吉姆 JIM HOFMAN | Photography Faces & places in China
Portraits
Analog | Ningbo – Around Town
I moved to Ningbo in March of 2024 to open a sourcing office for my company. It has always been a dream of mine to live in a foreign country and when the opportunity presented itself last year I lept at it. Ningbo is a “small city” of 9.4 million people. When I first started […]
Analog | Village – The First 3 Months
I moved to China (permanently) in early March of 2024, set up my film lab in my new kitchen and immediately began shooting the 400 rolls of film I brought from the US. My first stop was the village. All of these were taken on a Leica M7 using either a Voightlander or Leica 28mm […]
Analog | The Village – Fall 2023
Back at the village to visit friends, take photos – and watch the rice get harvested. All photos were shot on a Leica M7 with a Voigtlander 28mm Ultron V2 lens. The film stock was either Kodak Portra 400, Kodak Gold 200, or Fujifilm Superia 400. Processing & scans were done in Hong Kong / […]
Analog | Village in the Summer
I took the Hasselblad Xpan to the village for some pano images. It’s usually a challenge to compose a panoramic photo in a small area like a village, but I’ve started using a wide 28mm Nikon lens on the Xpan which has made it easier.
Analog | Ningbo in the Heat
Wow – it was stupid hot in China during the summer of 2023. I had a choice of weather conditions – extreme heat + humidity or heavy rain. Neither was very conducive for street photography.
Analog | Returning to the Village
It took me over 15 months before I was able to return to China to continue my documentation of the final years of this 400-year-old village.
Analog | One Year in China
This week is the one-year anniversary of coming to China in March of 2020. I came to Ningbo with the plan to stay for 6 weeks for a business trip. A few days after I arrived China closed the borders (still not reopened a year later) and the Covid cases in the US spiked.
Analog | January 2021 – 10 YEARS!
This post marks the 10 year anniversary of this photoblog. It also coincides with the publication of Volume 2 of my village series.
Analog | Winter Travel & Ningbo
Some assorted photos using assorted cameras and assorted film stocks. These are the final photos taken in 2020.
Analog | Village Formal Portrait Session
I decided to try a formal portrait session of some of the older people in the village a few weeks ago. Many of them had never had a formal portrait taken, so I decided to do it pro-bono as a learning exercise.
Analog | I’m YouTube-Famous Now
I met a YouTuber on the bus from the Shanghai airport to our government-mandated 14-day quarantine hotel in Ningbo. He was returning from the US with his family trying to out-run the COVID-19 virus that had just hit the US. I was doing the same thing – for slightly different reasons.
Analog | Black & White Film
Because the local photo lab is getting slow and expensive I decided to start developing and scanning my own black and white film. I already do that in the US, but it requires some gear and chemicals to get it done here in China. After I was here for about 6 months I decided to set up a film processing lab in my AirBnB kitchen – which I never use.
Analog | New 4″x5″ Camera
After jumping into analog photography about a year and a half ago I’ve slowly acquired cameras with larger and larger resolution (negative size). Over the summer I took the ultimate step into large format photography when I purchased a ShenHao 4×5 camera in Shanghai.
Analog – Summer 2020
My six-week trip turned into an “indefinite” length trip because of COVID-19 related issues (closed borders, lack of flights, lockdowns, etc.). I had plenty of opportunities to work on my photo project in the village and travel around China to capture analog photos on my Mamiya 6 and Hasselblad 500 C/M. Most of these photos were taken using Portra 400 film.
Analog | Ningbo Village 5.20
More street portraits from the village in Ningbo. I’ve entered a new stage in this project because in early May I printed a photo book with all of the images I had shot and distributed the book to everyone in the village who had allowed me to take their portrait. This created an incentive for […]
Book Release Day in the Village 5.11.20
I self-published my first book of analog photographs in early May of 2020 and distributed free copies to everyone in the small village outside of Ningbo where I took the portraits. It was quite the event in the village. Smiles, bewilderment, and a few tears. No one knew I was publishing a book. I would […]
Analog | Ningbo Village 4.20
I’m back at the village after my 2 weeks in prison (Covid-19 quarantine). The weather is gorgeous in Ningbo and my friends in the village missed me.
Analog | Ningbo & Yangjiang 1.20
More analog photos using a medium format Hasselblad 500 C/M. All photos were shot on Portra film. I visited my 99-year-old friend in the village again and met her 67-year-old third son. I asked about her secret for longevity and her answer was “I eat rice, vegetables, and meat every day.” That’s pretty much what […]
Analog | Thailand Monks 1.20
We took a trip to Chiang Mai in Thailand right before the Chinese New Year. On the second day of the trip, I woke up and decided I wanted to take portraits of Monks at a Buddhist temple/monastery about 3 blocks from the hotel. All of these images were shot using a Mamiya 6 medium […]
Analog | Ningbo Village II 11.19
After spending a month this summer photographing the people in a small village outside of Ningbo, I returned in October to continue my mission of taking environmental street portraits of the inhabitants. As has become my custom, I returned with prints of the portraits to give to anyone who volunteered. Apparently my project went viral […]
Analog | Ningbo Village 8.19
My summer project was a little different than my usual street photography. I took environmental street portraits in a small village adjacent to a factory I collaborate with in Ningbo. I also created a video of the process and included some of the back-story about the village.
Hong Kong & Shanghai 4.19
Everything was shot using one lens – the amazing Fuji 16mm f1.4. One of Fuji’s finest lenses.
Analog | Hong Kong & Shanghai 4.19
So, I’ve gone all-in on analog photography, having purchased several film cameras in the last few months – including medium format, 35mm and a point-and-shoot. I’ve started developing and scanning my own negatives to speed-up the cycle. I’m really enjoying the “craft” of photography again.
Tibet 10.18 | #Twice in a Lifetime
Seven years after my first trip to Tibet I retraced my steps and was able to take a lot of my photos all over again with much better gear and a lot more experience.
