China: Then and Now
1976 was a watershed year in the history of modern China. The tumultuous political upheaval of the Chinese revolution under Mao Zedong was climaxing with a dramatic series of events, most notably the death of Mao himself. With his demise, the turbulent decade-long Cultural Revolution came to a grinding halt. It was the end of slogans about learning from model revolutionary communes and ballets, digging tunnels deep, self-reliance of the masses, Mao buttons, Red Books and Red Guards. By the end of the 1970s, China was beginning to open up to the West and striving to achieve "four modernizations" under the tutelage of Deng Xiaoping. An economic upheaval had been unleashed that has lasted through three decades and shows no signs of subsiding. Images from China have been a specialty since my first trip there in 1976.--Dennis Cox
As an award-winning travel and location photographer, Dennis Cox has traveled extensively and photographed on all seven continents, but China is his specialty. Dennis was a Detroit social worker and amateur photographer in 1976 when he made his first trip to China as part of a delegation from the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association. Working professionally as a photographer since 1978, he organized one of the first photography tour groups there in 1981 and returned numerous times after that. Dennis met his wife Jialin in the 1980s during a China photo expedition.
