Jiang Qisheng's Research On News Photography

Jiang Qisheng is a famous theorist of news photography in China. Decades of news photography practices has let him formed his own unique understanding of news photography. He believes that news photography should be a strictly documentary art and a live image recording of the news and the fact, that fictitious factor should be completely excluded. He encourages that news photography requires in-depth selection instead of making up. His theory of "photo and words have the same weight" as well as his assertion of captures against poses is still illuminative to today's news photographers. Thus, to study his thoughts on news photography is very meaningful in terms of enriching our history on news photography.This paper firstly summarizes Jiang Qisheng's experience in news photography industry, which is divided into four periods. The first chapter gives a detailed description of the four periods, in the hope that Jiang's professional track could be exhibited thoroughly. The second chapter is the main chapter of this paper, and is focused on discussing Jiang's main idea in his news photography thoughts, i.e., the view of reality in news photography, the view of propaganda in news photography, and the view of beauty in news photography. The view of reality is the core idea in Jiang's thoughts, the view of propaganda reveals Jiang's principal demand towards news photography, and the view of beauty is a concentrated expression of his aesthetic thoughts. The third chapter reinforces on the factors that initiated Jiang's thoughts on news photography, including the Party's news ideology, the impacts from the news photography group, and the change of his life path. The last chapter focuses on the evaluation of Jiang's thoughts on news photography from the aspects of positive meanings, political tendencies, and limitations. His ideology on news photography has a strong practical inclination, and he dares to criticize the rampant zeal of manipulating the postures of those in front of the cameras, a common practice in photography at that time. But his thoughts on news photography was not without any flaws.There was a clear political orientation within his thoughts.To realize these different aspects of Jiang's thoughts on news photography can help us understand his thoughts in a better way.It is hoped that through the above four chapters, Jiang's thoughts on news photography can be clearly understood.