影评 “Battlespace” ‍-谭琳

蕊清

前言

马里兰州的 Conowingo 大坝是远近闻名的拍摄白头鹰圣地, 大坝横跨Susquehanna River，是北美西鲱鱼(American shad)回游必经之路。每年10月底至12月初，大批南下过冬的白头鹰路过此地，他们精准的俯冲抓鱼以及鹰爪夺鱼的大戏，吸引了大批各地喜爱鸟类摄影的摄影师聚集于此大展身手。

几年前第一次去大坝就被白头鹰壮美雄健的身姿吸引了，除了捕鱼争斗的精彩瞬间，一直想拍大场景的记录自然生存环境的片子，今年如愿以偿。本文被点评的这张照片（Figure 1)中五只高高在上的白头鹰为一鱼争抢的你死我活，跟照片下面的其它静止的鸟，蓝鹭，鸬鹚，乌鸦，形成鲜明对比：一动一静，一强一弱，上面的在抢鱼，下面的在等鱼落，上面的是王者，下面的是比较低级的鸟类，而鱼在这里是最低级的物种。物竞天择，弱肉强食，适者生存，这就是自然界也是社会的真实写照。

拍完这张照片后，自己还挺喜欢的，但不确定这是否符合大众的胃口，因为一般来讲大家更喜欢看近距离的高清的白头鹰抓鱼和打斗的照片。于是就把这张照片先跟谭琳教授交流，并请他给点评一下。没想到谭老师竟然洋洋洒洒的用英文写出一篇影评，实在是受宠若惊。 因为他没有美篇账号，特代他用我的美篇发表原文如下。

谭琳是一位自由职业的摄影、音乐和艺术评论家。他是一位大学教授，现居住在美国费城地区。

Figure 1. Ruiqing Yang, Battlespace

Battlespace (Figure 1) is a photograph taken by Ruiqing Yang, a member of the Raying Photography Studio（1）， the Chinese Culture and Community Service Center (CCACC) （2）， and the Time-Light Art Association（3）.

Thousands of photographers fly from all over the world to Conowingo, Maryland every year to capture these bald eagles catching fish. Great shots abound, many of them are spectacularly virtuosic wild-life photos, as wild-lives go, some with one fish (Figure 2), some with none (Figure 3), and some with two fish (Figure 4), one outdoing another; browsing through them is like watching a rotating kaleidoscope. Watching these fighting scenes, isolated from their natural habitat, gives us a joyful and humbling experience.

Figure 2. Ruiqing Yang, Bald Eagles and Fish (4)





Figure 3. Wei Xu, Bald Eagles (5)

We spectators are spoiled by these wonderful images. Photographers must combat these ubiquitous pictures to be successful, with the intelligence behind the camera and an awareness of the existence of something else that may resonate with the viewer.

While other photographers at Conowingo have seldom looked beyond the enclosure of preconception of the bald eagle scene, Ruiqing Yang did not just photograph what other photographers prepared her to see. Seeking out her own private adventure and breaking open the sanctity of the feather-counting mentality of photographing eagles, she did not simply record what is expected to shoot, but went there in search of something new, bringing her own sensitivity and sensibility toward composition to the collaboration with the viewer. The former is the physics of fighting for fish; the latter the psychology of it.

Figure 4. Zeren Gu, Bald Eagles and Fish(6)

Hers (Figure 1), however, not only manifested the interests of those wild-life photographers, but did more: it added more stimulating and intriguing elements, and transformed the experience of watching bald eagles into something about the macro world of the wild life, and about ourselves—a simulacrum of human politics, by deconstructing the wild-life scene and reinventing a realistic battlespace into a seemingly other-worldly theatre, a Shakespearean theatre or an ancient Grecian one at that. The outcome is mesmerizing. Ruiqing’s picture (Figure 1) enjoys a dual citizenship of wild-life photography and humanity. It is a wild-life photograph, but it has transcended it.

The habitat of the bald eagles appears here almost like a backdrop in a theatre; the supporting cast, so to speak, also seems interesting. Now they seem like participants, in the wait-and-see mode, in a royal court fighting scene — Henry VIII’s or Ivan the Terrible’s court coming to mind — now they take the role of the chorus in a Greek tragedy. The surrounding bald eagles are part of the drama, so are the blue heron, cormorants, and crows further below. Their presence generates psychological heat.

