This album is a collection of portraits taken by photo studios and agencies of all levels in Yunnan Province in the 1980s, which should be samples sent by the participants of a provincial photo competition at that time, including Chuncheng Photo Studio of Kunming, Lixin Photo Studio of Kunming, Xinjianshe Photo Studio, Hongqi Photo Studio, Dayi Photo Studio of Kunming, Kunming Photo Service Agency, Shiping Cultural Center, Qujing Cultural Center, Yuanyang Cultural Center, etc.

The album includes 182 large portraits of people of different ages, ethnic groups and occupations. Some are taken against single-colored backboard, and some are exquisitely designed in scenery and style. Generally speaking, most figures are looking up into the distance with faces forming a 45-degree angle with the camera lens. The photos convey their imagination of their own life and the external world, reflecting the mainstream style of Kunming photography industry in the 1980s and people’s aesthetic taste then. On back of these photos, there are names of the photographers, and some even have the names of the enlargers, colorists and retouchers, as well as the information of camera and developing. Produced and colored in an excellent manner, those exquisite photos are important image materials of Kunming’s photography industry at the beginning of reform and opening up.

As a kind of visual expression style themed on human and dealing with human image, portraits complete the awakening of individual consciousness and the demand of identity construction in a highly condensed way. It provides the possibility for the model to observe himself/herself, and also a visual window for others to rediscover the model. It can be said that the information carried by this album involves the changes of the times and social outlook, and the memory of individuals. Through the vivid portraits, we can see mental outlook of Chinese people in the 1980s. Through their happy expression, we can feel the collective unconscious that stirs up the individual wishful thinking.

(Edited by Li Hanning & Yang Zhige, 2021)