Lu Guang ~ Brave Photographer Documented Pollution in China... Until He Went Missing.

Chinese photographer Lu Guang spent nearly 40 years documenting the effects of environmental destruction in rural and industrial regions of China. Then, in November, he disappeared.

Lu, who lives with his family in New York, returned to China to lead a photography workshop in late October. The region he was visiting, Xinjiang, is the location of detention sites holding hundreds of thousands of Muslim prisoners. About a month and a half after his disappearance the Chinese police informed Lu’s family that he had been arrested, his wife told the New York Times.

Forty-seven journalists are known to be imprisoned in China as of the end of 2018, says Steven Butler, the Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) [via National Geographic]

 “We don't know the precise reason why Lu Guang was arrested,” says Butler. "However, he was an independent-minded journalist who had, among [other] things, documented environmental degradation that authorities might have found offensive."

See some of Lu Guang's shocking pictures China doesn’t want you to see below

© Lu Guang


Wuhai Chemical Plants Inner Mongolia 2010 © Lu Guang

 Denim processing village Xintang in Zengcheng city Guangdong 2010 © Lu Guang

Dalian Oil spill Liaoning 2010 © Lu Guang 
The pipeline of the Newport Oil Wharf of Dalian Bay exploded, sending untold gallons of oil into the sea. Many fishing boats were "assigned" to clean up the oil contamination.

Assigned by Greenpeace to the area,  Lu Guang documented the environmental destruction and the clean-up effort in Dalian. While he was photographing the city's harbor for his assignment, a 25 year-old firefighter named Zhang Liang waded into the harbor to clear a water pump but lost his footing. Despite efforts by rescuers, Liang drowned.




The Chinese government reported the leak at 1,500 tons. Speaking to Greenpeace, Dr. Richard Steiner, professor at The University of Alaska and a specialist in oil spills, estimated the Dalian spill at 90,000 tons



Guiyu, Guangdong province, rivers and reservoirs have been contaminated. This villager is washing in a seriously polluted pond. November 25, 2005

Guang was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his series "Pollution in China." These images were taken in various factory towns around China and Mongolia, showing how the byproducts of industry have devastated the regions. 

These towns are still very much inhabited, with people living and suffering under apocalyptic conditions.

High Pollution Industry Wuhai Inner Mongolia 2006 © Lu Guang

Shizhuishan Industrial Park Ningxia 2008 © Lu Guang

Zhuzhou Industrial Park Hunan 2010 © Lu Guang

"They often wanted to confiscate my camera, I was often beaten, but until now, nothing serious has happened to me." ~ Lu Guang

Maoergou Coal Mine in Hequ Shanxi 2014 © Lu Guang

Coal mining left Hulun Buir Grassland pockmarked by sinkholes Inner Mongolia 2012 © Lu Guang

Steel Mills Tangshan Hebei 2014 © Lu Guang

Lasengmiao traditional center of Tibetan medicine now affected by polluting industries Wuhai Inner Mongolia 2008 © Lu Guang

“At the junction of Ningxia province and Inner Mongolia province, I saw a tall chimney puffing out golden smoke covering the blue sky, large tracts of the grassland have become industrial waste dumps; unbearable foul smell made people want to cough; Surging industrial sewage flowed into the Yellow River…”Lu Guang

Workers at a lime kiln in the Heilonggui Industrial District in Inner Mongolia. The woman on the left is wearing two scarves, a red one to protect her eyes, a grey one to cover her mouth. Photo:   Lu Guang, 22 March 2007.

As a result of drinking polluted groundwater for years, more than fifty residents of the village of Xiakang -- including 64 year-old Wang Baosheng -- suffer from cancer and cerebral thrombosis. Linfen City, Shanxi Province. July 10, 2005.  © Lu Guang 


Zhou Mao sold his blood three times in order to raise the money to send his five children to school for one semester. He has been ill for three years, and his children have now left school to take care of him.


15 year old boy from Tianshui, Gansu Province, dropped out of the school after 2^nd grade, following his parents to Heilonggui, Industrial District. He earns 16 yuan ( $2.37 USD ) a day doing hard physical  labour ~2005

Children also live in the industrial district. China is now the world’s second-largest economy. Its economic development has come at a monumental environmental and humanitarian cost.

