Growing up in the busy Chao Yang district in Beijing, I saw how the city transformed throughout my childhood, and quickly became accustomed to fast paced city life. But for all I time I spent living there, I’m now aware that I didn’t really know what China was like as a country. It wasn’t until after I left that I fully understood my cultural roots.

 

At the age of 15, I moved to America to attend high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. In addition to the culture shock, this was a drastic change in my life because I had to adapt to both the school’s high academic rigor and to living far away from family for the first time.

 

One common thread across the continents has been photography. Ever since I was small, my father’s always carried a camera with him. Over the past three years, I’ve adopted this passion and began taking photographs myself. We would often go to Central Park together to shoot, and I remember always finding exciting subjects, whether people, animals, or just the trees and water. 

 

During the summer of 2017, I interned at the NYTimes Photography Department, where I shadowed professional photographers during news shoots out in the field. The following summer I interned at Brigitte Lacombe's studio, where I primarily worked on post production work, including photoshop, printing, and digitally organizing files. 

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Through these two experiences, I learned how photography was used in both journalism and art, which has shaped my basic philosophy of photography. With each photograph, I aim to create something both beautiful and practical. Photography is a way for me to express myself, while at the same time preserving the past, capturing a moment in time that will never be re-lived, but can be remembered forever.