If the mention of China brings to mind the colour red, clichéd dragon motifs, glitzy cities, bright lights and dizzying skyscrapers, then Christopher Taylor’s LA VOIE DU MILIEU: REFLETS DE LA CHINE (1988-2019) (Éditions Noires Terres, €45) is the perfect book to change that perspective. Black and white, austere still-lifes reveal karstic landscapes and the harsh life of rural citizens in China. Since Taylor mostly shoots in available light, the aesthetics of his frames are perfected by the play of light and shade.

The photographs unfold a present that is deeply embedded in an ancient past and transform the trivial into the conspicuous, the infinitesimal into the colossal, the amusing into the solemn. These are not defining ‘moments’ à la Cartier-Bresson; rather, they are a celebration of the everydayness of ordinary lives.