Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images: Recently Added Galleries and Collections

A different New York City

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:41:00 GMT

A small gallery with photographs taken in New York, with different cameras, such as the Fuji F40fd, Olympus E-330, Olympus C-7070, and the Nikon D2X (plus Zeiss ZF 100mm).

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY

Heavy industry & agriculture 70年代初工农业

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:27:00 GMT

PLA drills and practices 70年代初解放军

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:52:00 GMT

Serendipity collection II (Monochromes)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:04:00 GMT

A small collection of b/w (monochrome) photographs, taken over a considerable period of time, with very different equipment, such as Hasselblad, Nikon film and Nikon digital, the Ricoh GRD2 and Olympus.

The play with light and shadows is what makes the development of photographs in black and white so exciting.

For portraits and people shots in b/w please visit http://hahn.zenfolio.com/p193233205/ .

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY

Close-ups, details & macro photography

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:14:00 GMT

A number of images created by using the Olympus 50/F2 (on the E-330) and the Zeiss ZF 100mm (on the Nikon D2X). Using a 1:2 or 1:1 approach (measuring the distance from the shutter plane to the object, not from the lens front element to the object!) makes for a very interesting and absorbing way to examine the world.

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY

Xisha Islands 西沙群岛 (1974)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:58:00 GMT

Educational reforms 教育改进 (1973-74)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:31:00 GMT

Anti-Confucius & anti-Lin campaign 批孔批林运动 (Qufu 1973-74)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:26:00 GMT

Sports 增强人民体质 (1971)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:52:00 GMT

Serendipity collection 撒散图片库

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:21:00 GMT

A collection of chance encounters, accidents, and discoveries. A couple of these pictures are arranged ("staged"), otherwise things were left alone and just slightly recontextualized. Against usual (somewhat harried) practice, with these photographs I did pay a bit more attention to exposure and composition.

Taken in the following locations:
Norwich, upstate New York.
New York City, Battery Park.
San Francisco.
Beijing, China.
Sanya, Hainan Island, China.
Bar Harbor, Maine.
Rockland, Massachussetts.
Ithaca, upstate New York.
Paris, France.
Sergiev Posad, Russia.
Marburg, Germany.

In contrast to my other collections and galleries, this collection is not serialized or homogeneous in any way. Cameras and gear differ considerably, from medium format to digital.

First images uploaded September 18, 2006. Last update Dec. 27, 2007.

Thomas H. Hahn, Ithaca, NY

The Manchurian Plague 1910-11 (2)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:35:00 GMT

NOTE: Very graphic images! Viewer discretion adviced.

This second installment of photographs depicting the very grim realities of the Manchurian Plague are of Russian provenance. The files were generously provided by Mr. Spike Cook in Florida, the owner of this extremely rare album. Each image was processed for perspective control and contrast adjustment. Post-processing was done in PhotoShop/CS2. The captions in Russian await translation into English.

The Manchurian (or Pneumonic) Plague, a fiasco in the history of public health in China, came at a time when the imperial court in Beijing was at its weakest and the Republican Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen hadn't occurred yet. With a mortality rate of almost 100%, it's outbreak would claim the life of ca. 45,000 to 60,000 residents of Harbin and environs.
Not only did the outbreak occur at a crucial moment in Chinese history, it also took place in a geopolitically highly contested area: Russia, Japan and China all lay claim to controlling this particular region. I recommend the work of William C. Summers and Mark Gamsa for further reading (for English-language materials).

Thomas H. Hahn, Ithaca
Uploaded May 22, 2008

Sapsucker Woods (Zeiss ZF 100mm macro)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:44:00 GMT

A selection of color and b/w shots of nature details as seen in the Sapsucker Woods near Ithaca, NY. All photographs hand-held and taken with the Nikon D2X and the Zeiss ZF 100mm macro. F-stops range from F2 to F22. The lens is very sharp at F2 already, and provides extremely detailed object rendition at F4 up to F11.

Files 8 to 12 are all variations on a theme, i.e. tests undertaken with different RAW developers applied to the same image. As expected, Nikon's Capture NX does a very fine job indeed, but Capture One 4 and the Bibble rendering also produce interesting results.