"The oldest is 9, not attending school and the youngest is less than 2 years old. The children lived in a severely polluted area. Their hands and faces were always dirty ". April 10, 2005

©Lu Guang

Disabled orphans adopted by charitable farmers Shanxi 2009 © Lu Guang

Shanxi Province is the most seriously polluted region in China today. It is also the province with the highest rate of birth defects. April 15, 2009. 

Child with cerebral palsy licks milk powder off a bed to feed

Lead poisoning in children due to pollution is a horrific consequence  Jiahe Jinjilin Hunan 2010 © Lu Guang

Disabled toddlers abandoned by their impoverished parents.

Farmer burying dead infant, Lankao Henan 2010 © Lu Guang



Lu Guang (2011 Photo Contest) from World Press Photo on Vimeo.





Read more info about China's out of control pollution here

1940's & 50's San Francisco by Photographer Fred Lyon

Fred Lyon has been called "San Francisco's Brassaï," and has also been compared to Cartier-Bresson, Atget, and Andre Kertesz, but with a San Francisco twist. The lifelong San Francisco Native happily admits his debt to those icons.

 Now at 92 years old, his nonstop career reaches back to the early 1940s and embracing news, fashion, architecture, advertising, and food. In the golden years of magazines, his picture credits were everywhere from LIFE to VOGUE. He is now combining his extensive picture files for galleries, publishers, and print collectors.



Foggy Night, Land's End, San Francisco, CA

Lyon reflects on his favourite image:

 "In those early days, I lived in Sausalito. I had a new bride. We’d been invited upstairs for a cocktail. But earlier in the day, I’d spoken with an editor of a story I was doing on San Francisco and he said, ‘Fred, we’re trying to close this story but we need a fog picture.’ I said, ‘You cannot queue the fog here, we haven’t had a foggy night.’

He said, ‘We‘re holding a space for it, but you better get it soon and you better get it good.’

My wife and I went upstairs to our landlord and he was just about to pour the drink and I looked out the window and I saw the fog snaking in through the Golden Gate.

I said, ‘Don’t pour, we got to take a picture.’ My landlord and my wife said, ‘What do you mean? We’re dying of thirst, we’re ready to drink.’

I said, ‘I promise, we’ll go to the nearest bar if I just get this fog picture. But we’ve got to go right now.’

We went out to where Sutro Baths was…We parked the car there. We got out and it was wonderful, thick fog. That’s an idyllic picture of a couple, very romantic. It’s my landlord and my wife. And what they’re saying: ‘Fred, for Christ’s sake take the goddamn picture, we’re dying of thirst and we’re freezing.’

                
A Walk in the Fog 1949

 I’ve always had a ravenous camera and my camera would always take me out on these excursions. ~ Fred Lyon

          
Fred Lyon Embarcadero Lunch 1948

Parking in style, below the Mark Hopkins hotel

San Francisco Ballet performance of the Nutcracker Suite.






Barker at a strip club on Broadway.

The greatest attribute that any photographer can have is insatiable curiosity.~  Fred Lyon

Golden Gate Bridge section aerial with Alcatraz near Upper Border

San Francisco Post and Powell Street, Union Square 1947

Coit Tower, atop Telegraph Hill, Downtown Skyline, San Francisco, CA c. 1940

San Francisco Cable Car Turnaround, Powell & Market 1946

North Beach-Kearny and Fresno, San Francisco 1952

Skate coasters, North Beach.

Kearny Street above Broadway, North Beach 1952

Herring fishermen, Sausalito’s Old Town in the distance

Ocean Beach from Sutro Heights.

Two construction workers eating lunch downtown revel in their front-row seats above the bustle of the noon crowd.

Tin Wah Noodle Company, Chinatown 1948

Boys Fishing on the Wharf, 1954

Young Fishermen, Fisherman’s Wharf 1954

Setting Out to Sea, China Camp, San Francisco Bay 1952

Buy Fred Lyon's book here
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