Several days ago, I called AP local office to seek a freelance photographic job. The photo editor asked me if I have my webpage so she can check my portfolio. I answered that I have only a frontpage. I am working on my website now. It was true. I had my frontpage for a while. It was the product of my practicing web design. You may still check it from here. I am using tripod.com as my web host because it provides a free web server space. However, there is no free lunch in this commercialized world. That is why you are seeing a disturbing ad banner on the top of my content. I remember a reader wrote a letter to Popular Photography asking why they seperate a whole article into different pages with ads on every page, why they don't keep article on certain pages and leave ads on other pages. The answer from the editor is because the ads pay for major publication cost, you can read such interesting articles. That's right. In this world, only money talks loudly.

In my webpage, I am trying to present myself from my interests to my profession. I start being interested in image at my junior high school age. I learned painting when I was 13. For two years learning painting, I was shifting my interest to electronics experiment and making model planes. Many years later, one day, I saw a old Leica camera in a sencond hand store in Shanghai for RMB2000. You should know at that time a whole set of bedroom furniture just costs about RMB1000. I could only look at it every weekend from the window. By coincident, I got a Leica IIIb for almost nothing from my working company. It was bought by an old engineer when he studied in Germany during WWII. The camera is just like the one I saw in the store window before. But it did not work and very dusty. I spent several days to take the camera apart, replace the shutter curtain, clean and lubricate the mechanism, then put them together. I loaded a film and took some shots. When the pictures came out, they were clear and vividly colorful. I found photography is a real technology based art. With digital technological applications to photography, photography and photographers are facing new challenges ranging from technique to aesthetics.

I will keep updating my webpage to publish my latest accomplishments and projects in progress, and my thoughts about image culture and technology. Some contents are not still under developing at the time when I publishing the first issue. Keep checking my website frequently, you will find something new and inspiring. Contact me for your opinion and feedback or everything you wish to share with me. Thank you for your reading.

Jamason Chen

2:30AM, July 7, 2003