Global Photographer Kidd Pirate Traveling Around the World and Decorating Life with Scenery on the Road

□ Written by Yang Yan Photo by the Interviewee

Global Photographer Kidd Pirate Traveling Around the World and Decorating Life with Scenery on the Road

□ Written by Yang Yan Photo by the Interviewee

Kidd Pirate , whose real name is Fu Dingyan, is a man with countless identities—global explorer, star photographer, member of Nikon Professional Services (NPS), photographer of Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (RPS)… Obsessed with Astronomical sky, navigation, pirate culture and outdoor extreme sports, he conquers the world in his unique way, traveling 179,928 km in 43 countries.

“Kidd Pirate ” in Chongqing

As an independent professional photographer, “Kidd Pirate”named himself after William Kidd, an eminent pirate in the Era of the Great Voyage since he has obsessed with navigation culture when he was a little boy, looking forward to the exploration and adventures at the mysterious sea.

Both his work and life is for “having fun.” More specifi cally, his “having fun” journey started in the winter of 2012, when he had an 81-day road trip with his friends. The trip covered 28,092 km and the whole North China via the Saline Lake in Qinghai, the Gobi Desert in Yumen, the dunes in the Taklamakan Desert,the snowfields in the Junggar Basin, the reed marshes in the Juyan Lake and the wasteland in the Great Xing’an Mountain. In 2013, he won the Special Award in the Ten Year JEEP Ultimate Photography Competition organized by Chinese National Geography, and was selected as the Astronomy Photographer of the International Astronomy Photography Competition organized by the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. In 2014, his new book 81 Days to Free Galaxy came out, and he performed a micro-fi lm called Dream under the stars, which was adapted from his own stories. The fi lm had its premiere in Huayi Brother Theaters and got 20 million hits on Youku.com in the second day.

In 2015, Kidd was still busy with “having fun”, embarking on underwater and aerial photography. He flied 46 times, 15,330 minutes and 179,928 km this year, traveling through 22 cities. In February, he visited Bolivia and the Easter Island, where he saw the most beautiful starry sky when strolling alone by the saline lake, and took the biggest risks ever to take 20,000 precious photos. In July, he went to South Africa to shoot the migration of sardines and he got the chance to swim in the big “Blue Ocean.” Then he started from Durban to go to Cape Down via East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Agulhas which is the southernmost tip of the African continent. During the thrilling journey, he had zero-distance contact with the great white sharks to shot pictures. Each and every of his experiences was breath-taking.

Danger and hardships of the journey

For Kidd, every journey means a novel experience as a result of the collision between plans and unexpected reality. He tries to measure the pace of time by his steps and prevent the loss of memory by his camera.

In fact, he was a network engineer behind the computer just like many office workers, fancying him running wildly on the vast land. Then he started to look for the salt of his life—photography, navigation, astronomy, diving, surfi ng, rock climbing, mountain climbing, parkour, traveling, horse riding, cross-country and archery—he has always been trying something “new”.

As a photographer, he also prefers to try new shooting methods. As what people always say, he was always imitated, but never been surpassed. Staring at the splendid pictures shot by him, many people can’t help wishing to pack and hit the road immediately, responding to his or her inner voices that “The world is so big, yet I owe it a visit”. However, few people know the hardships behind those fantastic pictures.

His unforgettable experiences are too numerous to count: “cleaning the traces of the car in the desert, streaking in the Ghost City, trapped in the snow days and nights, shoveling the snow in a temperature below -30℃… It was common to have altitude sickness, get lost and run out of money. ” He still remembered his experience in the Ghost City, Karamay, Xinjiang in 2012, when the temperature was -37℃. In order to shoot the time lapse materials of dawn, the hungry Kidd rushed all the way with heavy photography equipment over a dozen kilos. When he found the right angle and settled his camera, he suddenly felt dizzy with rapid heartbeats and it took him half an hour to recover.

He came across super typhoon “Haiyan” in Philippine in 2013. “That was a sad memory. At that time we were right at the center of the typhoon and many people died. We lived in a hotel at the seaside. With the help of an American friend, we drove a car and the coconut palms beside the road just kept on falling down. I was shooting against the wild wind all the way.”The thrilling past is still vivid in Kidd’s mind, and he recalled that “after the typhoon, the place was fi lled with destroyed log cabins, damaged fi shing boats and collapsed telegraph poles, as if I was in an American movie. Hiding in a school, we could see aluminum alloy plates fl ying in the sky. People on the road were knocked down by the heavy things and never rose to their feet.” He said the natural disasters he had been through were far beyond this. He had encountered the mountain torrent, earthquake, sand storm and snowstorm, many of which had agonizing sights.

Every experience makes a precious memory

Many people have no idea that Kidd Pirate has a wonderland full of fantasies. It is his home in Chongqing which is a mysterious and cool place just like a museum. The souvenirs of his every trip—specimens, helmets, fossils—are kept here. These collections from 43 countries all over the world have witnessed every his experience during his journey of world conquest and have been a unique way for him to remember his past.

“In the past, I felt the world was quite big with many places I wanted to visit, but now I’ve been to many places and the world seems to be smaller and smaller.” Surrounded by the souvenirs, he wakes up every day thinking of the hours he waited for a perfect shot, the mountains where he stood on, the breeze, the blue sea, the stone fi gures he kissed, the fl ying ravens, the deserts where he lay on… All kinds of feelings just come to his mind. “The great typhoon in Philippine let me learn that the border means nothing in front of the natural disasters and we suppose to embrace new lives and hopes instead of immersing ourselves in the sadness in the past. Shooting photos for the great white shark, I saw the marvelous aspect of nature. In a primitive country with language barrier, I found the local people still had interesting daily life just with music and food. Thinking of them, I always admired their simple lifestyle.”

Knowing exactly what he wants, Kidd works so hard to “have enough fun”, wasting not even a minute in his life. So far, he has made his “wild day dream” a much more beautiful reality.