Framing the soul of a city

After living in Shanghai for 13 years, entrepreneurs Derek Muhs and Marisa Tarin found the real heartbeat and soul of the city in its people. They put together 100 photographs featuring local residents, to compile the book titled Faces We Love－Shanghai.

"Highlighting the raw and honest moments of life in Shanghai that are at times heartbreaking and hopeful, serendipitous and authentic, Faces We Love－Shanghai is a love letter to a city visited by many, but truly seen by few," reads the introduction that Canadian Muhs wrote for the book, which was released on Amazon on April 12 and is distributed by Simon and Schuster. It is also available through other retail platforms.

Among the many readers that gave the book five-star rating on Amazon, Monika Ruud from the United States comments that the book "took us right back to Shanghai. ... I could almost smell the streets, hear the sounds and feel the crisp air". She also speaks appreciatively about the words of wisdom between the photos, and even wanted to put a few of the pictures on her wall.

The book's authors have lived in Europe and Asia, working in the real estate and the medical sector. They relocated to China in 2007.

"Traveling was a huge passion," Muhs told China Daily via email.

In the past 20 years, they have been collecting photographs of people from all over the world. In 2015, when their business was acquired by a larger company, they decided to put together a collection of photographs that "represented our journey of 13 years in a city we love so much".

Faces We Love－Shanghai consists of works from seven photographers, all of whom are foreign expats or tourists in the city, although some local Chinese professionals were involved in the preparation of photo shoots as well as the selection of photos.

Through the lenses of these photographers, viewers will see local people going about their daily routines, including parents who take care of their children while running a small eatery, elderly men having a doze on the street-corner, and the traveling kitchen knife sharpener, who carries all his equipment, singing his signature hawking song, through the city's neighborhoods.

Tarin, from Spain, who is one of the photographers and curators of the collection, made friends with one particular knife sharpener.

"Communicating only with smiles, nods and broken Mandarin turned into a 10-year friendship," Muhs says of Tarin's interactions with the tradesman.

"That neighborly sense of community is very special and we hope we captured it in this book," he says.

Shanghai is known around the world for its incredible architecture, Muhs says. "However, our journey through the city, seeing the people behind the buildings and the things that often get overlooked, was just incredible for us. We wanted to capture that life, the true beauty of Shanghai," Muhs adds.

"These are pictures that touch your heart, pictures that make you smile, pictures that capture something unique about Shanghai. We want them to be unfiltered, authentic and not in any way enhanced."

Speaking of the things he loved about Shanghai, Muhs, who is a classical jazz enthusiast, says of the city's reputation as the "Asian hub of toe-tappin 'finger-snappin' jazz".

"You could walk down the street in Shanghai and it could be 1938 or 2008; you can see and hear an entire new generation swinging to the classics of an era in the heyday of jazz that is still very much alive," Muhs says.

"With the difficulty of COVID-19 right now, we are still seeing communities pull together and look after one another," Muhs says, adding that there has been an incredible response from media overseas, and on social media, and everyone is asking how the people of Shanghai are doing.

"We were rated five stars by Readers' Favorite, all celebrating the unity they were seeing," he adds. "And a little video we put together reminding everyone how great Shanghai is was picked up by The New York Times."