- About the Photographs by Luo Dan
To photograph the images in his Simple Song project, Luo Dan lived in close contact with people of the Lisu ethnic minority, in the remote, rural mountains of Yunnan's Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture. Lisu villages are on the cultural, linguistic, and geographic periphery of modern China and are often isolated from Han settlements. As a result of proselytizing by Western missionaries in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, many Lisu people are Christians.
Luo Dan was drawn to the Lisu people because he saw in their rustic way of life values of purity and authenticity that are missing in modern, industrial society. Beginning in 2010, Luo patiently stayed in remote villages for up to six months. To capture the timeless qualities that he admired in Lisu people, he decided to photograph them using the collodion wet plate process, invented in the 1850s and later replaced by simpler, less costly techniques. Wet plate collodion images can produce exquisite detail, but the process requires a light-sensitive emulsion to be prepared on a glass plate using hazardous chemicals, such as acetic acid and ferrous sulfate. Once the emulsion is ready, the plate must be exposed while still wet, then developed before it dries. The light sensitivity of collodion plates is quite low, so exposure can take a minute or more, during which time the subject must remain perfectly still.
Some of the remarkable images by Luo Dan shown in Sky Lanterns are of Lisu people wearing their Sunday best, having come from church services. Luo Dan says he chose the collodion wet plate process "to preserve the magical spiritual lights" in these places. [End Page 154]
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