China’s Poverty Line (3 photos)
All photos © Stefen Chow.
In this body of work Stefen Chow investigates the definition of China’s poverty line. Chow photographed food items that could be purchased for RMB 3.28 (49 cents), which is the daily income of those earning China’s official poverty-level wage of RMB 1,196 per year. Chow says, “This is not an emotional analysis of what it means to be poor. It is an examination of the choices one would face being poor in China.”
Stefen Chow is an editorial and commercial photographer based between Beijing and Singapore who has previously summitted and photographed Mount Everest. To see more of his work click here.
Tags: China, Stefen Chow
January 20th, 2011 at 12:32 pm EEDT
What is that? It is a picture, it is food, or it is that the food is wrapping in News Paper due to the absence of napkings?
January 20th, 2011 at 1:21 pm EEDT
Is ridiculous… the photographer says is not emotional.. but it cannot help to stir emotions! It is outrageous!! How can people only afford to get One Item! really being poor in China looks very sad!
January 20th, 2011 at 5:25 pm EEDT
Very, very emotional pictures while you realised what are you looking at. Very sad.
January 27th, 2011 at 12:40 pm EEDT
nice idea, stefen. i like the incongruent advertisements in the underlying newspapers too, they speak to the materialism in china (and everywhere else for that matter!) that lies in stark contrast to the struggles by many there simply to survive.
July 1st, 2011 at 2:06 pm EEDT
Need to do one of these for the U.S…