阎雷——YANN  LAYMA，1962年出生，法国布列东人，属于法国的少数民族，这个民族的共同特点是头发黄，性格固执，喜欢离家出走。阎雷无一例外的全部继承了这些传统。从14岁他就开始周游世界，16岁喜欢上了摄影，18岁成为了职业摄影师。1981年，他19岁的时候第一次到中国，之后他总共来过中国多少次，他自己也数不清。

    阎雷最爱吃的中国菜是“宫爆鸡丁”和“糖醋里脊”，属特无聊的两道菜。阎雷的汉语说得非常好，与他交流不会有什么语言上的障碍。每当有中国人夸他汉语说得好时，他总是很“谦虚”的说：“一般吧，比你好不了多少。”据说有一次他到一个中国餐馆吃饭，服务员见是一个外国人进来，便互相小声说：“来了一个老外，宰他一顿。”阎雷听见后，大声说：“你才是老外！”

这就是阎雷，其实到2007年他才45岁，自称属虎。

    在以中国为主要拍摄题材的外国摄影家中，阎雷也许可以称得上是最优秀的之一。虽然，国内的报刊很少有关于他的介绍，他的作品也很少在国内发表过。但这不能不说是一个误会。20年，阎雷几乎走遍了中国，他用他的徕卡相机真实地记录了从上世纪80年代到现在中国的巨大变化。看阎雷的照片就像在看一幅完整的关于中国20年变迁的风俗画。这种拍摄的力度和完整性在中国摄影家中也非常少见。

    2004年10月，阎雷的《巨龙108像——20年摄影中国》摄影展在法国巴黎卢森堡公园展出，108张1.8米×1.2米的巨幅照片延公园的栅栏墙排开，成为巴黎最耀眼的一道风景。据说能够在卢森堡公园展览的摄影家基本都是大师级的，这一点让阎雷非常自豪！开幕式当天，他的大型画册《中国》也在全世界6个国家首发（可惜单单没有中国），首印数量就达到75000册。同一年10月，阎雷还参加了在北京故宫举办的《紫禁城国际摄影大展》。  

    阎雷不是一个新闻摄影记者，也不自称是艺术家，他只拍他认为很美的“故事”。1990年，他拍摄的画册《歌海木寨》（一个关于中国侗族的故事）在世界上引起很大轰动，也使广西三江和贵州黎平一带成为外国游客和文化人类学者蜂拥而至的地方。1993年，他在云南元阳拍摄的图片专题《山的雕刻者》以及同名记录片更是取得巨大成功，连获几个重要的摄影奖和电影奖，让他跨入了国际级摄影名家的行列。

    当然，阎雷并不仅仅拍中国，他已经采访过80多个国家，一年中有三分之二的时间都在路上。他是一位真正的人文地理摄影师。

    20多年间，阎雷一直在追逐和拍摄他所说的“像梦一样的世界”，他说中国过去有很多像梦一样美好的地方，但现在这些“梦”越来越少了……

Yann Layma：A French Photographer in China

Narisong

During 1980s and 90s, if you saw a foreigner who hanging a Leica, riding a bike, wearing a gas mask looking around and often taking pictures, that probably is Yann Layma.

Yann Layma was born in Brittany in 1962 and inherited the common features of the minority, blonde hair, obstinacy in character and traveling around. He started traveling the world at the age of fourteen. He fell in love with photography in sixteen and became a professional photographer in eighteen. In 1981, he made his first trip to China when he was nineteen. After that he has been to China many times that even he can’t remember it.

The two Chinese dishes of “Kung Pao chicken” and “Fried sweet sour pork” are Yann Layma’s most favorite Chinese food. Meanwhile, he is good at spoken Chinese and communicates in Chinese without obstacles. But he is always so modesty when Chinese people praised his proficiency in Chinese. Once he went to a Chinese restaurant to have a dinner, the waiters whispered in Chinese how to cheat him on price. He heard their complot and told them loudly, “You are foreigner but not me.”     

This is Yann Layma, a photographer who claims born in the year of Tiger and forty-five years old in 2007.

Yann Layma is probably the best photographer for portraying Chinese themes with his camera, although very few media covered him or published his works. His footprint almost covered every corner in China and recorded the dramatic changes in China with his Leica during last twenty years. His photos look like a sequence of painting that documented the great changes. Comparing to Chinese photographers, this is a special way to document China’s changes within two decades.

The exhibition of “Dragon 108—Two Decades in China” was held at Palais et Jardin du Luxembourg in 2004. 180 photos with the size of 1800mm x 1200mm placed along the fence of Palais et Jardin du Luxembourg, which became the most beautiful scene in Paris. It has been said that the photographer deserved the qualification to have an exhibition at Palais et Jardin du Luxembourg must entitled a master photographer. Yann Layma is very proud to be one of them. His large-size publication “China” published in six countries but China. The first edition was printed for about 75,000 copies. He also took part in “Forbidden City International Photography Exhibition”, which was held in Beijing in October 2004.

He is not a photojournalist or an artist. He just photographs “wonderful stories” that he thought. His publication of “songs in a wooden village” (a story about Dong minority in China) has risen an attention from the world in 1988. By the introduction through his projects, San Jiang (Guangxi) and Li Ping (Guizhou) have became two hot spots for tourists and anthropologists. His other publications of “Sculptor of Mountains” and the same name of documentary had got great success in1992. Awards both in photography and video documentary made him one of the most famous photographers in the world.

He, of course, not only takes pictures in China but also in more than eighty countries. He has spent more than sixty percent of his time on the road. He is truly a great and real anthropogeographic photographer.

Yann Layma is chasing and photographing a “dream-like world” in his mind during last two decades. He said that China has many dream-like places in the past but now they are fading out……