PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO
2019 2022
VOL―01
I am currently a full-time architecture student and most of the time a wanderer.
Photography has always been for me a pause button to capture passing moments. Time don’t have mercy, they won’t wait for us nor stop going forward. Photography isn’t always about perfection, or composition nor symmetry. It’s just simply the moment, the people, the emotions, and most importantly, the stories. What I search from those pixels is to show the world what I can’t formulate into words, to let you stare striaght into my soul through the lens of a camera.
I can’t call myself a professional photographer, just a-still-learning-everyday amateur who can’t stop stocking up my storage with pixels and film strips. Filmphotography has always been something fragile for me, each frame holds a slice of time that you can’t touch nor change.
Every photo holds a story, and now I’m going to tell you mine. Relationships we were never able to be holding onto, or people with whom we crossed path, like the ships in the night, once in life and never again. My whole life, I’ve been clinging onto moments like that, moments that I can only see once, so I try my best to capture them and store it in the little Pandora box in my mind. But now it’s time to open that box, and learn to let go of these little things. Accepting that things can’t always stay the same. People change and there’s nothing I can do but keeping the image of who they were at one moment.
Visiting Musée Cinéma et Miniature located in Lyon, I was mesmerized by the detailed minituristic scenes crafted by Dan Ohlmann. Architecture resolves around people and their interaction with space, and through his works, there is this time-space interaction where humans don’t exist but their traces visible, their breath lingering on every smudges of the wall.
The space has the capacity to tell stories, sometimes inexplicable using words. Tainted glasses, half-used paint tubes, easels set up, .. .
In architectural perspective drawing, there is the vanishing point, “point de fuite” in French, in a way it makes a goood metaphor for our existence, where life is one focal point that expands into infinity.
Lights, odor, sounds, memories, ...
Spsce is formed by the perception and the interpretation of each individual. either by use or by the memory it imprinted on our brain.
That’s what makes it an ambiguous territory that no one can define.
« We use all five senses to obtain information. Using the senses to collect information. We call it experiencing. Over time, the things we experience turn to “memory” inside the brain. »
During my stay in this magic land, I visited around 20 buildings and 2 architects’ home. It was during summer time so most of the visited buildings are void of people, as most of them are schools and universities.
What intrigued me is how the light forms the life in those empty buildings. Without all the crowds, the movements and the breathing, all those objects have a life of their own. That’s when we see their qualities unfold in calmness, crawling out of their shell which are usually hidden by our predatory presence aiming for the spotlight.
Light changes our perception of space.
It draws our attention to one objet in order to highlight its presence, by robbing the spotlight from other existences, turning them into “backup dancers”.
We focus solely on what the light wants us to see.
«Ordinary scenes, such as familiar places in the house, and the surroundings which we usually don’t pay attention to, are no longer familiar sights when presented in photographs. I understand that the quality of everyday life is gone just like an illusion there.
I believe that photography is a means to reveal what we do not usually recognize.»
For me, photography is capturing a milisecond of time that can never be recreated. In that one milisecond, the subject exists, an image of its own.
Seize the moment.
Don’t worry, it won’t come out as bad as you always overthink it. Click.
During 2nd year in architecture school, I met a cinematographer supporting my studio, who emphasized the importance of “cadrage”, which means frame in French. He showed me various ways to focus on what I want to express: scaling, frame in frame, angles, perspective, etc.
I did mostly filmphotography for 4 years before starting digital photography. Personally, it was a good way to understand compositions et subject positioning. With 35mm film, you only have one chance to capture the moment. I never edit my film photos, they exist as how they are taken. There’s something precious about those 36 frames rolls, limiting the chance I have and pressuring me to contemplate the choices I made.
People always asked me, “Why don’t you do digital? It’s easier to manipulate and you don’t have to wait until the end of a roll to see the results”. It’s true. With digital, I can edit thousands of photos in one go, deleting the ones I don’t need, pinching in some exposure or saturation, straighten it up. I would normally be agonising over some tilted pixels, redoing them over and over again. But the satisfaction of being able to do that in one go on film brings me joy.
It’s magical, as sometimes I look into the viewfinder, a “frame”, just to find an another one staring back at me, a not-soconcidental one.
VENETUS (color) adj. [ˈwɛ.nɛ.ṱus]
1. having the color of the deep blue sea, a marine or oceanic color .
2. blue, sea-blue.
