People On The Move

First published on the Nani WeChat Official Account on January 12, 2021.

I’m fascinated by the color, energy, and atmosphere carried by ordinary people on the street. Between 2015 and 2020, I was constantly on the move, photographing strangers around me. Over six years, I shot more than 400,000 images of people passing by. This repetitive way of photographing slowly pulled me into a huge forest of portraits — ordinary, vulnerable, funny, exhausted, stylish, lonely, and temporary people moving through different cities.

The camera became less about “street photography” itself and more about observing how transportation, class, geography, fashion, movement, and urban life constantly reorganize people into temporary communities.

Walking, shared bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, ferries, buses, subways, taxis, ride-hailing apps, different license plates, different neighborhoods, different ways of moving — all of these quietly shape who we become while travelling through the city.

The following photographs were taken across 35 cities. Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Linyi became the three cities I repeatedly returned to during those years. Everywhere else, I was simply passing through.

China’s urbanization over the past forty years is not only the story of rapidly changing cities, but also a long process of people constantly rebuilding their identities inside those changes. Whether in villages or megacities, people on the street always reveal something about their relationship with the time they are living in.

Every portrait becomes a small mirror reflecting both society and the individual at once.

Photography itself has also changed dramatically. What once belonged mostly to professional cameras is now part of everyday life through smartphones. My own way of photographing also began during this period of mobile-phone photography. A photograph only takes 0.01 seconds to capture someone’s posture, mood, body language, exhaustion, confidence, loneliness, or emotional state.

In 2021, we are still on the move. And there will always be more people worth photographing.

All photographs and original Chinese text by Cai Zhenxing. English adaptation prepared for portfolio and website presentation.

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