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

Photographer Profile ~ W. Eugene Smith

W. Eugene Smith (American,1918-1978) is considered to be one of the greatest photojournalist in the history of photography. The war in the South Pacific, a country doctor in Colorado, victims of industrial pollution in a Japanese village — all of these were captured in unforgettable photographs by the legendary W. Eugene Smith. No matter where, what, or whom he was shooting, Smith drove himself relentlessly to create evocative portraits that revealed the essence of his subjects in a way that touched the emotions and conscience of viewers. The works of this brilliant and complicated man remain a plea for the causes of social justice and a testament to the art of photography.

Born in Wichita, Kansas in 1918, Smith learned about photography from his mother, Nettie. By the age of thirteen he was committed to the craft, and by twenty-one he had been published in dozens of magazines. A breakthrough for Smith came during World War II, when he received an assignment to cover the war in the Pacific. In the spirit that characterized his lifelong approach toward his work, Smith threw himself into the action. He photographed on land, in the sea, and in the air, hoping to get to the center of the experience of war, and, in his words, “sink into the heart of the picture.”

As he observed and photographed the Japanese victims of the war, Smith’s conscience was stirred. It was then he began to develop in his work the theme of social responsibility. He sought to touch the viewers’ emotions and inspire them to work for social justice. As Smith explains, “I wanted my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars.” Smith’s wartime work was cut short when he was wounded, and he returned to his wife and children in upstate New York. When he was ready to work again, he felt he “needed to make a photograph that was the opposite of war.” The photograph, “The Walk to Paradise Garden,” was of his son and daughter stepping through the woods into a clearing. It proved to be one of Smith’s most enduring and best-loved photographs.

After the war, Smith undertook a series of photo-essays for LIFE magazine. Smith would spend weeks immersing himself in the lives of his subjects. This approach, very different from the usual practices of photojournalism, reflected Smith’s desire to reveal the true essence of his subjects. For “Nurse Midwife,” the story of Maude Callen, a black woman working in an impoverished community in the rural South, Smith wanted his essay to “make a very strong point about racism, by simply showing a remarkable woman doing a remarkable job in an impossible situation.” Smith’s method of getting close to his subjects and photographing them from a more intimate perspective proved successful. There was a tremendous response from both his editors at LIFE magazine and the public at large.

Smith, however, still felt a strong need to separate from the strictures of the magazine industry and work as an independent artist. In 1956, Smith left LIFE magazine and began work on an ambitious study of life in Pittsburgh. When asked to provide photographs for a book on Pittsburgh, he envisioned the project in epic proportions, planning a broad, multi-themed approach that would show the city as a living entity. He threw himself obsessively into the work, making more than ten thousand photographs, of which only fifty were used. The Pittsburgh project drained him physically and financially, and he was never able to publish the project in a form that achieved his vision. The experience, while difficult, represented a breakthrough for him; as his biographer, Jim Hughes, points out, it “allowed him to continue viewing himself in terms of art rather than journalism.”

Smith fully embraced the artistic life in the late fifties, leaving his family and moving to a loft in New York City to devote himself to his work. For the next decade, Smith spent most of his time in his loft, taking pictures from his window of the life in the streets, and photographing the artists and musicians who shared his lifestyle. This period culminated in an acclaimed retrospective of Smith’s work, titled “Let Truth Be the Prejudice”, at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1970. Soon after, Smith began work on what would be his final project. Working with his second wife, Smith spent several years in Japan collaborating on a book about victims of industrial pollution in the fishing village of Minimata.

When W. Eugene Smith died in Tucson, Arizona in 1978, he left behind a legacy of some of the most powerful photographs in the history of journalism. His personal approach to integrating his life into the lives of his subjects revolutionized the somewhat new form of photojournalism known as the photo essay. His body of work remains one of the primary bridges between photojournalists and fine art photographers. In the end W. Eugene Smith’s greatest gift was his life long insistence that journalistic photography always search for the depth and humanity of its subjects. [via PBS]

Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors.
~ W. Eugene Smith

Dylan 1965

Thelonious Monk, from the Jazz Loft Project, by W. Eugene Smith

 Iwo Jima, by W. Eugene Smith 1945

Tomoko in Her Bath, Mother and daughter with Minamata Disease, Japan 

Country Doctor - 


Whats the use of having a great depth of field if there is not an adequate depth of feeling? ~ W. Eugene Smith

Country Doctor - Housecall

Untitled (goats atop roof), W. Eugene Smith 1954 

Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold.
~ W. Eugene Smith

War Ophans

Up to and including the moment of exposure, the photographer is working in an undeniably subjective way. By his choice of technical approach, by the selection of the subject matter...and by his decision as to the exact cinematic instant of exposure, he is blending the variables of interpretation into an emotional whole. ~ W. Eugene Smith 

 Smith’s wartime work was cut short when he was wounded, and he returned to his wife and children in upstate New York. When he was ready to work again“I needed to make a photograph that was the opposite of war.” The photograph, “The Walk to Paradise Garden,” was of his son and daughter stepping through the woods into a clearing. It proved to be one of Smith’s most enduring and best-loved photographs.

 A Spanish villager receives the last earthly visit from his wife, daughter, granddaughter, and friends. 1951

...and each time I pressed the shutter release it was a shouted condemnation hurled with the hope that the picture might survive through the years, with the hope that they might echo through the minds of men in the future - causing them caution and remembrance and realization. 
~ W. Eugene Smith

Actor Charlie Chaplin looking into mirror putting on makeup for role as animal trainer in his 81st film Limelight, 1952.

Gabon , Africa 1954

Mass in a cathedral while badly burned American officer lies swathed in bandages as he convalesces on cot, Leyte, Philippines, by W. Eugene Smith 1944 

“I wanted my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars.” 

Iwo Jima 1945

US Marine resting behind cart on rubble strewn street during battle to take Saipan from occupying Japanese forces, Saipan, by W. Eugene Smith 1944

A wounded soldier prays

This remarkable photograph was taken on assignment for LIFE (but not published in the magazine) and is one of the best examples of the narrative, documentary images W. Eugene Smith took between 1943 and 1945 while covering World War II in the Pacific. In this photograph, taken during the Battle of Okinawa, Smith demonstrated his ability to blend his strong compassion for humanity with superb aesthetic skills. In this carefully balanced and illuminated composition, he captured the strain, frustration, and terror of the soldiers'' situation. Bombarded by mortar shells and trapped by the fire of machine guns, they were unable to move forward or retreat.

U.S. soldier helping frightened civilians out of caves where they had hidden during battle of Saipan 1944.

Portrait of Smith ~ 1957

Portrait of Smith