And the fish, which occupies a tiny portion of the composition. It was a captured meal, now it so fortunately escaped. It happened in a split of second, but the scene surrounding the fish — the trophy won and lost — is evidently suspended between fight and flight. We feel that there is a vacuum around it, at the center of the picture: vacuum in space and eternity in time.

As a critic has pointed out:

… one thing in thought that is another in reality, forcing a pause in the information tornado of our time. (7)

The photographer achieved in the composition a surely established equilibrium. The resulting picture renders more profound its meaning.

They — the bald eagles, the heron and crows, and the fish — seem equal; but, of course, the bald eagles are “more equal.” (8 ) That’s wild life for millions of years.

Our gaze keeps wandering this complex composition, sort of the Alex Webb of Conowingo.

Figure 5. Alex Webb, Baseball Fans, Sancti Spiritus, Cuba (1993) (9)

We photographers all see, and capture what we see. Ruiqing Yang is a hard looker, that’s the difference. She looks and searches, then sees something unforeseen (10), freezes a fleeting euphoria, and discovers a personal vision of her own. Listen to Brodovitch, the long-time Art Director of the Harper’s Bazaar magazine:

It is the unexpected and the surprise quality of a personal vision, rather than the emotion, which make people respond to a photograph. (11)

Ruiqing’s Bald Eagle and Fish (Figure 1) has both: the emotion and a personal vision. It is her individual expression that intrigues us viewers and forces us to contemplate.

If there is any reservation about this picture (Figure 1), it would be the large aperture used. It did separate the protagonists from the background, but do we want the shallow depth-of-field to deprive us of the pleasure of being able to choose between, and wander around, the protagonists and supporting cast? We’d like to divert to examine those supporting cast before returning back, for sure, to the main characters. As a matter of fact, if there were more space above the lower edge of the picture, it would give the supporting cast more prominence — they are part of the drama after all. Our eyes would wander, our mind wonder and enjoy. It would stir up us with a sense of theatricity.

Are wild-life photographs in general, and Ruiqing Yang’s (Figure 1) in particular, windows that are entrances into the animal world outside our civilization? Or are they mirrors reflecting human nature? After all, humans are not alone on this planet; human behaviors are reflected in the wild, aren’t they? From them we see a glimpse of ourselves, sometimes beautiful, sometimes majestic, sometimes fearful, sometimes ugly.

After gazing at the photo (Figure 1) long enough, we may ask the question: Which eagle do we side with in this battle？Or is our sympathy with the fish? The Cranes?

After contemplating the nature-mirror-human relation, a yet more intriguing question arises: Do we want to change this battlespace and animal nature?

Such responses are what a fascinating photograph can bring to us. We need more of these.

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Lin Tan is a free-lance critic in photography, music and art. He resides in the Greater Philadelphia area.

Notes

1 Headquartered in Chicago.

https://www.rayingphotography.com/aboutteam

2 Headquartered in Washington, D. C.

https://www.ccacc-dc.org/Default_en.aspx

3 Headquartered in the Greater Philadelphia Area.

4 It just appeared in the British newspaper Daily Star, January 6, 2017. (p. 17, Picture Power: “Where eagles dare ..”)

5 WeChat Moment Post, December 28, 2024.

6 Time-Light 15: Retrospective 2009-2024. Chester County Art Association, Allinson Gallery, West

Chester, Pennsylvania, November 7-27, 2024.

7 Peter Schjeldahl, “The Shape We’re In.” New Yorker, December 14, 2014.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/22/shape

8 George Orwell, Animal Farm. London: Secker & Warburg, 1945.

9 Alex Webb, “Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba.” Magnum, March 3, 2018.

https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/travel/alex-webb-violet-isle/

10 Wendell Berry:

… before a man can be a seer, he must be a looker.

The Unforeseen Wilderness: An Essay on Kentucky’s Red River Gorge. Lexington, KY: University Press of

Kentucky, 1971.

11 Alexey Brodovitch, “Brodovitch on Photography.

” Popular Photography, Volume 49, December

1961.

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