时间的温度
章克刚
在物理学里，时间和温度是两个截然不同的物理量。时间表达物体的生灭排列，而温度是表示物体冷热程度。然而，两个看似不相关的事物，通过摄影的跨界联系，产生了意义。
此次“时间的温度”摄影展，是从武汉大学历届摄影专业毕业生作品中精选出来的，有获得世界新闻摄影比赛（荷赛）大奖的，也有获得过中国摄影金像奖以及“国展”等各类重要展赛金、银、铜奖的。之所以取名“时间的温度”，是想说明，这批创作时间有的距离今天已近半个世纪的作品，现在依然能让我们为之心动，充分说明记录时间的摄影的温度是存在的。这温度就像一帧小小的画面里，凝固、压缩、封装了春夏秋冬所有的温柔与热烈，不管经过多少时间，当你打开画面，站在它面前时，那帧画面像一个小太阳，“啪”的一下，把当年的温度全部释放了出来。
如：刘鲁豫《走近马赛马拉》系列里羚羊的眼神，不是警惕，不是惊恐，而是一种带着温良的注视。李晓英《织女》画面里一个女人在织布，光线从侧面木窗透进来，尘埃在光柱里浮动。场景极其朴素，但你能闻到木梭和棉线摩擦的那种气味，能感觉到她手指的粗糙和耐心。余海波《在幻想锁链的彼岸》有一种挣扎的隐喻——我们到底是被什么锁住了？是观念？是习惯？还是自己骗自己的那些“幻想”？作品不会给你答案，但它会让你开始问。李洁军的《牺牲的士兵》，表现了战争的残酷与生命的消逝……赵青的《北川废墟上的幸存者》，画面里的人在地震后的废墟里生火做饭，他们用普通的日常生活回答了什么是生活的强者。曹红的《当芭蕾与自然相遇》，让你猛然发现，原来艺术是思想在寻找同类，并不是表演给别人看的。 肖萱安的《中国熊猫》，通过影像构建了三峡即将沉入水底前的缱绻乡愁。胡国庆的《小憩》，则通过一只孤独的小鸟，表达了对人类生存境遇的忧虑。王景春的《儿童罕见症》，拍的不是病症，是关系，是那种“我不放弃你”的伟大母爱。
还有彭年生、黄丰、蓝青、颜长江、文涛、许云华、焦胜、谢虹、赵亚洲、冯卫光、周冰、肖彤彤……他们的每一件作品都以不同的视角告诉我们，“仰观宇宙之大，俯察品类之盛”的美是如此的不同，但美的温暖却如此相通。
有人说，照片不过是时间的灰烬。我倒觉得，它们是时间的容器，更是温度的储存卡。
摄影告诉我们，时间原本没有温度，它不冷也不热，它只是流逝。但当你把这流逝中的某一个片段截取下来，通过银盐、通过像素、通过相纸或者媒介进行表达的时候，影像的温度就诞生了。
古人说“一寸光阴一寸金，寸金难买寸光阴。”这话没错，但我觉得不完整。从摄影的角度看，时间的价值不在于它有多长，时间的真正价值在于温度。对于摄影人来说，活一百岁固然好，但你没有在那个瞬间按下快门，一百年也只是空白。
这场“时间的温度”的展览，它不是告诉你时间有多长，也不是告诉你温度有多高。它是想说：当时间和摄影相遇，它们会彼此奔赴、相互赋予。时间给了影像重量，影像给了时间心跳。
The Temperature of Time
Zhang Kegang
In physics, time and temperature are two distinct quantities. Time expresses the arising and passing of things in sequence, while temperature measures the degree of heat or cold in an object. Yet these two seemingly unrelated phenomena find meaning through the bridging medium of photography.
This exhibition, The Temperature of Time, brings together a curated selection of works by graduates of Wuhan University's photography program across successive generations. Among these artists are winners of prestigious awards such as the World Press Photo Award, the Chinese Photography Golden Image Award, and gold, silver, and bronze prizes from "National Exhibition" and other major competitions. The title emphasizes that photographs created nearly fifty years ago can still resonate with us today. This demonstrates that photographs carry a temperature of their own. That temperature is like a small frame that freezes, compresses, and seals within itself all the tenderness and intensity of every season. Regardless of how much time passes, when you stand before it, that frame becomes a small sun, and with a sudden flash, releases every degree of heat from the moment it was made.
Consider the gaze of the antelope in Liu Luyu's series Approaching the Masai Mara — not wary, not frightened, but a look of quiet, gentle attention. In Li Xiaoying's The Weaver, a woman works at her loom as light filters through a wooden window from the side, dust floating in the column of light. The scene is utterly plain, yet you can almost smell the friction of the wooden shuttle against cotton thread, and sense the roughness and patience in her hands. Yu Haibo's On the Other Shore of the Chain of Illusions carries a metaphor of struggle — what, exactly, are we bound by? Ideas? Habit? The illusions we tell ourselves? The work offers no answers, but it makes you start asking. Li Jiejun's The Fallen Soldier renders the cruelty of war and the vanishing of life. Zhao Qing's Survivors in the Beichuan Ruins shows people cooking over an open fire amid earthquake rubble, answering through the most ordinary acts of daily life, what it means to be truly resilient. Cao Hong's When Ballet Meets Nature offers a sudden realization: that art is thought seeking its own kind, not a performance put on for others. Xiao Xuan'an's Chinese Pandas uses imagery to reconstruct the tender nostalgia of the Three Gorges region on the eve of its submersion. Hu Guoqing's A Brief Rest, through a solitary small bird, voices an unease about the human condition. Wang Jingchun's Children with Rare Diseases is not about illness. It is about the relationship and the immense maternal love that says, "I will not give up on you."
Then there are Peng Niansheng, Huang Feng, Lan Qing, Yan Changjiang, Wen Tao, Xu Yunhua, Jiao Sheng, Xie Hong, Zhao Yazhou, Feng Weiguang, Zhou Bing, Xiao Tongtong, etc. Each of their works, from different vantage points, shows us how varied the beauty of "gazing upward at the vast cosmos, looking down at the abundance of all things" can be, and yet how universally its warmth resonates.
Some say a photograph is merely the ash of time. I prefer to think of photographs as time's vessels, and as memory cards storing temperature.
Photography teaches us that time, in itself, has no temperature. It is neither warm nor cold; it simply passes. But the moment you capture a fragment of that passage, through silver halide, through pixels, through photographic paper or any other medium, the temperature of the image is born.
The ancients said, "An inch of time is worth an inch of gold, yet gold cannot buy back that inch of time." True enough, but I think it incomplete. From a photographer's perspective, the value of time lies not in its length but in its temperature. A photographer might live a hundred years, but if the shutter was never pressed at that one decisive moment, a hundred years amounts to nothing but blank space.
This exhibition, titled "The Temperature of Time," does not define the length of time or the height of its temperature. Instead, it conveys this idea: when time and photography intersect, they come together and enrich one another. Time lends images their weight, while images give time its heartbeat.