Note that image 19 (Tracks in the snow) was an accident; I forgot to set the aperture back to a useable F-stop; still, the D2X files are somewhat malleable, so even this type of drastic underexposure was worth rescuing through PP.

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY

Feline business

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Sun, 11 May 2008 23:55:00 GMT

Photographs of our cat, its heirs,and its slayings.

Watkins Glen State Park

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:45:00 GMT

Some photographs taken in and along the gorge of Watkins Glen State Park. Taking these images proved extremely difficult, as the conditions of light and shadow in the canyon (and reflecting off the surface of the water) are very treacherous - they throw the camera's meter off by a factor of 4 in some instances (4 stops under- or overexposure). Besides shooting in the extreme lighting conditions of Tibet, I don't recall encountering similarly tricky conditions in recent years.
The photographs were taken with a Nikon D2X and the 35-70/2.8, except for the last six images, when I mounted the Zeiss ZF 100mm manual lens.

"Watkins Glen State Park is the most famous of the Finger Lakes State Parks, with a reputation for leaving visitors spellbound. Within two miles, the glen's stream descends 400 feet past 200-foot cliffs, generating 19 waterfalls along its course. The gorge path winds over and under waterfalls and through the spray of Cavern Cascade. Rim trails overlook the gorge."

In 2005, the park was named one of America's top outdoor locations.

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY

Quanzhou Chengtian Temple 承天寺 (Fuji F40)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:36:00 GMT

A small selection of photographs of the Zen Buddhist Temple Chengtiansi 承天寺 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province. The temple was founded in 957-958 and was once one of the three major Zen/Chan 禅 Buddhist centers in the Minnan area.

There is an interesting story behind the construction of the temple. As it was planned as a very large compound, large amounts of timber were required. The monk in charge of securing the construction materials traveled to northern Fujian to negotiate with the "Lord of the Mountain" (山主) about felling the necessary amount of trees. The Lord of The Mountain, who wasn't exactly willing to contribute to the project, told the monk that he could have the trees if he were able to actually fell them. A contract was agreed upon, and that same night, after the monk had performed a ritual (当夜作法), a huge storm arose and leveled part of the forest, thus aiding the monk's cause. The next morning, the Lord of the Mountain, not amused, said to the monk: "You have indeed felled the trees, but let's see how you manage to transport them back." At that, the monk wielded his Zen staff, and, touching the trees with it, they were miraculously transmitted to Quanzhou (用禅杖向折梢的巨杉一撞), where they were pulled one by one from the Great Dragon King Well in the temple to be erected.

This is an interesting story for those looking at legitimization processes to exhaust natural resources for the construction of specifically religious structures in traditional China. The legitimization was not rationalized to such extent when it came to private or government buildings.

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY

San Francisco Chinatown 1892

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:16:00 GMT

These fifteen photographs (on 12 plates) represent what I at present consider to be the first "comprehensive" visual documentation of Chinese life in San Francisco.

Chinese Practices - Indelible Photographs was published as a small booklet by Adolph Wittemann and Joseph Hofmann (both publishers of souvenir albums) in 1892.

Depicted are very typical scenes, in an atypical environment:
- A Dragon dance
- A theatre actor
- A vegetable vendor
- A young woman with bound feet
- A funeral procession and banquette
- Offerings to the dead (ancestor worship)
- Fortune telling
- A book keeper's offices
- A joss house
- Opium smoking
- Western (?) man with Chinese wife

All of these photographs capture Chinese life in this important California city as highly integrated, uncontested, while at the same time demonstrating a genuine cultural identity and heritage. They were taken some years before Arnold Genthe (arriving in SFO only in 1895) started to develop an interest in the Chinese urban presence, and - as stated above - may well constitute the first public and published photographic record of Chinese life in San Francisco.

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY

Scooter (Zeiss 100mm macro)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:41:00 GMT

Sample shots taken with the Zeiss ZF Macro 100mm/F2. This is an amazing lens:
- Sharp (yes, as one would expect from a Zeiss)
- Excellent color rendition (more than excellent actually)
- Macro at 1:2
- Absolutely outstanding background rendition (bokeh) when wide open (see image 4 for example).

