The year-after-year loss of photography cafe art is his only insistence

Located on the edge of the bustling business district of Ximenting, Taipei, this shop named 198 does not look like a cafe from the outside, but looks more like a photography workshop from the inside. It is more like a photography workshop. It is difficult to figure out what the store is. Maybe if the shop owner is free and easy, you can come for a cup of coffee. You are also welcome to come in to develop negatives and buy cameras to talk about photography.

"this store has lost 200000 yuan every year since it opened in 2012. I had this plan for a few years, not to make money, but to pay tuition fees in order to learn experience. do you think I'm sick?" Ke Mingyi, the boss, is very frank and points out that others always question him. For him, money is not the key point. In fact, experience is more valuable than money. When he was 30, Ke Mingyi quit his stable job as a fashion designer with the determination to burn his bridges. He devoted himself to photography that he had loved since childhood, and even set exaggerated goals for himself to finish shooting 50 rolls of film every week for practice.

Most of the cameras in the store were early negative cameras. Ke Mingyi casually ordered an all-black camera. "this one is called KONICA C35, which was made in 1970, and this brand is no longer available on the market. At that time, Japanese camera manufacturers

After doing a questionnaire survey, they want to know the new camera features that consumers want most, and 99% of the people choose autofocus. The reason is related to Japan's defeat in the 1930s. Japan rebuilt its society after its defeat, and Japan prospered in the 1970s. Those who survived at that time were rich, but they were also old. When traveling abroad, they found that the camera could not shoot well because of blindness, so autofocus became the most needed function. It is the first autofocus camera in the world. "

Talking eloquently about the story of the camera in the store, Ke Ming-Kai points out that the biggest difference between the negative camera and the current digital camera is that "in the negative camera, you can't see the image immediately, but Zhang Zhang remembers what was taken." What puzzles him most is that although people like to take pictures very much, they do not like to develop them, which is a great pity, so they have created the space 198, using the second floor as a showroom, so that photographers can develop and appreciate his works. Photography is an art. Ke Mingxiu, who does not know when he will close down for the sake of artistic faith, there are always people in the world who insist on their dreams without hesitation.

In order to like photography since childhood, Ke quit his original job and founded 198, hoping that more photographers can develop their works and share them. Photo by Peng Renyi

The 198 space is filled with all kinds of photography-related objects. Photo by Peng Renyi

Ke's love of photography even took him a year to create this unique elephant machine.

198 is located at 198 Xining South Road, Wanhua District, Taipei. Photo by Peng Renyi