On Photography...
I fell in love with Photography about five years ago. To me, it was not only about capturing unique moments. No, it was a new way of thinking, a new way of approaching the world.
Recently, photography has been a tool for me to understand the urban environment. My recent photoshoots at the Durham Fair and the Fourth of July celebration in Boston explore the mood shift within certain landscapes in a city at temporary architecture sites. I found a sense of energy, a sense of liberation within these venues, where people desert their everyday duties and celebrate for a brief moment. In another way, it almost felt like the city, the inorganic and organic parts of it, was drunk.
My other works of photography explore themes such as nature, remembrance, and temporary moments. I'm also a die-hard street photography fan, having traveled to Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, Boston, and Shanghai to document the city.
Regarding camera use. I love using a fixed lens with a wide aperture. Specifically, I love the 50mm focal length, as it quickly captures what my eye sees in a moment.
Below you can find a very small snippet of my work.
2024-2025
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Camera: Fuji XT4 + 33mm f/1.4 Durham Fair and Fourth of July Celebration Both of these events were temporary events. For me, these festivals and carnivals are a sign of how we destress from busy urban environments. During a certain time of the year, the original local landscape is transformed into something else. For me, this is not unlike migration patterns of animals in the wild. People seeking refuge from their busy, day-to-day life.
Flowers to Nanjing Massacre
2024
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Installation Work If you go to Nanjing on December 13th, you can hear sirens around the city from 10:01 to 10:02, a mourning of the massacre from eighty years before. In December 1937, following the KMT army’s retreat, the Japanese military invaded Nanjing and systematically molested, tortured, and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. I have heard about notorious tales of the Nanjing Massacre as a child but never understood its significance until recently. As I wanted to research more about the details of the massacre to accurately and respectfully memorialize the victims, I started reading The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. I finished the book in one sitting, feeling disgust and uncontrollable rage but also drawn in by an urge to witness this part of history. The atrocity of the crimes committed shocked me greatly. I do not wish to go into the details as simply imagining them horrifies me. It is not an understatement that the city was turned into a living hell. With a heavy mind, I hoped this memorial would serve as a requiem to the countless victims of the massacre. It encompasses the morphology of a bouquet with flowers put into a bottle filled with cotton balls, where normally water is placed to keep the flowers alive. In the same way, the pale and soft cotton fibers that nest in the stems of the flowers represent the ashes of the victims and the massacre itself; the vibrant flowers of red, blue, and yellow (stemming inspiration from neoplasticism) represent themes of remembrance, peace, and hope.
Plant Closeups
2022-2025
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Camera: Fuji XT4 + 33mm f/1.4 Various Locations There's something charming about plants for me. Discovering how plant's leaves glow against the light, the random ordering of branches. How pedals of lotus drip in the rain.
“Spark"
NEW YEAR'S EVE, 2024
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Camera: Fuji XT4 + 33mm f/1.4 Location: Shanghai, China A little flashback towards the end of last year. Sitting on the roof of my house, I watched the cold night and fireworks light up the sky of Shanghai. This brought me back to when I was a kid, when the sky too was lit by colorful fireworks, and my grandparents' voices echoed across the dining table.