昨天堂
严明的摄影
策展人：画儿
一张图片只是一个瞬间，多个镜头才可以同时表现多个瞬间，即使这样也依然是片面的。但是，当严明在不同时间拍摄了不同人和景域，也许它们确实就构成了一个多维的现实。
严明的作品总是在荒诞与现实之间展开，无意批判及嘲讽，他站在远处，用不动声色的取景重整了旧山河的新风景，从而向观者开启了一种幽默且富有情感的见解。正如艺术家徐累所言：“严明的作品当中有很多可以看的东西，最主要的是他有自己的一种情怀。中国人有一种山河故人的情怀，每朝每代都有，从李白到刘禹锡，这种循环一直延续到后来，在他身上这个循环没有断。” 严明的所有作品里面都有诗，每首诗都有他的想象和他的情怀。“事实上不是他捕捉到这些诗意，是他创造了这些诗意。没有严明的情怀、学养，美术训练、视觉训练，以及活生生的情感运动，任何景物出现在面前的时候，你都是熟视无睹的。所以它不是记录，不是捕捉，而是深刻的创造。”贾樟柯也如是说。
严明是一个温和，不激烈，总是保持微笑的人，微笑比大笑有趣得多。他的作品携带着一种“作者摄影”的口音，当人们好奇这种口音的基因是从哪里来时，这位来自安徽的小镇青年用他始终保有的真诚，敏感，温暖，浪漫，幽默，不怒，不哀，给出了只属于他的基因底色。有趣的是，这种基因会传染。现代诗人艾略特讲过一句话：”只要有一件新的好作品出现，历史上所有经典都会跟着动一动“。而严明也丝毫不介意泄露他的摄影秘笈：“很非自然的东西跟自然的东西突然产生融合，让我怦然心动。包括《昨天堂》这个名字，书里的照片，这些瞬间、这些地方、这些故国山河、这些人间城郭，就是人间前尘埃，我的昨日天堂。”
Land of Bygone
Yan Ming’s Photography
Curator: Hua Er
A picture is only a moment and several pictures can display different moments in the same time which is still one-sided. But when Yan Ming takes photos of different people and scenery in different time, they are likely to constitute a multi-dimensional reality.
Yan Ming’s works always focus on the division between eccentricity and reality without deliberate criticism and sarcasm. He stands in a distant position and photographs new scenery of long-standing landscapes in a subtle way, thus presenting a humorous and emotional understanding to viewers. As Xu Lei who is an artist said, “There are many noticeable things in Yan’s works of which the most important thing is his emotion. Chinese people share an emotion towards beautiful scenery and familiar friends through dynasties from Li Bai to Liu Yuxi. He inherits this emotion with an ever-lasting journey.” Poems are always existent in his works and every poem is filled with his imagination and emotions. “In fact, he doesn’t capture these poetic feelings but creates them. Without such emotions, literacy, art and visual training, and real emotional movements like his, you’re indifferent to any scenery when you come across it. Therefore, his works are not to record or capture, but to create in a profound manner.” , said Jia Zhangke.
Yan Ming is gentle and soft man, and he always keeps smiling which seems more interesting than guffaw. His works carry a characteristic of author’s photography. When people are curious why they are so special, he, a young boy from a town in Anhui, uses his lasting sincerity, sensitivity, warmth, romanticism, humor, calmness and optimism and displays his unique genetic feature. The interesting thing is that this gene will spread others. A modern poet called Eliot ever said, “As long as a new masterpiece is created, past classics will be shocked.” Yan Ming ever minds telling people his secret to good photos: “I feel excited when natural and non-natural elements are suddenly integrated like the name of Yesterday’s Paradise and photos in this book. These places, geographical scenery and cities are not only previous dust of the world, but a Land of Bygone of mine.