Heart Warming Rocks

This project was shot in Hebei Province of China. The group of photos that I have captured reflects what life is really like and the impact the environment has on the living things.

Since ancient times the Chinese have always shown admiration for rocks and statues created by nature’s force, hoping one day to have a personality as strong as stones and be able to survive even under the toughest circumstances. In the Hebei province of China sits an ancient town, Quyang, abundant in natural born rocks. Two thousand years ago, manufacture of rocks originated from this place, so naturally it is wildly known to the public as the birthplace and manufacturing centre of northern carvings. The local citizens at Quyang relay on the mountains greatly, in fact the primary industry ran there is quarrying. In the past few years China’s economic development centre has alternated from extensive exploitation of raw resources to an area of high-cutting-edge technology. Quyang’s quarry industry is facing a brand new challenge, after putting a bigger effort into protecting the environment, which is resulting in a downgrade of the quarry industry along with the growth of the farming and animal husbandry industry. Even so the local citizens still have high respects for the rocks, believing that they still have a lot to give which in reality isn’t the case. The group of photos that I have captured reflects what life is really like there and the impact the environment has on the living things. The key tone of my work is white, symbolises the simplicity, blankness and innocent thinking of the local citizens. They relay too much on natural recourses, resulting in very narrow thinking when it comes to survival. With the rapid changes of the society, they are faced with new survival problems and most of them hope that the following generation can change their fate. When time passes, people age and leave, but the rocks will stand forever. New and different groups of people will worship and praise it, but rocks can also be destroyed and damaged. Nothing is permanent, it’s just a matter of time, such rapid changes is a test of survival for all of us. This is also a common problem faced by China’s recourse consuming cities.