Wang Fuchun and his famous photo series "The Chinese on the train"
Chinese freelance photographer Wang Fuchun has traveled all over the Celestial Empire in search of interesting characters. His 2000 series "The Chinese on the Train" slightly opens the curtain on this mysterious country with an ancient culture. The series is an excellent illustration of the life, mentality, culture of the great neighbor. Wang Fuchun's photo sketches are so lively and fascinating that they do not require any additional explanations. Join the journey along the Great Chinese Railway…
In Wang Fuchun's photographs, China is represented in all the diversity of its inhabitants: the elderly and children, the poor and the very poor, Muslims and Buddhists. Here people live in an ordinary carriage, this is a communal apartment, which has been reduced to the space of a carriage, and where everyone adapts as best they can. They are passengers of the train, whose characters, lives and destinies in the reflections of the eyes tried to convey a talented photographer.
Wang Fuchun was born in 1943 in the city of Suihua in the northeastern province of Heiluqiang. After serving in the army, he, following the example of his older brother, went to work for the railway. Trains and passengers fascinated him so much that Fuchun picked up a camera and started shooting. Throughout the 1970s, Wang captured the wonderful world of the railway in China.
By 1984, the talented Chinese had become a true professional and could no longer imagine his life without a camera in his hands, but he did not quit working on the railway.
During his long and busy life, he went from a handyman to the winner of the prize for the Best Photographer in China in 1996. Among his photo collections there are many sketches of life in the northeast of China: "Chernozemye", "Dongbei", "Amur tigers". But the pictures from Chinese trains brought Wang the greatest fame.
For more than 40 years of working as a photographer, Wang has crossed the country many times by train and filmed fellow travelers. There was so much film in Wang's house that there was no room for other things. In 2014, Invisible Photographer Asia selected Wang as one of the 30 most influential photographers in Asia.
Wang Fuchun died of an unknown illness on March 13, 2021 at the age of 79.