“The Shifting Lens” illustrates how photographers have increasingly focused on everyday people and landscapes since the 1960s, offering an alternative way to observe social realities. After the 1980s, reportage photography further evolved to foreground and reveal social issues even more. Photographers went directly to the scene, uncovering hidden groups and moments, providing testimony through their images and showing a deep concern for their time.
Hwang Pai-Chi, originally a pediatrician, was deeply influenced by Deng Nan-Guang’s philosophy of “straight photography.” During Taiwan’s drastic urban-rural transformation in the 1960s, he wandered through city streets and alleyways, capturing scenes, people, and events that documented the old-time landscapes gradually disappearing amid urban renewal and industrial change.
Hsieh San-Tai, coming from a background in news reporting, focused on social dynamics before and after the lifting of martial law, emphasizing ordinary life, workers, disadvantaged groups, and environmental issues. His Taiwan Style series, rather than being casual or flâneur-style photography, is a purposeful exploration of seldom-visited places in Taiwan—fishing ports, temple festivals, and areas in Pingtung affected by land subsidence—using images to show the passage of time and changes in labor ecology.
Tsai Ming-Te’s Scenes from the Human World directly confronts the societal costs of survival in Taiwan—from mass movements before martial law was lifted to environmental and mental repression behind industrial and commercial growth. Through his lens, he reveals the deep structures of politics, labor, and ecological problems.These images demonstrate the photographers’ perspectival shifts—not just a change in their vantage points, but a direct engagement with reality, as well as a sustained gaze into society.