Cultural travels in China

There are two Chinas today, the one known as the powerful up and coming superpower dominated by the Han majority, and the China that is made up of the quilt of minority ethnicities. Manufactured culture is the term I use to describe what is the popular perception of China. Many changes are at play here, the need to popularize travel and tourism to China, the ubiquitous rise of the middle class, and a domination of the Han peoples over the estimated 60 individual ethnic minorities. The dilution of culture is happening at a rapid pace and I delve into some of these cultures before they are completely overtaken and homogenized. I choose to work with the pinhole camera in direct opposition the technological barrier a digital camera would provide. I look for a cultural exchange, or rather, the development of a personal relationship required to perform a pinhole portrait. Light, time and patience are needed to create the following images. Images portrayed here are of Uyghur, Dong, Khazak and an amalgam of Buddhist/Islam and Steppe cultures. As a cultural landscape photographer, I look to tell the story of a location, both through people and the landscape itself. The process of this discovery is an active engagement, working with my subjects to interpret their reality as well as providing an alternate reality due to the unique properties of the pinhole camera.