Temple of Heaven Park, Forbidden City, Tiān’ānmén Square, Hutongs of Dōngchéng North and Xīchéng North – Beijing, China. From the steps of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, I looked out across the sprawling Forbidden City. At that moment, there was nothing more amazing. The size of the Chinese imperial palace is staggering, and the ancient halls, with their yellow, tiled roofs and lavishly decorated eaves, are fabulous.
To some of the other tourists, however, I, too, was an object of interest. A tall, lanky foreigner in Beijing, I was a spectacle. At every turn, I encountered people who wanted to take my photo or stand beside me as a friend snapped pictures on a cell phone. A few even grabbed me, forcefully moving me into frame. Some stood at a distance, aiming their cameras my way, pointing and waving. Others just gawked, marveling as I passed.
Though not entirely unexpected and never threatening, it was an unnerving reception, and brought to mind all of the reasons I avoid taking photos of strangers. Having your photo taken on the street can feel dehumanizing, especially when done without permission. You don’t know whether you are perceived as a celebrity or a joke. All you know is that you’re just an ordinary person, who neither wants not warrants being the object of a photographer’s gaze.
Dominoes, Temple of Heaven Park
As I took in the Forbidden City, my attention was diverted by a coterie of Buddhist monks ascending the staircase nearby. I allowed my eyes to follow them, their orange-red robes catching the breeze and their cleanly shaven heads prominent against the hazy, grayness of the day’s sky. My camera hung from my shoulder, and I felt it pressing against my hip. I wanted badly to put it to my eye and snap just one shot. Then, I realized that I was staring at them — hard. Confronted with the fact of my own gaze, I froze.
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Temple of Heaven Park
The irony is that I’ve been working to conquer my discomfort with photographing people, and to try my hand at street photography and portraiture. People’s faces, mannerisms, and mundane comings and goings tell stories that words cannot. I’ve been trying to build the nerve and develop an etiquette — “please” and “thank you” — for capturing snippets of an ordinary person’s day on camera. I found the crowded historic sites, twisting hutongs and landscaped parks and public spaces of central Beijing to be a rich and rightfully challenging space to practice, never allowing me to forget the humanity on both ends of the lens.
Tiān’ānmén Square