When he was 14, Wang Jingchun was given a Seagull camera and proceeded to photograph everyone around him, recording teen years in China's heavy northeast industrial base-a vivid, black-and-white diary of the mid-1990s.

[Photo by cphoto.net]

For many, black-and-white growing-up photos represent a bygone era, a period that they cherish.

Wang Jingchun's photo exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum, is a teenager's visual diary, as most of the pictures were taken by him when he was 14.

"This is like a special gift to memorialize my juvenile days," says Wang. "But it could also be viewed as a shared memory of a group of people who have the same growing experience."

Born in 1980 in Huayin County, Shanxi Province, the Wangs were among the thousands of people who established the heavy industrial base in China's northeast.

"But I don't think that life was hard then," he hastens to point out. "Actually we led a fairly privileged life, because of the advantages of living inside a big enterprise."

Perhaps that explains why the little boy was given his first camera, a 60-yuan (US$7.75) Seagull camera by his parents.

Seagull is China's oldest camera manufacturer and Shanghai's only camer maker at that time.

It was a luxury for a boy to own a camera at that time," he says. "The reason was simple: My parents just didn't want to me to become an alcoholic or a smoker."

So Wang proudly took his camera with him wherever he went and recorded whatever he did. He took pictures of his teacher, his classmates and people around him in his remote home. Perhaps this satisfied his curiosity and natural youthful rebellion.

"My family members, neighbors and classmates became very accustomed to facing my camera," says Wang. "Some even thought they looked better in my pictures than in those taken by others."

Wang's subjects are always people with whom he is familiar - he didn't take photos of strangers and he never photographed landscapes.

In the photos, repressed desires and emotions were evident in people's expressions and in the way they dressed themselves. The shabby buildings and the factory were a sharp contrast with the fresh cheeks of rebellious juveniles.

"It is fortunate that I have kept these pictures, otherwise they would have faded away with the passage of time," says Wang.

At first, he only planned to exhibit the photos he took as a boy. But in order to enrich the show, Wang also includes his famous "Three Gorges" series.

"I hope that some of my teenage friends can come here and see the exhibition," he says. "The show is a collective label to set us apart from other people."

Wang Jingchun's photo exhibition
Date: through March 15, 9am-5pm
Address: 325 Nanjing Rd W.
Admission: 20 yuan
Tel: 021-63272829