毛卫东
第一次看到骆伯年先生的作品，是在台湾出版的由陈申老师主编的《中国摄影史略》中的一幅插图。由于信息不详，对这张作品只存有一些印象。认识骆伯年老先生的后人金酉鸣后，看到了这张作品的原件，尺寸很小，进而发现在国内一些网站上刊载的文章，其中提到中国早期人体摄影时也提及这幅作品，但作品中的人体，应该是一个小型雕塑，而不是真正的人体。民国时期的很多摄影师拍摄的貌似人体的摄影作品，其实都是用雕塑作为拍摄对象，如民国时期的卢施福。
这几年里反复研究骆伯年先生存世的摄影作品和底片，可以说，在骆伯年身上有着两种倾向的冲撞，中国传统审美和西方现代主义思潮同时并存。
首先，存世作品中有一部分是参加”联谊影展“时的作品，作品下方分别有郁达夫、陈箓（号止室）、曹熙宇（字靖陶、号看云楼主人）、赵宗鼎等人的题词，这部分作品大多以画意风格为主，而且兼有集锦摄影的意蕴。分析其原因，约略在于早期摄影材料的局限，一般只用于印相，而在放大时损失了大量细节，造成画面的柔焦效果。但是在查看底片时，发现这部分作品是对焦锐利、细节丰富的。当然，中国早期摄影中以摄影作为表现中国传统审美的工具成为一种主流的倾向，一如郎静山、张印泉等人。
第二部分作品，是大量直接印相照片，从中可以窥见到骆伯年摄影创作的脉络。一如中国当时的摄影师，把照相机对准了祖国的河山，在捕捉江南美景的同时，也拍摄了一些记录民生的作品，但其中最让人印象深刻的，依然是现代主义开始对中国摄影人产生了影响。
在骆伯年拍摄的静物作品中，除了早期的画意派风格之外，还有借鉴20-30年代德国现代主义风格的作品，用简单的日常用品，摆布成简洁的画面，利用物品形成的光影，营造出带有图案感的抽象静物，例如水杯、齿轮、折扇与餐具等等，让人想到莫霍利—纳吉拍摄鲍德里安的眼镜和烟斗以及叉子与盘沿的作品，与德国摄影家汉斯·芬斯勒、佛罗伦斯·亨利、爱德华·霍因吉斯等的作品也有异曲同工之处。
20-30年代骆伯年拍摄的风景作品，大多以江南的自然风光为主，与民国时期其他摄影人一样，融合中国传统审美与西方现代主义的视觉语言。当时中国摄影人能够学习西方最新潮流的渠道，限于国外的书籍和杂志，而西方摄影杂志中丰富的内容让中国摄影人找到了自己个人的喜好，也逐步形成了自己的风格。骆伯年的风景作品与同一时期的金石声有所不同，他更关注景致中的树木，时而作为画面的陪衬，时而作为画面的主体。他从湖岸上拍摄水中的船只，垂柳成为画面的前景，显示出典型的中国古代山水的情怀，但同时细节极为丰富，已跳出了画意派和集锦摄影的朦胧氛围，形式主义摄影的痕迹开始显露出来。另外，骆伯年也尝试了同一张底片用不同工艺进行制作，如负相和浮雕效果，学习和尝试了西方摄影当时流行的技法。
骆伯年摄影作品中最令人难忘的，是他的摄影拼贴作品。20-30年代西方现代主义摄影中，摄影拼贴是一种重要的表现手段，很多耳熟能详的现代主义摄影大师们都采用拼贴的手法进行创作，例如莫霍利—纳吉。但骆伯年采用的是一种万花筒式的拼贴方式，用一张底片的正面与背面各印放出四张照片，在照片中选取关键的视觉核心，裁切成八个等边三角形，再把这八个等边三角形两两相对，拼合成一个完整的画面，最终画面中呈现的，是一个光怪陆离的万花筒，一切具象的拍摄对象都消解成抽象而难以辨识的光影片段。其实这些拼贴作品所使用的图像元素，也是生活中大多被忽视的物件，如植物的叶脉、阳光下的铁栅和投影。
在中国早期摄影中，骆伯年是典型的业余摄影师，供职于银行，工作之余追求自己的摄影爱好，而且在他身上有着民国早期摄影的诸多特点。他们如饥似渴地汲取西方摄影技法和观念的先进经验，大胆进行尝试。这些业余摄影师的探索与实验推动了中国早期摄影的一个高潮，正如博蒙特·纽霍尔所言：”还有一类摄影师，他们对这一媒介的关注远远不是记录，而是一往情深地相信，摄影是一门纯艺术，而且值得得到认可。他们凭自身的活力和献身精神，探索了摄影的审美潜力……身为业余摄影师，他们并没有经济负担，而且能够无视职业摄影师们自我强加的各种限制。他们无拘无束地进行实验，富于想象力，而且愿意打破公认的规则。他们的风格最终成为了普遍的原则“（《摄影史：1839年至今》）。
Mao Weidong
It was from one of the illustrations in China's Brief History of Photography, compiled by Chen Shen and published in Taiwan, that I first saw Luo Bonian’s works. Restricted by insufficient information, I just had limited impression on this picture. After I knew Jin Youming, descendant of Mr. Luo, I was showed the original copy of this picture. It was quite small. And then, I found that some articles published on domestic websites actually mentioned it when discussing the body photography in early China, but the human body in this picture should be a small-sized sculpture instead of a real body. In fact, many photographers in the period of the Republic of China used sculpture as model to create photographic works of human body, such as Lu Shifu. After my repeated study on Mr. Luo’s remaining works and negative films in those years, I could say there are two trends co-existing in him: Chinese traditional aesthetics and western modernism.
