Looking at Peng Xiangjie’s circus pictures, you are projected into another time. For us in the West, these images seem to be of a time of almost a hundred years ago. At second glance, however, you notice that these scenes must have taken place during the last ten years. Peng Xiangjie belongs to that group of photographers who still have strong roots in humanistic photography (he was one of Hou Dengke’s last students) but have a very definite tendency to devote themselves totally to one and only one subject. He has not only traveled with the circus and spent several years of  his life with the artists but also researched their ancestry and past. This is the only explanation that can be given for these natural, light images with a classical quality.