Family portrait II
(Family photographs in the Humble Administrator’s garden: Suzhou, China)
It never fails to make me giggle when I see people in China photographing each other. People will pose next to anything; signs, trees, rivers, walls, cars, other people, they really don’t seem to mind. Just as common is catching people taking photographs of themselves with either a phone or a camera, but even if Ying or I offer to take their picture, they suddenly become very shy and sidle off. I watched several people that day taking their own pictures of themselves in the garden, many of them on a tour, snapping at speed as they were whisked round the site with some speed. The guides themselves seem to vary greatly from softly spoken young women with tightly clutched handbags to shrill hawk-like women with umbrellas marching at a constant pace and using their full lung capacity to project their voice across what should be a tranquil afternoon.
This image is the moment I turned the corner of a corridor in the garden and it opened up into a courtyard, I caught a family taking a picture and the daughter is displaying the classic two finger peace sign so popular in Asia. These are my favourite kind of picture and I love taking advantage of the opportunity to capture a moment in time – I look back at these ones and grin because they’re so deliciously funny.
