Capturing people within landscapes of water and mountains, Zhang Kechun’s series “Among Mountains and Water” is an impressive, inimitable rumination on the relationship between people and their surroundings, set in the rapidly progressing environment of China’s overwhelming prosperity and its destructive growth.
Through his own power of observation and fundamental photographic techniques, Zhang Kechun captures images of reality that seem unreal and even unrealistic because of their scale, their colors, and their subject matter.

“[H]avoc and destruction are inevitable. In this setting, people like us are actually as insignificant as dust. Therefore, over the years of traveling the mountains and water, I have been looking for these people who are still dependent on the mountains and water. When I took photographs, I decided to replace myself with my subjects. I put myself in their position, and the person who replaced me would press the shutter button. I think there is nothing more intense and deeper than the feeling of being one of them, though only for a brief moment. I am pleased with the serendipitous beauty on the road, but I am also deeply concerned that all these things will probably disappear at some point in the future.”
― from Zhang Kechun’s afterword (included in Chinese & English translation)