吴印咸的“北京饭店·1975” 和 “人民大会堂·1981—1983”

蔡萌

1975年，北京饭店新楼建成。为了便于宣传和展示，饭店领导找到时任国产滤色镜研究小组组长的吴印咸。这组大型室内建筑照片——北京饭店，最终由吴老组织拍摄完成并以明信片的形式呈现在世人面前。

经过三十多年的氧化，这些照片却产生了一种十分特殊的色彩。由于当年拍摄使用的是保定电影胶片厂生产的“代代红”120彩色负片素质很不稳定。于是，在拍摄中，吴印咸既要考虑房间的阴影部分，又要考虑到“代代红”胶片的特点，便在布光上狠下功夫。当这种由岁月沉淀出的奇异色彩与象征着某种标准化繁华程度最高的公共建筑内部景观融合在一起的时候，呈现出一种鲜明的“类型学摄影”图像风格。吴印咸的这组“北京饭店·1975”不仅为我们提供了一个探讨中国式“类型学摄影”的历史图像参照，更为我们呈现出中国摄影发展进程中的一个特定历史时期，国人对摄影媒介、材料的认识程度和使用状况。

1984年，《吴印咸摄影集（下册）》由黑龙江人民出版社出版。其中收录了吴印咸在1981年到1983年间拍摄的“人民大会堂”系列组照。这组摄影作品在过去的20多年里很少被提及，甚至早已被遗忘。从“人民大会堂·1981—1983”照片本身的品质来看，其主题鲜明、结构完整、画面精致；在国家的视角下散发出的迷人气息、神秘气质，以及在现代性空间中上演的民族仪式、理想生活，为我们留下了一个具有多重想象和多种阅读方式杂糅在一起的复杂图像文本。

这组当初为了宣传、展示而制成挂历拍摄的照片，真实地反映了那个特殊年代的典型美学标准和国家意识形态的形象展示诉求，并将其发挥到淋漓尽致。在某种意义上讲，“人民大会堂·1981—1983”可以看成是社会主义现实主义创作原则在中国摄影领域达到巅锋并走向终结的一个经典案例。

有人说：“每一张照片都有其死亡期和复活期”，我觉得，复活的并不仅仅是照片，更应该是我们的观看方式 。“复活”了的 “人民大会堂·1981—1983” 与“北京饭店·1975”，其意义和价值不仅指向历史，更指向未来。也许摄影的魅力就在于此。

Wu Yinxian and His “Beijing Hotel 1975” and “The Great Hall of the People: 1981-1983”

Cai Meng

When the new wing of Beijing Hotel was finished in 1975, the managers of the hotel invited Wu Yinxian, the then head of the Research Team on the Domestic Production of Lens Filters, to come to the hotel and shoot a series of works for publicity purposes. So he took the group of large-scale indoor photographs in this series entitled “Beijing Hotel”, which were then printed on widely-circulated postcards.

After over thirty years of oxidation, these photographs developed a unique color tone. As the photographer used “Dai Dai Hong”120 color negatives produced by Baoding Film Factory, Wu Yinxian had to take the unstable nature of these negatives into consideration while thinking about how to present the dark part of the hotel rooms in a proper manner in his works. In order to address these issues, Wu worked very hard on lighting in the shooting process. The exotic color of these works after so many years of oxidation, together with the interior scenes of a building that symbolizes the most luxurious standardized state-owned construction, reflects a distinctive style of “Typology Photography”. The “Beijing Hotel 1975”series by Wu Yinxian provide us with an ideal historical reference to study the development of “Typology Photography” in China. It is also the signature works in that specific period in the development of photography in China, which can help us to understand the knowledge of photographers at that time on photography as a medium and on the materials they used.  

In 1984, “Photographs by Wu Yinxian (Volume 2)”was published by Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House, which included a series of photos on “The Great Hall of the People” that the photographer took between 1981 and 1983. This group of pictures were so seldom mentioned in literature in the past 20 years that they almost got completely forgotten. But a close look at the excellent pictures in “The Great Hall of the People: 1981-1983” would reveal their distinctive theme, complete composition and delicate appearance. Taken from an official perspective, these works show viewers scenes of national rituals and idealistic lives with a charming and mystical touch, leaving us a complicated pictorial text with a lot of room for imagination and many ways of interpretation. 

These pictures were taken for exhibition and publicity purposes and were later printed on wall calendars. They faithfully followed the typical aesthetic standards at that time and the national pursuit of a common ideology. In a sense, “The Great Hall of the People: 1981-1983”can be considered a classical example created when socialist realism reached its peak in its influence in China’s photography community before taking a gradual turn to the south.