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Click... click... In an instant, light and shadow capture eternity, endowing this inherently stunning and dynamic landscape with limitless charm.
Today, the 6th International Photography Symposium & 2025 Lishui Photography Festival commences. Amidst green waters and mountains, within a culturally rich atmosphere, a journey of imagery begins, a feast of light and shadow is shared, and the “Vibrant City of Lishui with Scenic Mountains and Waters” once again captures the world's attention.
As Ricardo Busi, President of the International Federation of Photographic Art, stated, “Lishui’s extraordinary natural landscape and rich cultural heritage together create a ‘fascinating and unique window’ for exploring classical and modern China.”
With landscape as its canvas, culture as its foundation, and the lens as its medium, Lishui reveals its ecological beauty, cultural charm, and urban vitality, showcasing a phenomenal “golden name card”.
Landscapes Enter the Frame, Culture Shines, the City Gains Renown. Adhering to a philosophy of cross-border integration and whole-chain development, Lishui is committed to tightly integrating photographic art, the photography industry, history and culture, landscape scenery, and innovative creativity, continuously stimulating, consolidating, and empowering the infinite possibilities of this famous landscape and cultural city.
Landscapes Enter the Frame, Light and Shadow Sparkle
If photography is a journey to seek, record, and convey beauty, then Lishui is the ultimate destination to fully appreciate, capture, and interpret it.
Lishui's mountains are the “Peaks of Jiangsu and Zhejiang”, boasting Jiangsu and Zhejiang's highest peak, Huangmaojian, and 3,573 mountains over 1,000 meters. Its waters are the “Source of Six Rivers”, with the eight-hundred-li Oujiang River flowing across the region. Here, a historical and cultural lineage stretches back millennia, with a deep and rich cultural heritage, including the Emperor Culture, Sword and Porcelain Culture, Covered Bridge Culture, and She Ethnic Culture, all with long-standing local characteristics.
Nature and culture blend, ancient charm and modern style reflect each other. Lishui, excellent in both “appearance” and “substance”, possesses innate “photographic genes”. Its world-renowned authentic landscapes, simple and profound local customs, and uniquely charming nostalgic sentiments continuously emerge from their “seclusion” through the photographic lens to shine on the world, becoming a Mecca for Chinese and foreign photographers.
In misty haze, Dinghu Peak appears and disappears. On a stone slab bridge, a young girl holding a red umbrella walks alone, while a farmer leads an ox carrying a hoe... In the early winter of 1986, Lishui photographer Wu Pinhe waited for four hours at the foot of Dinghu Peak in Jinyun and captured a photographic work titled “Fairyland”. This became a “photographic golden name card” for what is now the Jinyun Xiandu National 5A Tourist Attraction, continually evolving into a new industry of travel photography utilizing the “natural photo studio”.
In 1995, a work titled “Leaving the Mountains”, shot by Songyang photographer Mao Jinjun while gathering material in Sidu, not only won provincial awards but also made local radishes highly sought-after. Since then, he established a photography leisure park, and traditional ancient villages became the “Jiangnan Secret Realm” that photographers vied to explore.
In 2001, the photographic work “Cloud Sea Terraces Accompany the Rising Sun” by Yunhe photographer Zheng Jianwen popularized a terraced field area through a single image. It has now been developed into a National 5A Tourist Attraction integrating tourism, leisure, photography, sightseeing, and folk custom appreciation. He was honored by the local government as the “Most Beautiful Guardian of the Terraces”.
Using photography as a medium, Lishui presents to the world a composite, diverse, and spectacular panorama. In 2006, the UN Special Issue cover featured “Fishergirl on a Fishing Boat”, taken by Chinese UN official Liu Shuibao, stunning the world with Yunhe Lake’s scenery. In 2015, Russian photographer Prokhorov Vladimir won the first Siena International Photo Award with his work “Above the River”, shot in Lishui, showcasing the unique Eastern aesthetics of “a fisherman boating”. In 2023, world-renowned master photographer Stephen Shore took highly evocative Jiangnan-style landscape photos in Lishui, making the city known to more people...
“Ou River Sails and Shadows”, “Fishing Boats Returning at Dusk”, “Fengyang Sunrise”, “Sandu Folk Dwellings”, “Nanjian Mist and Clouds”, “Yunhe Terraces”, “She Ethnic Township Customs”... Roaming through Lishui, one encounters countless captivating “iconic scenes”.
Themed routes like “Shooting Landscapes”, “Poetry, Wine, and Seizing the Day”, “Landscapes, Swords, and Porcelain”, “She Wanderings · Towards the Clouds”, and “Pastoral Gold Rush” invite global photographers and enthusiasts into Lishui, tracing the footsteps of the millennia-old Chuzhou, and immersing themselves in the beauty of hidden realms within the interplay of light and shadow.
With the integrated development of photography and tourism, photography bases like Jinyun Xiandu, Qingyuan Baishanzu, Longquan Fengyangshan, Liandu Guyianhuaxiang (Ancient Weir and Painting Village), and Yunhe Terraces have rapidly evolved from creative bases into famous tourist attractions, thanks to their unique natural environments and regional cultural flavors.
