Lu Yuanmin (b. 1950, Shanghai) is one of the city’s most distinctive native photographers, whose work is deeply rooted in the character and spirit of Shanghai. His best-known bodies of work includeSuzhou Creek andShanghai People. With a visual language that is warm, attentive, and restrained, Lu documented everyday urban life and human dignity amid the rapid transformation of Shanghai during the 1980s and 1990s. These photographs have long since become an important part of the photographic heritage of twentieth-century China.
Good Times is Lu Yuanmin’s latest photobook, bringing together color photographs made with a digital camera in twenty-first-century Shanghai. For Lu, photography has always been both a source of fascination and a way of feeling at ease. He has never stopped walking the streets, and his camera has never stopped taking in new images.
In this new body of work, can Lu sustain the refinement and elegance that have long distinguished his photography? How does he navigate the complexities of working in color? And in this new era—fast-paced, restless, and constantly changing—what kind of Shanghai does he portray through his camera?
Good Times offers its own answers.
Sign up for updates on our new books and exclusive interviews with some of China's most exciting contemporary photographers.
