“You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” 

― Ansel Adams

 

Sometimes, I will come to a realization that many inspirations of mine are descended from my untamed 

childhood imagination. However, with the sanity as a grown-up, that whimsy drifts away, lustering my work only with its delayed rays like a star thousands lightyears away.

 

I want to trace back all these pieces.

 

Therefore, I decide to do a project that allows me to put down the conscious of a photographer, to be fully intuitive like a child. Without any understanding of this world, compartmentalization of genders, or acquaintance of the reality, I finally capture my whimsy in a tangible form. 

 

 

 

This series is called Seasons of Dreams. It is the personification of the four seasons sculpted by my subconscious. I have used weeks to find the right person that can fall closely into the vague impressions of my childhood. Hereafter, I render their image with paint and lightings. All I did after these two steps is waiting, waiting my models to reveal the exact same expression that I have imagined thousands of times in my childhood. 

 

When I click the shutter, my entire childhood reappear as if it is anesthetized and fastened down by the lens. I saw the ambiguity of my hometown as a urbanized Chinese city with ancient europeanized remnants. I saw the blurry characteristics from the bed stories my mom had read for me; I saw the memories of endless thunderous summer rains and the amazing snow from a warm winter morning… 

 

And here I am, with my lustrous and dazzling dreams. It is an adventure for both my subjects and myself.