In 1930s Shanghai, Gu Manting opens a small photography studio in a quiet, rain-soaked alley. She doesn’t photograph dignitaries or the wealthy, but ordinary people: children from the longtang, rickshaw pullers, flower sellers. She handwrites a date and a blessing on every photograph. When a young man about to head to the front comes in for a family portrait, she develops two copies: one for him to take with him and one for his family to keep. After the War of Resistance breaks out, her studio becomes a contact point for passing messages. She uses her camera to document wartime Shanghai, hiding the negatives beneath the floorboards. After the war, those photographs become precious historical records. Gu Manting says, “I don’t take photographs. I capture the memories of an era.”
