Guangzhou, birthplace of China’s photography industry

Nowadays, with cameras becoming a common tool that everyone has, taking photos has turned into a mundane daily practice for most people. It is said that more than 250 billion photos are taken across the world every year and the number is still on the rise.

However, when photography first came to China in the 1840s, taking photos was still an arduous task mastered by the very few.

According to historians, the first photo in China was taken in Guangzhou in 1844 by Jules Itier, a French customs officer. The photo was taken for Qi Ying, viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi of Qing government, after the Treaty of Whampoa signing.

A photo of Qi Ying, viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi of the Qing government taken by Jules Itier. [Photo/gzdaily.dayoo.com]

The viceroy was exceedingly amazed after he saw his photo and expressed his thankfulness to Jules, according to what Jules Itier wrote in his memoirs.

When Jules arrived in China, he took his cumbersome camera with him. Apart from taking photos for Qi Ying, he took a range of photos of places in Guangzhou and Macao. The photos, most of which depicted the foreign shops, views of Guangzhou and renowned places and people in Guangzhou, are now on display at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, a major center in Paris for contemporary photographic arts.

According to researchers, Qi Ying was open to the novel art of photography and thus it helped the special form of art to prosper in China. When Qi made contact with foreigners in his diplomatic activities, he would gift them photos of himself and his family members. 

Instead of giving an attitude of exclusion to photography, residents of Guangzhou also showed great interests to the special form of art.

A photo of Guangzhou residents taken in the streets of Guangzhou by Jules Itier, a French customs officer. [Photo/gzdaily.dayoo.com]

From 1860, foreigners began to open photo studios and sell photographic equipment in Guangzhou and Shanghai. Ni Hong, an official of the Qing government who traveled to Guangzhou once wrote a poem vividly describing the scene of people flocking to take photos in a photo studio in Guangzhou.

As the photography market kept booming in China, some Chinese people including famous painters such as Zhou Senfeng and Zhang Laoqiu also became determined to enter the photography field and started to learn the techniques of photography from the foreigners. Perhaps, they sensed the challenge that the novel art had imposed on traditional painting.

Several years later, Zhou and Zhang opened photo studios in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, helping to pave the way for the Chinese photography industry.