Chasing Magritte - A man in white tossing a bowler hat into the air, a group of men in black jumping to grab the hat

World of One: Chasing Magritte

05/09/2018

Chasing Magritte 2018 Giclée Image size (HxW): 24″ x 47 5/8” | Paper Size (HxW): 30” x 53 5/8” | Edn 5 Chasing Magritte is about wanting to emulate your heroes, as well as my homage to the turn of the century Surrealist painter Rene Magritte. It’s probably no secret by now, but in case you didn’t know, that I’m a huge Magritte fan. Dali might be the poster boy for Surrealism, but there’s something about Magritte’s work that I’ve always been more drawn to. I don’t know if it’s his wit, or just because he’s more subtle. But there’s …

the Offering - a man in white seated at a park bench with an out stretched hand, a crowd of men in black walking by him refusing his hand.

World of One: the Offering

05/02/2018

the Offering 2018 Giclée Image size (HxW): 24” x 41 9/16” | Paper Size (HxW): 30” x 47 9/16” | Edn 5 The Offering is inspired and titled after a 2013 piece, by the Taiwanese American artist James Jean. Jean is one of the few Taiwanese American artists, visibly successful, working in the fine arts today. So he’s basically like my art hero, and his work just blows me away. I’ve often taken inspiration from his style of composition, use of color, and also the otherworldly themes present in his work. TheOffering is my homage to the man and his …

Beautiful Meditations

12/31/2017

Beautiful Meditations 2017 I’ve been trying to shoot a picture like this for years. In 2011, I tried to burn 1000 origami cranes in my parents’ backyard during a blizzard. Except they wouldn’t burn (they got too wet). Since then, my dreamed of making a picture containing these elements: fire, snow, and origami; have remained just that – a dream. Turns out I was missing a key ingredient – gasoline. Balancing Trauma and Catharsis This is my favorite kind of work to make, largely because I get to simultaneously create and destroy. I see this process as my way of …

Asian man in black standing on a stump in the middle of a pond, men in white reflected within the pond looking at him.

World of One: Narcissus II

10/24/2017

Narcissus II 2017 Giclée Image size (HxW): 24″ x 48 1/8” | Paper Size (HxW): 30″ x 54 1/8” | Edition of 5 I’ve just completed a beautiful new addition to my World of One series, welcome to the world Narcissus II!!! The picture in my Beautiful Failures post and Narcissus II were shot on the same day. In fact, Narcissus II is much closer to the shot that I had originally planned for the day, and was actually shot first!!! But it was while we were shooting this angle, that I realized the Beautiful Failures angle would be more …

guy in a dark suit standing on a stump in the middle of a big puddle.

Beautiful Failures

09/27/2017

This picture is a little painful for me to look at. It is just so close to being a fantastic new iteration in my WO1 series but it’s not. Instead I’m adding it to my pile of beautiful failures, images that almost succeed but stop just short of the finish line. I’ve been trying to do more WO1 images involving reflections (similar to what I did for Narcissus back in the day), and in particular, I’ve been trying to do a version of Narcissus that uses the reflections from puddles. So far however, I haven’t been lucky enough with things …

Cycle of Love

05/01/2017

Cycle of Love 2017 Just released! Cycle of Love!!! It’s been six years since I’ve done any work involving origami. This is in large part due to the fact that it took me a whole year to complete the last one, because it involved folding a thousand paper cranes in pursuit of making a wish (Senbazuru). But the thing is, although I always tell people the story of how I made my wish, I hardly ever discuss what I actually wished for. Traditionally a Senbazuru folder is suppose to make some sort of selfless wish, such as: wishing a couple …

LGBTQ+ Make Out At Trump Tower

02/13/2017

I went to the LGBTQ+ Make Out At Trump Tower this past Sunday to document the LGBTQ+ struggle. Having had numerous gay friends since college, I felt like it was my duty to go document this protest in particular. Even though it was much less popular than some of the previous protests I covered in the last few weeks. Plus, the image of a huge crowd of people making out at the same time while protesting Trump seemed like a sure win in my mind. It was a cold, slippery, and rainy afternoon which probably contributed to the low turnout …

Snow Days

02/13/2017

When I was a kid, blizzards usually meant snow days i.e. day off from school to go sledding with my friends. So I have many fond memories associated with snow, and blizzards from when I was little. That’s probably why I try to get at least one snow shoot in every year. But shooting in a blizzard can be unpredictable because the weather might suddenly change on you. Basically I need to drop everything and pull together a shoot at the last minute to make it happen. This year, I went out during the blizzard last Thursday to photograph New …

Street Photography Lately

02/01/2017

#WMNYC With all the recent protests that have happened in the last week, I felt the need to do my part in documenting this moment in history. The last time I felt this way, and probably the last time I really shot straight photography, was when President Obama was first inaugurated in 2009. I was still a university student then, and I haven’t really thought about shooting street photography much since. Mary Ellen Mark used to describe street photography to me as like “Playing an instrument, if you don’t practice it, you’ll lose it.” So I was a little nervous …

An Asian man in a dark suit looking back into the camera while walking down a street. A group of the Asian man in white, walking the other way in the reflection.

Why I Make the Art I Do, and the Origins of the W.O.1

01/27/2017

Reflection 2012 I’m part of a trend of young photographers such as: Brook Shaden, Erik Johansson and Casane, using photoshop to create surreal images. If I had to give myself a label, I’d call myself a “Neo-Photo Surrealist.” Because while I’m creating images in the tradition of the Surrealists photographers such as: Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Lee Miller and more recently Sandy Skoglund. I differ in my choice of tools, namely in my use of Photoshop. I strive to make work that strikes a delicate balance between beauty and heady. But I wasn’t always this way. To explain why, let …