All pictures taken with the D2X (manual mode of course).

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY

Contrasts

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:01:00 GMT

These are images of architecture in China where the "modern" replaces the "classical" form. Both forms, however, are of western provenance. Buildings dating from the 1920s and 30s are dwarfed by contemporary skyscrapers.

There is one exception: the first image, taken from inside the Qing-dynasty Dongyue miao 东岳庙 in Beijing, was taken by looking over the old wall, towards the top of a new highrise. In the rest of the images, the succession of architectural styles is evident, as is the impact on the build environment.

I've added a couple of images from Sichuan:
1. Roofs and lights, and
2. Roofs and a tree growing from a courtyard. Traditional style architecture and housing both of them, set into contrast with the city lights and with nature respectively.
3. For good measure, a marketplace in a city in France, to demonstrate that the old and the new sharing the same space are not a Chinese invention.

Uploaded November 22, 2006.
Updated December 25, 2007.

Thomas H. Hahn, Ithaca, NY

Early photographs of Daoist sites and practice

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:16:00 GMT

A selection of photographs, original and published/printed, related to Daoist sites and practice. The time frame of this collection will extend backwards as far as technically and topically feasible, and forward - hopefully - into the 1970s (through the end of the Cultural Revolution, that is). For more current photographs related to Daoism, see the galleries under "(Sacred) Mountains and Sites in China".

Images such as these are difficult to trace. Outside of Hedda Morrison's photographs of Mt. Hua, with its Daoist cloisters and sword-wielding masters, and Anne Swann Goodrich's study of The Peking Temple of the Eastern Peak: the Tung-yüeh Miao in Peking and its Lore (1964) , there is very little coherent visual documentation of Daoism's late Qing and (post-)Republican era history, either published in print, or unpublished as unique mementos. To arrive at materials covering what was left of Daoist practice (or sites) during the CR is an even more fragmented undertaking. The photographs here represent these circumstances, by drawing from Perckhammer (1930), Osvald Siren (1924), Carl Kupfer (1911), Melchers (1921), Boerschmann (1906-09), etc. Added - and of considerable interest - is a unique pair of photographs of Daoist Associations (Baoji & Jinan), and a photograph of a Daoist turned filial son-in-mourning who, according to the photograph's description, did not utter a single word over the entire mourning period of three years.

Thomas H. Hahn, Ithaca, NY
Last update January 31, 2008

Early Chinese nudes 早期中国模特兒摄影 (1917-1930s)

th.hahn@gmail.com (Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:36:00 GMT

A selection of photographs of an esoteric genre: artistic photographs of nudes in early Republican China.

It is a curious situation, the nude in Chinese art versus the same subject's ubiquity in western art forms. Francois Jullien, comparing the two traditions and tracing the subject through the respective histories of literati art, rather plainly observes: "...in the development of Chinese aesthetics we can see what resisted the nude to the point of ruling out the possibilty of its existence. China simply missed it." (The Impossible Nude - Chinese Art and Western Aesthetics, U of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 42)
That China "missed the boat" in this regard (whether in traditional painting, sculpture, or most other art forms) still seems baffling. Jullien, at pains to explain this omission, if that is what it is, brings interesting perspectives to bear. The Song dynasty scholar Su Dongbo is quoted as saying for example: "Men, animals, palaces and even tools all have a constant form; on the other hand, mountains, rocks, bamboos, trees, waves or mist have no constant form..." (ibid, p.71) As it stands, to draw or paint what according to Su Dongpo's distinction has constant form (say, a human figure), interestingly enough is of lesser value than painting a rock. Therefore, Jullien deduces, the human figure or body in China was never invested with the same philosophical and metaphysical dimensions as in western traditions. Jullien's treatise on the subject is well worth reading.

With the year 1914, China embarks on a major discovery: it's own bodies. These are some examples. Further illustrations can be found in popular magazines from the 1930s onward, such as Beiyang Pictorial News 北洋画报, Chin-Chin Screen, Liangyou huabao 良友画报, Meishu shenghuo 美术生活, etc.

Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY