Marriage of a life time | | A couple surnamed Luo takes their 30th wedding anniversary shoot at the People's Photo Studio. Photos by Gao Erqiang / China Daily |
More than 1,000 couples who took their wedding photographs in a studio more than 25years ago, have been invited to relive their experience.
Shanghai does not lack fancy photo studios competing for young customers with avant-garde fashion styles.
In October, a time-honored and perhaps the city's last Stateowned photo studio attemptedto give their old customers a chance to relive their life's precious moment.
Couples who are able to show wedding photos they took more than 25 years ago at thestudio can enjoy a wedding shoot for free at the 70-year-old People's Photo Studio.
Since the invitation was issued, elderly couples have been crowding the studio.
Du Weihong's hands were shivering as he tried to remove his black-and-white weddingphotos from three brown paper bags, marked with the studio's logo. The photos, as well asthe bags, were so well kept even though 30 years had passed.
"I will never forget the experience," says the 58-year-old.
"It was the first time we took photos in a photo studio and it was our wedding shoot! I wasvery nervous and sweated a lot. I just could not strike the right pose before the camera.The photographer, a tall man, was patient and spent a long time adjusting my pose," herecalls.
Du paid 20 yuan ($3.28), half of his monthly salary as a worker in the transport industry,for a set of three photos - two of the couple and one of the bride.
"It was a luxury to take photos in the People's Photo Studio at that time. For commonerslike us, taking wedding photos is the only time we splurge our money," he says.
Zhang Jianjun, vice-general manager of the studio, has been working at the company formore than 40 years and was proud to talk about its past glory.
The studio, initially named Qiaoqi Photo Studio, was set up by a Russian merchant in 1940and was sold to one of the studio's Chinese employees when the merchant returned to hishome country in 1949.
It was famous for its Europeanstyle decoration, the skilled photographers and thetechniques of dyeing the black-and-white photos into colorful ones that look like oilpaintings. The city's elites and celebrities were among its guests. Among them were theRong's family, an influential financial and industrial empire in China whose business rangedfrom cotton yarn to finance.
In the 1950s, China's individual private businesses were sold to the State or converted intojoint public-private companies based on the principle of establishing a planned economy.The photo studio became State-owned and was renamed as People's Photo Studio on Oct 1, 1959, the 10th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China.
"There were many photo studios in Shanghai but the People's Photo Studio was the mostexpensive one because we had some renowned photographers and we were famous forShanghai-flavor photography," Zhang says.
However, as private photo studios from Taiwan sprung up in the city in the 1990s anddigital cameras were mastered by many, the People's Photo Studio gradually lost itspopularity. In 2010, it had to move out from its longtime location on Huaihai Road, thedowntown commercial street boasting grand shopping malls and luxurious brands.
【1】 【2】（Editor：WangXin、Zhang Qian） Related reading
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