Keruo Yang

I am Keruo Yang, the photographer behind XUNCHANG
and the father of a three-year-old boy

Before photography I spent fifteen years in film
as a producer and a director

When I photograph children I never call their names
or ask them to look at the camera
I lie on the ground, crouch, get up and run
by the end of a session I have usually covered more ground than anyone on the field
The children don't fit themselves to me — I fit myself to them

My first subject was my son
When he runs I can't keep up
and whatever instincts I have on location, I earned by chasing him

The follow spot on a stage, the dust at the edge of a pitch,
the three p.m. light in someone's living room —
to my eye they are the same thing

Any photograph, however beautiful, can be generated now
What cannot be generated is that it really happened

When I press the shutter I think about the second before and the second after
which is why my photographs tend to look like frames cut from a longer story
I spend a long time on color
It is another layer laid over the real
one more emotional possibility for the same moment
Some people call it cinematic

The moment I work for
is when a parent, turning through the photographs, suddenly says:
I never knew my child had this side

My wife runs See U in Drama, a children's English-language theatre studio
She puts children on a stage and lets them act everything out
I stay below the stage and quietly chase the moments down
— two sides of the same work
Neither of us plans to leave the world of children

The studio is called XUNCHANG — in Chinese, “the ordinary”
What I photograph is the most extraordinary ordinary
It happens every day, and no one stops to look
By the time you want to see it, it is already gone.

Titles, years, production companies and awards to be confirmed. If you need references for a specific project, write and I will send them.

Begun in 2019, along three threads: Body — disciplined posture in training grounds and classrooms; Emotion — the expressions adults smooth over quickly; Being seen — the instant a child notices the watching and adjusts.

Photographed in schools, clubs and homes across Beijing, Hebei and Yunnan. All black and white, with as little environmental information as possible. Intended for a monograph and an exhibition. Academic partners, documentary teams and publishers are welcome to write.