Knowing that my photos in some way can bring a soothing and healing effects to my close ones sparkle my joy for every click of my camera. Coming from small things, like seeing them set my photos as their phone lock screen, or them saying that my photos make them feel peaceful. Each frame contains a meaning to me.
My decision to leave my hometwon and start my life in a totally foreign country may be one of the best decision that I regret making. Living alone may have given me freedom and maturity, but it came at the expense of missing out on moments with my family and friends, and experiencing fleeting nostalgia whenever I come across something that reminds me of my hometown. It was returning to my grandma’s house only to discover that the tree where my sister and I used to play beneath got cut down. In just three years, things have changed significantly and it will never be the same. It was my silence whenever my friends told an insede joke that I don’t understand. Never in my life I would think that I miss homecooked meals that much. Those are the little things that many people may not be taking in consideration, but for me, those are the things that keep me going, making efforts everyday just to savor those short holidays at home.
I guess that’s life, I’m afraid
Old or new, new or old, that isn’t really important
What’s important is, that we still breathe and live in the same place
So let’s move on»
Moving on, BTS
«Everyone’s afraid of changes
Staying, moving on, staying, moving on
We are repeating the same things again and again
There’s one thing I love about black and white photography is that the contrast allows us to see in shapes. “Light” is highlighted, and sometimes the “dark” can take the spotlight too. They compliment each other, each nuance plays their roles accordingly. I experimented with a shoot of street photograhy using black and white film, and even though I haven’t quite mastered it yet, the process was quite interesting. The monochrome allows me to see things that I don’t normally pay attention to, submerged in the noisy colours.
The contrast in monochromatic photography brings out the composition, create shapes with shadows and light. We usually press on the importance of “light” in photography, but I think that a calculated amount of “shadow” would be necessary if we want to the subject to stand out. In black and white photography, a subject does not always have to a an object. It can be a bleed of shadow, mixed with differents nuances, either to emphasize the subject or an abstract composition. It won’t always be easy to detect, but that’s what makes film photography interesting. You can’t expect what you will discover after those shuttery clicks.
Unlike polychrome photography, in black and white, we don’t have much of a choice for vibrance, only nuances of gray. By reducing all the vibrant color, the subject stands out on itself.
The origin of modern photography comes from those black and white rolls, with “View from the window” by Nicéphore Niépce and “Boulevard du Temple” by Louis Daguerre. After almost 200 years, we now have a wide range of cameras and lens, all those editory applications to enhance the quality of those pixels. But somehow, playing with the forms in their most primitive form is intriguing to me.
My photos are lovely as long as they are about the buildings and space but not when they are about the people, and that I concentrate too much on the scenery, a friend recently told me. It’s only partially true, and I told her that it’s just the people I know, not people in general. Doing street photography, I capture people in their most natural environment, when they are the most comfortable and unaware of my “eyes” (or lens). When it comes to people I know, somehow the photos always come out deformed, maybe it’s because I “know” them, their secrets and their behaviors already exposed to me. Buildings and space don’t act for the camera, there is nothing to force their existence to look good on the camera. Us human, we are concious of how we appear, and tend to act in order to mask those ugly parts.
“I love things that don’t change but people change or disappear over time. That’s why there are no people or time in my works. “ - Choi Ung, Our Beloved Summer
A beautiful coincidence. Right time, right people.
This photo was taken on a bridge called Pont des Amours (Lovers’ Bridge) in Annecy. Two people admiring the scenery, under the street lamp.
My scenery.
A Sunday morning at a random park in Geneva. There was no particular reason for me to take this photo. A mister just happens to appear in the middle of those random big chess table. They just fit in together.
In the first picture, it was of a woman working in a museum who told me stories about the history of Geneva. In the other one, a couple who guided me briefly through the town because I was starving and didn’t know any restaurant to dine in. Their little introduction included the museum where the first woman worked at.
I consider those encounters as inevitable, as they happen to lead to an another and I’m just wandering through destiny.
Each day, we walk past at least hundreds of anonymous people. Only a fraction of those result in genuine exchanges and conversations.
Even if these moments are brief, they contribute to who we are as human.
Sitting back on the bench, watching people passing by might be my favorite thing to do. Theyr are never the same, not the hunch in their shoulder, nor the color of their umbrella, or therefor lack of. They wear different styles of clothing, the way they walk are different. It’s like watching a remix of a kid’s dressing up game.
A gust of wind.
AGUSTOFWIND.
Thank you for your interest.
My goal has always been being able to create photography that can move people and if you are here now, I somehow did it. I will continue on with my passion in the future to create more impressive captures and bring values into my works.