Because of a series of photos, Suichang Nanjianyan “broke out” from a remote mountain village to become a national-level photography base. Benefiting from photography, Songyang's Chenjiapucun Village transformed from a “hollow village” into a “viral village”, attracting swarms of visitors... Today, more and more beautiful villages are gaining fame far and wide through photography. Countless photographers linger here, using their lenses long and short to capture frame after frame of new common prosperity vistas amidst the poetic landscapes.
“As a Lishui photographer, I deeply love this landscape. I want to capture it more beautifully, with more stories, to let more people know about Lishui, including domestic and international photography masters. I hope they come to Lishui more often, to experience and photograph its vitality and vibrancy,” remarked Lishui photographer Chen Yongjun.
Culture Shines, Vitality Blooms
When the lens encounters Lishui’s beauty, it ignites a uniquely regional photographic culture, leaving a profound mark on the national and even global photographic map.
The recently held Oujiang Shanshui Poetry Road Art Exhibition specifically featured Wu Pinhe’s “Ou River Memories" photographic works from the "Poetic Oujiang, Shooting Landscapes" series. The mountains, rivers, customs, and changes of the Ou River basin intertwine into a poetic tapestry of light and shadow through the lens of this pioneering Lishui photographer.
In the late 1970s, Wu Pinhe and seven other photography enthusiasts, including Chu Xiaoqing, spontaneously formed the “Flash Photo Club”, shifting their focus from simple photo documentation to artistic creation, promptly catching the wave of Chinese photography. Their initial aim was to create excellent works, build a photography team, and build the reputation of Lishui photography.
From black-and-white film to digital cameras, from a group of “dream chasers” striving for self-reliance and advancement, to a city-wide chorus, the spark of photographic art gradually spread like wildfire across the mountainous city.
In 1983, Lishui photographers made their first collective external appearance—the “Lishui Scenes” exhibition in Beijing's Wangfujing—which was an immediate success. Subsequently, various competitions, exhibitions, training sessions, and other photographic activities began to be frequently held in Lishui, rapidly igniting a “photography fever”.
In 1999, Lishui hosted the 4th China Photography Art Festival, opening a new era of symbiotic prosperity between photography and the city. In 2004, Lishui held the first China · Lishui International Photography Culture Festival, attracting tens of thousands of domestic and international photography artists to participate enthusiastically.
Nowadays, photography in Lishui is like a huge magnetic field. From octogenarians to school-age children, a citywide art carnival is unfolding. This small city boasts over ten thousand photography enthusiasts, with 272 national-level photography association members—ranking first among prefecture-level cities in China per capita. They have won over 800 awards in major domestic and international exhibitions and competitions, with four individuals winning five times the highest honor in Chinese photography—the “Gold Statue Award”.
Chen Ronghui, a Lishui-native photographer who returned from studying at the Yale School of Art, is a young photographer who moved “from Lishui photography to the world stage”. His works have been exhibited multiple times at the Lishui Photography Festival, and he has won awards such as the World Press Photo Contest and the Hou Dengke Documentary Photography Award.
In 2011, Chen Ronghui first visited the Lishui Photography Festival exhibition halls. “It gave me my photographic enlightenment. I believe it’s not just me; many Lishui locals are delighted to have such close access to the art of photography”. He often introduces himself as being from Lishui, and because of that, he feels he “has to shoot a little better than others”.
While the older generation of Lishui photographers discovered and disseminated Lishui’s beauty, new generations of photographic talent continue to emerge, reflecting the characteristics of Lishui’s photographic development: vibrant and exploratory.
Over 20 years, the Lishui Municipal Government, in cooperation with the China Photographers Association, has achieved numerous “firsts”: the only photographic cultural festival in China named “Photography Festival”, setting the “global record for the number of exhibitions in a photography festival”, establishing the International Photography Lishui List, pioneering the Photography Festival Academic Committee system, and establishing a set of international exhibition standards...
The world photographs Lishui, Lishui photographers photograph the world. Starting in 2005, Lishui signed an agreement with the China Photographers Association to co-organize the “Ou River Journey” National Photography Exhibition. For 20 years, it has attracted countless Chinese and foreign photographers and enthusiasts to Lishui to experience the infinite charm of the vibrant city, becoming a nationally renowned photographic brand event, greatly aiding regional promotion and image publicity.
The City Gains Renown, Gleaming Brilliantly
For Lishui, photography is not just a cultural “golden name card” but also a “golden bridge” linking it to the world. Lishui and photography, through countless lenses, are performing a “two-way pursuit” across nations, practicing “two-way empowerment” between art and local development.
“Through photography, the world has come to know Lishui, and through photography, Lishui has reached out to the world. Lishui is bound to become a place longed for by photographers worldwide,” predicted Jacques Denys, former Vice President of FIAP, over two decades ago.