At first, some of his remaining works are from the “Friendship” photo exhibition, with works inscribed by Yu Dafu, Chen Lu (also known as Chen Zhishi), Cao Xiyu (also known as Cao Jingtao) and Zhao Zongding. Most of these works focus on pictorial style, combining the implication of composite picture. The cause could be attributed to the limitation of photographic materials in earlier years, which were only applied to printing, resulting in loss of a lot of details and creating effect of soft focus while the picture was enlarged. However, when I checked the negative film, I found this group of works is sharp in focusing and rich in details. Of course it had become a mainstream trend to depend on photography as a means to express Chinese traditional aesthetics in China’s earlier history of photography, photographers including Lang Jingshan and Zhang Yinquan etc.
The second group of works is a lot of directly printed pictures, from which we could see the main theme of Mr. Luo’s photographic creation. Like many other photographers at that time, he also aimed his camera to the country’s great landscape, recording the lives of common people while capturing the beautiful scenery in regions south of the Yangtze River, but the most impressive part was that modernism began to exert its influence on China’s photographers.
In his still life works, except for those of pictorial styles in earlier time, there are some learning from German modernism style between 1920 and 1930: simple daily supplies arranged together to make up a brief picture, using light and shadow formed by objects to create abstract still life conveying the sense of pattern, such as cup, gear, folding fan and tableware etc. Such works easily reminds you of Laszlo Moholy Nagy’s picture of Baud Ryan’s glasses, tobacco pipe, fork and edge of disc, quite like the works of German photographers such as Hans Finsler, Florence Henry and Edward Hoyneges.
Most of Mr. Luo’s landscape works between 1920 and 1930 focus on natural scenery of regions south of the Yangtze River; he integrated Chinese traditional aesthetic and visual language of western modernism like many other photographers at that time, when they could only learn the latest photographic trend from foreign books and magazines, which contained abundant information that helped them find their personal preference and gradually form their own style. Luo’s landscape works were different from those of Jin Shisheng, one of his contemporary photographers. Luo focused more on trees in the whole scenery; they either served as a contrast, or as the principal part for the picture. He took picture of ships on water from the bank, adopting willow as the foreground, displaying the feeling for typical Chinese ancient landscape, with extremely abundant details already out of the hazy atmosphere belonging to pictorialism and composite picture, revealing the sign of formalistic photography. Besides, Luo also attempted to make production of different technologies on the same film, such as negative phase and emboss, trying to study the western technologies popular at that time.
Among his works, the most unforgettable was the collage, which was regarded as an important way of expression of western modernistic photography between 1920 and 1930. Many famous modernistic photographers had tried such technology, like Moholy Nag, but Luo adopted a kaleidoscopic way of collage. He used the front and back of a film to respectively print and enlarge four pictures, selected the key visual center in the pictures, cut them into eight equilateral triangles and arranged them in a one-to-one form. In this way he obtained a complete picture, and the final subject in the picture was a grotesque kaleidoscope. All representational subjects for shooting were broken down into unrecognizable fragments of light and shadow. Actually the graphic elements used in those collages are usually the mostly ignored objects in our life, such as leaf vein, iron fence and shadow under sunshine.
Luo was a typical amateur photographer in the profession of photography in early China; he worked in bank and pursued his hobby after work. Many features about earlier photographers in the period of the Republic of China could be found in him. They all drew western photographic technology and advanced idea and experience and made bold attempts. Their exploration and experiment facilitated the climax of China’s earlier photography. As Beaumont Newhall said, “There is another group of photographers whose focus on this kind of medium are far beyond just recording. They sincerely believe photography is a pure sort of art that deserves to be approved. With their own vigor and spirit of dedication, they explore the aesthetic potential of photography……..As amateurs, they are relieved of economic burdens, free of those professional photographers’ self-imposed restrictions; they conducted experiment in an unconstraint way, full of imagination, willing to break established rules……Their styles finally become universal principles.” (Photographic History: from 1893 to Now)