Long Chinsan’s childhood was rich. Due to his father’s interests with art collection and Chinese painting, he was nourished with the art of Chinese painting and aesthetic culture. In his teens, he painted very good elaborate landscape painting. In the 29th year of Guangxu Emperor Guangxu, Long Chinsan , at the age of 12 , went to Shanghai Nanyang Middle School to study. At that time, Li Jinglan , a Chinese painting teacher, gave lectures on photography and darkroom production. Since then, he has had an indissoluble bond with the photography.
Long Chinsan’s photographic works were influenced by the landscape pictures of masters in the Northern Song Dynasty, and he praised also the elegance of the vivid spirit of Chinese painting. It is the first generation of Chinese art photography masters, and his wisdom in art has made the “composite picture（composition in the dark room）”. The so-called “composite” is the multi-bottom synthesis, that is, during the developing procedure, the selected negatives were zooming in, using light-enhancing hand gestures to unify the shades in the darkroom. The artistic creation is performed on the composition, focusing on rhythmic vitality. Looking at his photos is like watching an ink landscape painting. It is tranquil and peaceful. Long Chinsan summed up his own photography creation: “I am doing photo highlights. I hope that with the most realistic and faxed photography tools, I will integrate the intrinsic paintings of our country and create beautiful works with good thinking and practical value.”
Long Chinsan’s photography career is tortuous and difficult. At that time, various newspapers and magazines in Shanghai did not attach importance to news photos. Photography was occasionally on magazines. In 1912 , Long Chinsan worked in the business department of the “Sun” newspaper in Shanghai. He often lingered around Suzhou gardens and suburban villages after his work and took a lot of landscape photos and published his excellent works in pictorials, pushing his art to the realm of photography. In 1915, Long Chinsan was appointed as the advertising director, and at the same time represented Shanghai’s “Times” advertising business. At this time, Long Chinsan has emerged in the Chinese photography industry.
Long Chinsan is a very diligent person. He entered the international salon competitions with the artistic image of the East, and he won more than a thousand appearances. Long Chinsan was a photographer for a living. In order to support his family, he held many exhibitions to sell his own works. Even during the war years of Japanese aggression against China, he held personal exhibitions in Chongqing, Chengdu and Shanghai, and earned tickets for the relief of the mainland refugees. Therefore, the number of his works might be amazing at that time.
Long Chinsan also devoted his life to promoting photographic activities and education. In the early years of China, he was the first to open a photography class at Shanghai Songjiang Girls’ High School for Chinese photography education. He founded the “Photography Art” weekly in “News Night News”, and published articles on photography technology, exhibition review, photography reports, photography history, equipment exchange, etc., with more than 230 issues. In 1923, with Peking University Huang Zhenyu, Chen Wanli and others, he established the “Art Photography Research Association”, which was renamed the “Light Society” the following year (1924), and the first exhibition of members’ works was held in Beijing Central Park, 1927 Held a solo exhibition in the “Times” Building in 2009. In 1928 Lang Jingshan, Hu Boxiang, Zhang Zhenhou, Chen Wanli, Huang Zhenyu, Huang Bohui, etc. contacted newspapers and photography colleagues, negotiated to establish a photography group, and Hu Boxiang proposed to name it “China Photographic Society”, abbreviated as China Society. Regular photo exhibitions have effectively promoted the development of China’s photography. With the advice of an accomplished Jiangxi Taoist he moved to Taiwan in 1949, he also taught at the National Academy of Arts in Taiwan and the Taipei University of Culture.
For more than 50 years, his photographic works and theoretical articles have been published in large quantities, laying the foundation for Chinese photography history. In 1965, his work was on the World Encyclopedia published in the United States. He has won dozens of honorary titles from more than 20 photography societies such as the United States, the British Royal, Italy, France, the Philippines, and Germany. The international photography community gave Long Chinsan the honorary title of “Father of the Asian Film Art Association”, New York, USA , 1980. The Institute of Photography first awarded the world’s top ten special art experts, and Long Chinsan was ranked third, and awarded the title of “Compostie pictures School Experts”.
Many of his important works were collected in1893 by the National Museum, Toulous, France; Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1988, Taipei National Historical Museum in 1990, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of photography in 1992, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan in 2011, the National Art Museum of China in 2013 also collected his works.
Long Chinsan’s life spans a century. In 1995 April, he passed away in Taipei at the age of 104year old. International exhibitions continues afterwards.