Ye Hong Qi | The Miao

Photo © Ye Hong Qi | All Rights Reserved

The Miao is an ethnic group belonging to South China, and is recognized by the government of China as one of it 56 official ethnic groups. It is estimated that the Miao population is just over 9.5 million; larger than most minority groups in China. 

The Miao live mainly in southern China's mountains, in the provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan, Hubei, Hainan provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Prefecture. Some sub-groups of the Miao, most notably the Hmong people, have migrated out of China into Southeast Asia (Burma (Myanmar), northern Vietnam, Laos and Thailand).

I feature the work of Ye Hong Qi, a Shanghai-based photographer, who focused most of his photography on documenting the Miao minority in his native China. Describing himself as an "amateur" photographer, I met Qi at the well-known IG Photography Art Gallery in Shanghai to introduce him to its director. 

He graciously gifted me a copy of his book The Miao Family of China; a lovely monograph of his 70 images selected from more than 100,000. This project was started in 2014 and was completed four years later. All of Qi's images are made using ambient lighting, and no artificial lights were used. The images were made in 5 provinces, and in more than 90 Miao’s villages in China.