“Audiences in Lishui will see ‘a colorful world’ through images, while readers worldwide will experience ‘China’s Scenic Lishui’ through the lens,” reflected Li Qianguang, former member of the Leading Party Members’ Group and Vice Chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, who witnessed Lishui photography going national and global.
This July, the “International Photography Symposium & Lishui Photography Festival” was included in the “Action Plan List” of the Ministerial Conference on Global Civilization Dialogue by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Shifting from past “invitations” to “attraction”, from one-way “introduction” to two-way “output”, the internationalization process of the Lishui Photography Festival has entered a new stage of “substantive influence”, becoming not only a window for Chinese photography to the world but also a lasting platform for dialogue and mutual learning among global image creators.
This year’s festival selected 1,335 exhibitions, displaying 18,531 works, with the number of exhibitions, volume of works, and exhibition line length all reaching peak levels for the event. Participation came domestically from 28 provinces and 105 universities, and internationally from 37 countries and regions including the US, UK, France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Italy, and Spain. Polish photographer Marta Berens expressed excitement: “Having my work accepted by Lishui is not just recognition for me, but a beam of light”.
After over 20 years of accumulation, inheritance, and meticulous work, Lishui photography’s “circle of friends” continues to expand, its energy level constantly growing. The once predominantly local Lishui is increasingly gaining international perspective and “international flair”. Currently, Lishui has “mutual follow” status with 40 international sister cities, has signed friendly exchange memoranda with 32 foreign cities, and has established stable cooperation with international institutions like the Portland Photo Festival (US), FORMAT Festival (UK), the International Federation of Visual Artists (Italy), and the Kolkata International Photo Festival (India).
Today, the Lishui Photography Festival has paved a “Cultural Silk Road” for Chinese photography to the world, becoming one of the largest and most influential photographic events globally. It not only witnesses the vigorous development of the photography industry but also reflects the spectacular transformation and leapfrog development of Lishui city.
In Lishui, photography is not just artistic creation but core “soft infrastructure” for urban development, playing a multi-dimensional empowering role. It enhances the city’s reputation, interprets landscape and culture, promotes cultural-tourism integration, and tells China’s story well, deeply integrating into the economic, social, and urban image construction.
In 2011, Lishui issued the nation's first specialized photography plan, the “Lishui Photography Development Plan (2011-2020)”. In 2021, it released the “International Photography City Development Plan (2021-2030)”, aiming to build “Four High Grounds”: an international hub for photographic art exchange, a high ground for ecological photography creation, a high ground for photography industry innovation, and a high ground for aggregating photography factors.
Currently, Lishui is striving towards the goal of “leading the world in photographic culture and leading the nation in the photography industry”, exploring the continuous practice of cultural resource transformation, industrial ecosystem construction, and social value co-creation. Presently, the city has over 1,000 photography-related enterprises, over 90% of which were registered in the last decade. These cover not only directly related sectors like culture, arts, radio, television, and film, but also business services, retail, education, etc., creating space for the extension of the photography industrial chain and the enhancement of its value chain.
In Lishui, photography is also continuously integrated into the urban fabric and layout. The Lishui Photography Museum, located on the eastern foothills of Wanxiang Mountain, is the first government-funded, standardized professional photography museum in China. Its completion was a milestone, listed among the Top Ten News Events in Chinese Photography in 2007. It houses numerous excellent works by renowned domestic and international photographers and local Lishui photographers, along with books, photographic historical materials, vintage cameras, and old photographs, vividly recreating the development of Chinese photography and showcasing Lishui’s abundant achievements in photography over the years.
The Lishui Photography Culture Center, situated at the northeastern corner of Wanxiang Mountain, is a new landmark in Lishui’s construction of an international photography city and a landscape cultural city. As the largest conference and exhibition center in the urban area, its layout follows the terrain, skillfully blending natural and cultural landscapes, and features functional areas like exhibition zones, cultural and creative R&D display zones, and premium cultural product display zones. It not only provides a professional platform for creation and exchange for photography enthusiasts but also further enhances Lishui’s fame and influence in the field of photography by hosting domestic and international photo exhibitions, competitions, and training activities.
The Wanxiangli Innovation and Entrepreneurship Park, located in the core area of Wanxiang Mountain, is currently under full development. Focusing on “Culture + Photography”, “Culture + Technology”, and “Culture + Tourism”, the park leverages natural ecology, historical culture, and industrial heritage resources to create a cultural and artistic reception space where art and industry merge, a new cultural landmark shared by residents and tourists, and a sci-tech innovation incubation center for green ecological industries. It will further drive the transformation and upgrading of Lishui’s cultural industry, the aggregation and sharing of artistic resources, and the enhancement of the city’s quality and image.
As the construction of the International Photography Cultural City deepens, creative bases across the city have developed distinct characteristics and comprehensive services. Government-guided, market-invested, and operated photography-themed hotels, homestays, and parks have emerged, such as the Ancient Weir and Painting Village Art Block, Songyang Ancient Village Homestay Cluster, Er’ai Photography Theme Art Village, and Wanxiang No. 2 Photography Theme Hotel.