Photography and poetry have come together in Wu Ching-teng’s (吳景騰) solo exhibition of photographs of lotuses now on display at the Kaohsiung Cultural Center’s Chih-Kao Gallery.
More than 60 photographs of lotuses taken by Wu over several decades are on display, alongside poems by Ou Yin-chuan (歐銀釧).
Lotuses in the spring, summer, fall and winter are each beautiful in their unique ways, and the transformation of the lotus through the four seasons is like a human lifespan, Wu said.
Photo courtesy of Wu Ching-teng
The lotuses in Wu’s photographs have unique forms, and each petal, leaf and pond seems to imprint a poem in her mind, she said.
There is a special quality of silence to the lotuses in the photographs, capturing life and death, anger and joy, happiness and sorrow, and love and hate, she said.
“I write for the lotuses … and have forgotten the time [in the process],” Ou said.
Photo courtesy of Wu Ching-teng
Chiayi-born Wu dreamed of becoming a photographer when he was a child, former National Museum of History director Chang Yui-tan (張譽騰) said.
Wu began taking photos of lotuses at a botanical garden near his home in Taipei when he was a student. Over the years, he has travelled around the nation as well as to Shanghai, Nanjing, Huaian, Beijing and Harbin in China to photograph lotuses.
His photography has won several awards and he served as a judge for the “Zoom-in on Poverty” photo contest sponsored by the UN Development Program in 2011, Chang said.
The exhibition runs through Tuesday next week.
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