Every weekend for the past few years, Sung Yi-chang (宋宜璋) and Hsiao Tsun-hsien
(蕭尊賢) have wandered Taiwan’s back roads and mountains in search of prey. But they are no ordinary hunters. The duo, known by their sobriquet John&Fish (Sung and Hsiao, respectively), capture images of the country’s birds, which they post on photo-sharing Web site Flickr.
They’ve amassed quite the cult following. The 620 images on their photo stream have received 1.35 million hits since it was set up in the summer of 2007. Each photo elicits an average of 200 consistently eulogistic comments in languages including English, French, Chinese, Spanish and Italian. New photos are usually added twice weekly.
The site can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/johnfish. Be warned, though, because you may end up whiling away a whole afternoon, as I did, viewing the stunning photos that John shoots (Fish works as his assistant).
When Rembrandt Meets Audubon (當林布蘭遇見奧杜本), currently on view at the Taiwan International Visual Arts Center (TIVAC — 台灣國際視覺藝術中心), presents 12 of the photos as medium-sized Lambda prints on canvas in a show that aims to reveal how the pictures possess aesthetic qualities similar to paintings.
“I’m not an artist or a photographer,” said
John, who prefers to use his online moniker. “I’m just a guy who puts photos on Flickr.” When spoken by a man who displays an almost telepathic ability to understand the behavior of birds and capture them at just the right moment, that’s an understatement.
Though the mention of Rembrandt in the exhibition’s title and the disjointed selection of photos fail to reveal what John&Fish are up to (John said TIVAC chose the title of the show), the show proves its thesis: The images do resemble oil or watercolor paintings.
Overwhelming Parent (四鷺迎哺, No. 463, 92 comments), which captures a mother egret in a thicket surrounded by her obviously hungry young, suggests a Rembrandt painting in its contrast of light and shadow, as does the balance of light and color in A Choir! (唱詩班, No. 310 — 1,261 comments), which shows three baby Malayan night herons craning their necks in anticipation of being fed.
But that observation misses the point. By focusing on the medium of painting rather than the photos’ subject matter, we forget that the images embody Nature.
Just Like a Prayer (小綠榕朧, No. 546 — 419 comments) shows a Japanese white-eye perched on a branch, gazing skyward. Red berries partially frame the bird, and the background, a swirl of greens and blues that fades into a disc of white in the center, mirrors the bird’s coloration. Does it resemble a watercolor? Sure. But the position of the bird’s head and the photo’s title point to the importance of Buddhism, which John and Fish practice, more than traditional painting techniques.
With so many Flickr images to choose from, this exhibition seems unnecessarily limited, and its theme is a false analogy that lacks relevance and does John&Fish a disservice.
Perhaps TIVAC compares John&Fish’s work with painting because photography is still perceived as a lesser art form in Taiwan. But these images are original and stunning enough to stand on their own.
Something along the lines of how birds and humans share similar life cycles might have been more appropriate.
“These birds are me,” said John. “They are my neighbors. They drink the same water as I do.”
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