My father wasn't alone, he was with 18 other people who together made up the entire staff of China Photo Studio," Yao said.
Throughout the 1950s, the central government was concerned with the revitalization of Beijing's economy. "Somewhere between the discussions, I suppose, the idea of introducing old brand names from across the country to the capital was proposed," Yao continued. "In the spring of 1956, several old Shanghai brands were 'brought' to Beijing, in a way that would be hard to imagine today."
In addition to China Photo Studio, founded in 1937, there was one restaurant, one laundry shop and four barber shops.
"They were all on the same train, with their belongings, heading for a strange city they would call home. For many, it was the first time in their life they'd left Shanghai," said Yao. "People say that a photo studio is a place to record stories in images, but there's no story about this institution that's more compelling than the one experienced by our forefathers - men who made it in Beijing after having made it in Shanghai."
"Institution" is the right word, according to Gao Liqi, who joined the studio in 1978. "From day one in Beijing, China Photo Studio set a standard for the trade," he said. That's a standard befitting the location of the studio's headquarters on the Wangfujing Boulevard, which was THE shopping street of Beijing at a time when all businesses in China were State-owned.
Childhood memories
"Within the first few months of the studio's arrival in Beijing, we were flooded by customers as well as people from various local studios who were curious about what we had in the store," Gao said.
Yao was born in Beijing in 1961. By that time, his entire family, including his parents, his four Shanghai-born siblings and his maternal grandma, had all moved to Beijing. The crowded family eventually relocated to a big courtyard, together with a couple of other families from Shanghai.
His childhood memories are untainted by any of the homesickness felt by his parents. "I loved to go to the photo studio and play with the little wooden horse I couldn't find anywhere else," he said. "There were two main characters in my earliest memory of a photo-taking session - one moving the giant camera forward and backward while the other held the flash bulb."
That giant camera he described sits today in a place of honor in the studio's ground-floor lobby, shaded by red velvet cloth worthy of a crown. "My father mainly used this camera. And it was with this camera that he took pictures of Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, iconic images that define the leaders in many minds," said Yao.
China Photo Studio, which became famous in swinging Shanghai in the 1930s by giving away black-and-white photos of reigning movie actresses to potential clients, consolidated its position in the industry in New China by taking pictures of political stars.
Back in Shanghai, although a strong anti-bourgeoisie mood had dominated society for several decades after 1949, a deeply-rooted fashion tradition still had its subtle influence in this "Pearl of the Orient". Shanghai New People Photography, founded by a Russian in the 1940s before its ownership was passed on to a man named Gu Yunming, was the place foreign consulate staff and local celebrities went for half-length portraits in the 1950s.
In a nod to platinum Shanghai, photographers from the studio were invited to record the wedding of the daughter of Rong Yiren, a powerful businessman and financier who later joined the government and became the vice-president of the People's Republic of China.
Fast-forward to the early 1980s, when China's political and economic reform and opening-up brought changes to all aspects of people's lives. A telltale sign was the twice-yearly changes of display windows by Shanghai New People Photography, one of the city's oldest - and today it's only - State-owned photo studio.
Zhang Jianjun is the studio's deputy general manager.
"Those window changes were big events. People came from all over the city to see the new photos of celebrities, trying to envision what the latest trends in fashion, hairstyle and makeup would look like for themselves," he said. "Even ordinary people were willing to spend half their monthly salary on a photo shoot here. And studio sessions could constitute a valuable wedding gift."
Talking about weddings, it seemed that the people in Beijing are no less enthusiastic about having their memorable moment sanctified on film by a time-honored photo studio. A wedding package usually consisted of five pictures, costing about 100 yuan ($15), at least two months' salary for an average wage-earner.
"You think it's outrageous? But people lined up at the front door, sometimes for four hours during weekends and holidays, just to appear in a wedding gown in our refurbished studio that featured such novelties as Western-style spiral staircases, vineyards and Roman columns," said Gao, referring to newly introduced props that caused a sensation among clients bored with spartan settings.
