Hasselblad Masters

Volume 7: Enlighten

"Photography, for me, is the key to how I perceive beauty. It enables me to seek and connect with everything beautiful," said Honghua Shi the Landscape/Nature category winner of the Hasselblad Masters 2021.

It has been almost two decades since Shi began his photography journey in 2003. In the first ten years of his career, he travelled extensively, mainly for commercial shooting, until 2014, when he returned to his hometown—Wuyuan, Jiangxi, a county that embraced mountains and rivers, or Shan Shui in Chinese. Bidding farewell to the busy old days, Shi began immersing himself in nature and slowing down the pace of life. The lifestyle change affected his choice of subjects: he turned to landscape photography and gradually began to have a more profound comprehension of the meaning of photography.

Framing carried his thoughts, observation, and sentiments. Being able to convey his mood and mentality during creation brings him great comfort. He believes different moods lead to a wholly different kind of imagery so that every shoot can be a practice of one's spiritual senses.

Shi loves China's Shan Shui art tradition and always wants to picture the landscape like the ancient painters and poets in the Song and Yuan dynasties. He also admires the pioneer photographer Lang Jingshan for his composite photography of Spirit Resonance and Correspondence to the Object. Shi wishes to communicate his mind and spirit through images that invite the audience to appreciate the genuineness of nature.

Shi believes it's not possible to generalize good photography. Documentary photography captures fleeting moments of reality, while photographic salons celebrate beauty and charm. By fusing these two styles, a skilled photographer can weave a new narrative, blending the raw and the refined, to create imagery that harmonizes reality and aesthetics.

"I don't define my work as landscape photography. Modern Shan Shui would be more accurate"; that's how Shi understands his work. Unlike conventional landscape photography, he immerses himself in nature's embrace among mountains and waters. Shi traverses the depths of time to resonate with the wisdom of ancient masters during the creative process. He bestows the tranquillity and serenity bestowed upon him by nature, and his Shan Shui photography philosophy, onto his ethereal and dream-like imagery.

The new series, themed Inspiration, is the first time Shi used an X2D 100C to explore and capture nature. The shooting took place in Sanqing Mountain, Yellow Mountain, and Yandang Mountain and lasted about a week. The series inherits Shi's unique style and concept.

"Simple" and "straightforward" were two strong impressions X2D gave Shi throughout his recent work with the camera. The Hasselblad 503CW was Shi's main camera for shooting during the era of film photography due to its exceptional image quality. As the recipient of the Hasselblad Master Award, he won the opportunity to explore a new seamless digital shooting experience with the X2D. This camera elevates the artist's creative vision with unrivalled colour and image quality precision.

The X2D 100C is equipped with a 100-megapixel BSI medium-format sensor, allowing Shi to focus on creation without worrying about image quality. Regarding the camera's photographic output and post-editing, its 16-bit colour depth and 15 stops of dynamic range guarantee an unparalleled image quality that effortlessly restores the natural grandeur of the mountains and waters. This remarkable technical prowess and the convenience of re-composition play a crucial role in Shi's ability to conjure surreal masterpieces that astound and captivate the senses.

With the Hasselblad camera, Shi seeks inspiration in nature, gets nourished by Shan Shui, and keeps wondering about the timeless topic of beauty.

About Honghua Shi

Honghua Shi chose photography by chance, just because he wanted to learn a favorite skill when he was young.

It has been nearly 20 years since he began to contact photography in 2003, and his pursuit of each stage is different, and he has not found the meaning of photography in more than 10 years of commercial photography. It was not until he returned to his hometown in 2014, returned to nature, and returned to life, that the subjects he photographed also changed, and he found the meaning of photography by taking mountains and water as his partners every day.