Photographs interrupted by drawing, painting, and digital interventions.
Honestly, this is something I could do forever if I were left alone long enough.
Colours Beyond Grey, Quanzhou
I had wanted to visit Quanzhou for more than ten years before finally arriving in the summer of 2020. I spent five days walking through the city, and somewhere along the way, it started to feel less like travel and more like falling briefly in love.
Quanzhou felt older, slower, and softer than many other Chinese cities I had photographed before. If the city were a person, I imagine her as a middle-aged woman carrying traces of time naturally. Sun marks on her skin, a relaxed way of moving, a local accent that never disappeared, and a kind of quiet confidence that no longer needs to prove itself.
Black-and-white photography felt like the right language for the city at first, but eventually it also started to feel too grey, too muted. So I began adding colour digitally, not to cover the photographs, but to interrupt them slightly, like small flashes of energy or light inside memory.
Beach Culture, Gulangyu Island, Xiamen
“Does China have a beach culture?” a Danish friend once asked me. I said yes — mostly selfies, mutual photo-taking between young women, and endless wedding shoots by the sea.
In 2020, after the COVID lockdown, my then fiancée, now my wife Leslie, wanted to visit Xiamen for a short holiday. I’ve been there before and never really liked the city, but followed along anyway, partly because I became curious about photographing what a Chinese beach culture might actually look like.
Gulangyu was crowded, noisy, and visually chaotic. The sand looked yellow, people filled every corner of the frame, and almost nobody was actually swimming. Later, I started removing people and distractions in Photoshop, adding a small layer of imagination to the images.
After two days, we found a quieter side of the island with almost no tourists. From our balcony, we could see the sea directly. I spent time swimming there, becoming an accidental figure inside many strangers’ vacation photographs floating quietly in the background.
You Are Just Blurry, Shenzhen
These photographs were made in Shenzhen in 2021, after I returned to the city again. Most of the images were intentionally blurred or digitally layered afterward.
When I first lived in Shenzhen, the city felt restless, emotional, and full of temporary connections. Everyone seemed to arrive from somewhere else, carrying pressure, loneliness, desire, and the possibility of suddenly disappearing again. Relationships often felt intense but short-lived, like crossing paths briefly before moving away in different directions.
Years later, my relationship with the city changed. I became less interested in clarity and more interested in ambiguity. Shenzhen’s women — walking through malls, CBD streets, urban villages, and late-night commercial areas — began to feel less like fixed individuals and more like shifting emotional fragments inside the city itself.
For me, the blur started to feel more truthful than sharpness.