Home, seen a little closer

Gannan.

The place I return to.

Gansu, China 甘南Enter this place Photographs & film by Daniel Feng

I come back
to Gannan.

Gannan is my hometown. I live in Shanghai, but my family’s roots are here.

Returning with a camera has become a way of getting to know the place more closely: first through its landscapes and monasteries, then through the people I meet and the time we spend together.

Daniel Feng

Three monks walk through a carved wooden gateway into the courtyard beyond — Labrang Monastery, Gannan.

From a distant hillside
to the person within it.

Late sunlight falls across roofs and monastery buildings beneath the hills of Gannan

Monks walk away through an intricately carved doorway

The land

Room
to look.

A little
closer.

Gannan, in the last light of the day.

A doorway becomes a frame within the frame.

Learning to see.

My first lessons in composition came from Chinese landscape painting. I learned to pay attention to empty space and to the relationship between a figure and their surroundings.

That way of looking still shapes my photographs. But a gesture, an expression, or a conversation can change the centre of the frame.

A procession of monks in red robes and yellow hats climbs a snowy hillside below a lone figure

Young monks lean together in the procession; one smiles while others look in different directions

The gathering

One
hillside.

Many
stories.

The Buddha Unveiling Festival, Labrang Monastery.

A smile within the procession.

A face in the crowd.

At Labrang Monastery, red robes and yellow hats draw a line across the hillside. From a distance, the procession seems to belong to one shared rhythm.

Closer in, that rhythm gives way to individual expressions. I wanted to keep that difference visible: people taking part in the same event, each experiencing a particular moment within it.

A man with glasses and raised hands is illuminated in an opening in the crowd — One face, held in a brief opening in the crowd.

Children laughing from a trailer. A basketball game. These scenes belong beside the wider views and public gatherings.

Children laugh together in the back of a turquoise trailer in warm evening light — The last of the sunlight.

Players jump for a basketball on an outdoor court beneath the hills — An open court, with the hills just beyond.

A smiling child in a blue cap reaches toward the camera from a car window — A hand reaches towards the lens.

The photograph
becomes an exchange.

Suonan Mucairang sits beside a woman sewing red cloth at home

Staying longer

Different paths.

Shared lives.

At home. From Within Reach.

Time changes
what I see.

Near Xiahe Airport, I came to know a family whose lives I have returned to film over three years. One brother tends livestock on the grassland. The other, Suonan Mucairang, went to university and now works in airport security.

Their different paths first drew my attention. Staying with them brought me closer to what they share: meals, conversations, and their relationships with the children. The first comparison was only a beginning.

A photograph can hold a brief exchange.
Film gives a conversation time to unfold.