36

Japanese | Chinese
 
Whenever we get weary and fatigued like a stretched out rubber band on the
verge of snapping, an absolute tranquility would always so unexpectedly
befall us. Everything returns to calmness in a split second; our ears suddenly
acquire a new sensitivity that all the previously unheard sounds become
audible. “Looking out from the window, the forest afar is reflecting lights and
shadows at a rhythm set by the wind. My gaze was instantly attracted.” Every
time as the light rays start fading away, such picture would leave Tang Holun,
a photographer, captivated and dazed. All of a sudden, a detachment is
formed to break away from mundaneness, to depart from where we used to
imagine as inescapable. As time passes, such experience slowly swells in the
heart and becomes intimately precious moments.

Losing the power to contain himself, Tang picked up his camera and ran into
the forest searching for the source of light. The vital tree branches kept
reaching out robustly with exuberance. Involuntarily, he stared at the tips of
the branches like a runner focusing on the track. “When you are fully
concentrating on one thing, the world would feel distant as if not existing at
all.” Without too much thought, shutters were pressed. Destiny, combined with
his shooting habits, gave shape to a roll of film that lives up to Tang’s idea of
perfection. 36, corresponding to the number of exposures in a film, is an uncut
series of all images captured from the first exposure to the last, earnestly
presented in a book by its original chronological order.

“Many of the photographs in the book appear to be almost identical to each
other. In fact, as no immediate preview is available for analog film
photography, I only applied slight adjustment before taking another shot. Such
repeated process led by ambiguity gave every new shot a revolutionary
quality. To put it in another way, every shot has left behind some sort of
residues that would eventually ripple onto the next one, to reinforce the
affirmation.” From the perspective of the outcome, landscapes possess a fluid
nature that is free of any definite form. This echoes the ever-changing state of
wavering light rays in the forest, an arbitrary phenomenon of nature, which
cannot be emulated, just the same as the different faces of humanity.

Featuring the accordion-folding structure as the bookbinding style to imitate
the form of a long film roll, 36 deliberately removes the intrusive front and
back covers to eliminate the boundary set by the first and last page. The
extremely minimal design has allowed minimum interference with the reading
experience, so that the images can be an eternal loop without a beginning or
an end. Taking a departure from the typical hardcovers that are often seen
among accordion-folded books, the exposed pages have released the book
from a conventional structure. The casual and open format would fall into
unique forms defined by the readers’ hands, creating all kinds of spontaneous
possibilities to the reading experience.
 
 
Book Size: 122 x 210mm 
Book Size(fully open): 5930 x 210mm 
50 pages, Accordion Binding by hand
Bilingual in English & Chinese
2018 Oct, 1st Edition, 200 copies
Printed in Hong Kong 
 
Photographer: Tang Ho Lun 
Designer: Furze Chan