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diary 71

This diary was shot along the line 71 crossing Shanghai West side, taking me on a journey from Hongqiao airport all the way to the Bund. It’s a little adventure through the different faces of the city, the ones we may never see, the ones we often walk by without noticing, but the ones I wanted to remember, with its very unique energy, a city at human size.

Starting as an initiation to large format photography, this project is taking me from my very first images with a viewcamera to my last days in Shanghai, more than a year and a half later. As a tribute to my time living in the city, the objective was to make it as much Shanghainese or Chinese as possible, embrassing the potential limitations of this process, but taking it as a last genuine experience of the place I’ve called home for 7 years.

In order to do that, everything was shot on Chinese-built 4x5 viewcameras, Shenghao and a Chamonix. Local film, Shanghai GP3, was also exclusively used for all images and developped by various labs in Shanghai. This has made the whole series as a pure Shanghainese product, with all its flaws and character, a proper diary reflecting of my experience in the city.

Shanghai - China