Photographer Zhang Kechun first got the idea to walk along the Yellow River in 2008, and for two years, he did just that, documenting “images of life,” as Slate’s photo blog Behold puts it, along with “flooding, pollution, and destruction caused by China’s push to modernize.”
Slate has published nine of Zhang’s photos, some of which we sample below. They are mesmerizing, and in the muted colors, the shades of yellow, plaintive and doleful, like a faint dirge on the banks of China’s great northern waterway.
Life Along China’s Yellow River (Behold, Slate)
Wow. She walked the river for 2 years and that is all she came up with? Either she is a shit photographer or the Yellow River is a rotten subject.
Jeez these photos make me so happy my civilization didn’t originate on the banks of the Yellow River.
“Zhang choose to create images that are overcast with “a gloomy sky” to contrast the landscape with the people and structures in the frame”
Although in my experience it is generally true that the central China plain isn’t the most photogenic of places. Dust, grey skies, and industry.