Xu Xiaobing

Xu, along with other left-wing photographers, such as Cai Shangxiong made his way to the Communist controlled areas outside Xi'an. He joined the communist Eighth Route Army and was assigned to its Yan'an Film Studio (延安电影制片厂). He and Wu Yinxian were cinematographers for Yuan Muzhi's Fighting Combine: Nanni Bay, as well as battlefield documentaries of his own. Party leaders as the war with Japan continued became even more eager to establish film studios to make their case both to the Chinese public and world opinion, and Xu was quickly given resources and responsibilities. In the summer of 1938 Xu made his first photo of Mao, taken while the rising leader was addressing a training session on military tactics. • Illustration — Mao Zedong Addresses the Troops The critic-historian Claire Roberts observes that this 1938 photograph of Mao making a speech at Yan'an "presaged his leadership of the country". She analyzes the message of the photograph by saying that Mao "stands in profile to the right of the frame, his hands placed confidently on his hips, towering over a crowd of soldiers". This pose, she continues, was an "unusual side-on view," in contrast to the traditional way of depicting leaders in a "frontal view in order to emphasize their integrity and authority." But Xu explained his choice in a practical way, saying "If I had stood in front, I would have had to stand in the middle of the crowd", so "all I could do was move over to the side and take the shot". • Illustration — Peng Dehuai Scouts the Enemy (1940) Xu travelled with the army in Northwest China during campaigns against the Japanese in 1939–1940, where he took candid, on-the-spot photos of battle scenes and everyday life behind the lines. Another historian of Chinese photography adds that at this time there was no "personal" photography in China, since very few people had cameras, and those few were primarily for official use, such as identification, documentation of government projects and political leaders, and for propaganda. Xu met his future wife, Hou Bo, in Yan'an in early 1942. She was from a poor peasant background, and Xu introduced her to photography. They married in the spring of 1943. According to the austere style of the times, Hou Bo later recalled. "About 10 friends gathered with us in our cave; we bought jujubes and dried buns, and we all sang together". But the couple was separated for much of the time until January 1949, when the PLA entered Beiping. They were reunited in Mao's summer house in the Fragrant Hills temporary headquarters outside the city, where Xu was photographing Mao's meetings with foreign delegations. Mao took an interest in Hou Bo and asked her to join the group of official photographers. Xu's assignments from 1943 to 1949 produced widely distributed images. Among them was the arrival in Yan'an of United States Special Envoy Patrick Hurley; the negotiations in Chongqing between the Nationalists and the Communists; the North China campaigns of the Eighth Route Army after 1946; and the arrival of Mao and the People's Liberation Army in Beiping in 1949.