林路（上海师范大学教授/摄影评论家）
展开段岳衡的黑白作品长卷，人们第一反应也许会惊呼：太美了！是的，美是自然生命之源，又是人类情感空间的对应。然而段岳衡的黑白景观之美，绝非是摄影界所奉行的简单的唯美。我们应当承认，“唯美”可以是一种境界，一种很高很高的境界，一种难以达到的境界。然而无论从哪一个角度理解摄影，摄影本质的命脉乃至最高级的形态恰恰不是“唯美”，而是“纪实”，这是从摄影一诞生就早已界定的。无数批评家就摄影史的发展早已为这一特征作出了为世人所公认的结论，并且已经成为常识——从罗兰·巴特到苏珊·桑塔格，这里无需一一细数。即便是安塞尔·亚当斯，他的作品也无法用“唯美”来衡量。当年以亚当斯等人为核心卓然独立的f/64小组绝不是什么唯美主义的摄影团体，而是一个追求摄影终极目标——客观纪实的团体。这些以“纯影派”或者“直接摄影”命名的创造者，试图通过照相机的物理和化学功能精确地展现自然尽可能多的细节魅力，从而传递他们对自然的敬畏之情。段岳衡的黑白景观，正是在这些大师足迹上的延伸，或者说是一次成功的超越。
也许，段岳衡的照片告诉我们如何从自然中汲取营养，使自己的心灵安静下来，从石头中、从流水中找到平衡的感觉。或者换一个角度，作品的哲学和禅宗的意味，就在于他擅长于将光线转换成人性的力量。他在画面中综合了水、土地和天空的相互影响，如此的空旷所展现的不仅仅是一个世界，而是一个已经逝去的世纪。其精致的成分，就像是中国的长轴绘画……所以我很难确信是否应该将他的作品放在传统风光摄影的领域，还是放在当代的观念实践之中。只是有一点是无可置疑的——摄影家是带着一种朝圣的心情，对大自然致以深深的敬意。
Philosophical Reflection on Duan Yueheng’s Landscape Photography
(Professor Photographic Critic Shanghai Normal University) Lin Lu
At first sight of Yueheng Duan’s black-and-white landscape photographs, one would burst out, “How beautiful!” Indeed, beauty is the source of life as well as a human response to nature. And yet beauty in Yueheng Duan’s black-and-white photography goes beyond the simple aestheticism adopted by photographers in general. While aestheticism sets the highest standard, which is almost impossible to achieve, the essence of photography examined from all possible angles, including its highest status, is not aestheticism, but making a historical document. This essence was destined when photography was first invented. Many critics studying photography, such as Roland Barthes (1915-1980) and Susan Sontag (1933-2004) and so on have made similar conclusions, which became common sense today. Even the work of the famous American photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984) can’t be judged simply by aestheticism. Moreover, the Group f/64 was organized at a time when Ansel Adams and others did not aim to achieve aestheticism, but to pursue the ultimate goal of photography—objective documentation. The creators of Group f/64, who practised Purist Photography or Straight Photography, attempted to manipulate the physical and chemical functions of the camera in order to accurately display more amazing details of the natural world, through which they paid their reverence to nature. It is along the same path where the Group f/64 artists had travelled that Yueheng Duan has extended and exceeded the masters with his own black-and-white landscape photography.
Perhaps Duan Yueheng’s photography also tells us how to absorb natural elements for our own emotional balance, for example the sense of tranquility that may be found in rocks and running water. In other words, the philosophical and Zen Buddhist elements signified by the images result from the artist’s proficient transformation of light into humanistic energy. His depiction of water, earth and sky in an interrelated atmosphere not only displays a single vast world, but also laments a by-gone time. The aesthetic style of his work brings to mind a scroll of Chinese brush painting. Therefore I hesitate to categorize his work in traditional landscape photography; perhaps it should be classified as contemporary concept art. Nevertheless, with either category, one thing is obvious: without a doubt, the photographer has paid a deep homage to the natural world like a reverent pilgrim.