Mao's photographer remembers

[Larry.Manuel]

Link to Globe and Mail article [Toronto, Canada] from Oct. 1st, 2009.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/maos-photographer-remembers-great-helmsman/article1307672/

Excerpt:

Standing less than two metres from Mao Zedong as he stood on the rostrum overlooking Tiananmen Square, proclaiming that a new People's Republic had come to this ancient land, Hou Bo didn't have time to contemplate the moment. She just tried to hold her ground and take as many photographs as she could.

Ms. Hou went through all eight rolls of film that she brought with her that day, but the only shot that mattered on Oct. 1, 1949, was the frame of Mao singing out his historic words to a bank of silver microphones. Taken with her German-made Rolleiflex camera, it was a photograph seen around the world, and it helped launch one of the most pervasive personality cults in history.

[in the linked page] There is a photo of Ms. Hou holding a print of that famous exposure, as it appeared on the front page yesterday.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Amazing how the print glows even in the photographs that accompany the article.

 

[brian d]

Interesting , but it still brought to mind-you aint gonna make it with anyone anyhow...if you go carrying pictures of chairman mao RIP John and George

 

[Metroman]

I watched a documentary on the celebrations on Thursday, broadcast on France24 news channel. She is featured in the first part of it here:

France24

And Mrs Mao got her 10 years hard labour for taking "unflattering photos" of the Chairman! I was serving in Hong Kong 1969-1971 and my memories of the 'cultural revolution' were fishing dead, bloated bodies out of the water at the Naval base every single morning, after they had floated down the Pearl River from inland China.

 

[Mike Kennedy]

Thanks for the link Larry.
Great reading on this cold,rainy morning.