A neat way to capture the passage of time is to photograph one scene multiple times throughout a day, slice up the resulting photos, and then combine them into a single composite image showing all the different hours as slices. In the past we’ve shown examples of this technique done in cities and with sunsets.

Chinese photographer Wei Yao of Reuters used this same concept, but instead of shooting photos over a number of hours, his image spans days. Instead of focusing on the passage of time, his image highlights Beijing’s serious pollution problem.
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For his most recent project, French photography collector and editor Thomas Sauvin has been spending his time digging though illegal silver recycling centers in Beijing. He’s doing this because buried within piles of X-Rays and CD-ROMs are hidden millions of discarded film negatives that Sauvin is intent on preserving. Read more…

After his Beijing studio was destroyed in 2005, artist Liu Bolin (AKA “The Invisible Man”) began a project titled “Hiding in the City” that show him blending into various locations around Beijing. The photographs aren’t Photoshopped — Bolin carefully has his body painted to blend in with each landscape. TIME writes,

Each image requires meticulous planning and execution: as both artist and performer, Bolin directs the photographer on how to compose each scene before entering the frame. Once situated, he puts on his Chinese military uniform, which he wears for all of his Invisible Man photographs, and, with the help of an assistant and painter, is painted seamlessly into the scene. This process can sometimes take up to ten hours with Bolin having to stand perfectly still. Although the end result of Bolin’s process is the photograph, the tension between his body and the landscape is itself a manifestation of China’s incredible social and physical change. [#]

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