Photo Museum: Treasuring The Beauty, Harmony Of Nature

Collections in the Luo Hong Art Museum in the Chinese capital, Beijing, explore nature in its most intimate moments.

China today boasts almost 5,000 registered museums, with the 30,000 exhibitions held each year attended by 900 million visitors. Amongst these museums is the privately-owned Luo Hong Art Museum located near the Beijing Capital International Airport in the Chinese capital. It is owned by Luo Hong, a 50-year-old millionaire baker and photographer who travels the world over hiring helicopters and speed boats at huge cost just to get the best of adventure pictures.

“Photography has become a faith to me because I never saw such harmony between man, animals and nature until the day I got to Africa,” admits Hong, who learnt photography at 17. He has been to Africa 41 times. “Everything on earth, including mountains, rivers, plants, animals or even grass and light, is bestowed with a soul and born with a destiny,” writes an art critic on a plaque at the entrance to the exhibition hall. “Hong has over the years matured from a photographer in a rush to a quiet eavesdropper on nature. Visitors must slow down to take in his photos by admiring them in silence and moving closer little by little,” the reviewer counsels.

“The museum exhibits 153 large photographs, which are replaced regularly. The smallest is 1.5 metres long, while the biggest is 8 metres in length,” explained Heally Ma, a female guide. To see are pictures of lions, zebras, giraffes, penguins, flamingoes, deer, bears and natural landscapes of drought, erupting volcanoes, the inside of deep American canyons, sunset on East African lake shores, etc. Mean...