Felix J. Bonomo
Today, I went to the Kellogg Library and learned about Felix J. Bonomo, a photographer whose pictures reflect stories of places and people he saw in his travels. His deepest interest is in the rapidly changing lives and culture of China, where history has been recorded for thousands of years and recreation is taking place each day. As his career in photography matured, he found himself in international operations, which required frequent travel to Europe and Asia. He chose to go to Asia because to him, the continent was an intriguing part of the world and a natural subject for him to photograph. Now, we get to see a gallery of photographs from China he calls, “Women Hold Up Half The Sky.” While traveling through the rural areas with his camera, Felix was fascinated by the images of Chinese women working at everything from nanny to construction worker to religious pilgrim to office and restaurant workers. Like him, I, too, would be drawn to anything people would find interesting, including the long shot of the road I took from the side of my house for a panorama project. If an object satisfies me, I’m sure it’ll satisfy everyone else. This book I’m creating, “A Book of Electronic Fun,” will consist of interesting electronic products with altered color schemes, which I think many people will find intriguing. The title “Women Hold Up Half The Sky” comes from Mao making a comment about women holding up half the sky, claiming their equality with men in a Confucian society that had never considered them equal. This equality is evidenced by the fact that women became half the work force, but that’s only an anddition to the household and family work that’s been done for years. What’s interesting about Felix’s photos is that some of the Chinese people featured in the pictures didn’t know he was taking pictures of them. Sometimes, when I take pictures of people, they don’t bother looking at the camera because I never tell them to.
