Picture perfect memories: PKU student team takes portrait photos for an entire village

This summer, during their social practice trip to Nihegou village, Yulin, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, 14 students from the School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University, trekked across the countryside, surveyed the land by foot, and engaged in a series of activities. As their journey drew to a close, the students handed villagers a special and memorable gift — portrait photos of each villager.

The students took those portrait photos in a makeshift photostudio they had put up in the village committee building. Villagers, with a basket of dates (a local specialty), a freshly-picked watermelon, or a farming tool in hand, smiling, presented their unadorned yet fertile lives in front of the cameras. Some sat next to their spouses or their grandchildren, posing for a warm and adoring family photo.

Tucked away in the northeast of Shaanxi province, Nihegou village is adjacent to the Yellow River and boasts a long history and a rich culture. Known for its red dates, it is inhabited by some 200 villagers, with an average age of 64.

"Taking portrait photos for the elderly in the village is what we had thought about doing since our team was formed," wrote Zhang Yunling, a graduate student from the School of Journalism and Communication, "and we hoped that while we were in the village we could do something meaningful for the villagers."

Nihegou is a typical "senior village" where almost all inhabitants were above 60, and without a single photo studio, the villagers hardly had any chance of taking photos, Zhang explained, adding, "We hoped to take this opportunity to shoot some 'formal' photos for them and to capture these aging hard-working people."

"Throughout the day of the shooting, I had been constantly affected by their emotions…and in their smiling faces I could read their pure kindness and the passion they had for life," Zhang wrote. "Never before had I felt the life force of photography."

Liang Qin, an undergraduate student from the School of Journalism and Communication of PKU, shared her new understanding of photography after the social practice trip. "Since the beginning of this year, I had photographed a host of people, capturing many of their emotions. But I felt my own emotions seemed to have drifted away from my camera," she wrote.

"This experience in Nihegou village, however, rendered my different understanding of photography. Seeing those grandpas and grandmas sitting under the limelight, gingerly, while staring at me confusingly, I would, subconsciously, imitate the local dialect (to soothe and comfort them), saying to them 'Smile!' or 'Pretty good!'" Liang recalled.

"For the first time in my life, I was moved by the photos I shot," she wrote, "Sweeping through those photos, I found those villagers in them were particularly photogenic, even though their faces were wrinkled." "To some extent, photography for me has transformed from something that requires techniques to something artistic."