200cm Issue 1: Fresh from the Pleiades, Ruben Lundgren

Do green people exist? A quick search brings up the legend of the green children of Woolpit. This tale recounts the discovery of a brother and sister who appeared largely normal except for the green hue of their skin. They spoke an unknown language and only ate raw beans. According to the girl, they came from a land where the sun never shone, and everything was green.

But let’s be honest, the subjects featured in this zine most likely didn’t come from such a fantastical place, nor from the Pleiades. It’s more probable that photographers manipulated their negatives in the darkroom to enhance their subjects. They would apply magenta ink to certain areas of the photograph (especially the face) to reduce grain in black-and-white prints, functioning as a subtle filter.

Interestingly, this manipulation reflects how the perception of reality in photographs has changed over time. In the early days of photography, adjustments like these were often made to improve the aesthetic qualities of photographs. Today such alterations have become commonplace. The green hue, once an oddity in a world of black-and-white, now serves as a reminder of how the desire for idealised images shapes the way we view both history and the present.

200cm is a biannual zine celebrating Chinese vernacular photography. The original photographs were selected from the collection of the Archive of Modern Conflict in London.