It doesn’t matter whether they last a few seconds or several minutes, the encounters I experience share a common theme: Strangers will open up to me as if to say “I don’t have a clue who you are but I trust you”. And that’s invariably a two-way street: I have to give up my own secrets in order to receive theirs. – Zun Lee

For project brief 1, we were required to present a photographer that we like. The artist that I chose for the presentation was Zun Lee. Born to a Korean mother and an African American father, Lee grew up in Germany, lived in the US and now based in Canada. He is an award-winning and self-taught photographer who picked up a camera in 2009. For the last 5 years, Lee has been pursuing projects involving black fathers and families from different walks of life and in different US cities and his most well-known project is Father Figure, a photo series that Lee photographed black. He also photograph some street scenes and portraits and I will be going to focus on his street portraits as an inspiration for project brief 2.

Lee said that photographing people on the street, no matter how “interesting” or “beautiful” the subject is, he would like the viewers be able to understand what kinds of thoughts or emotions were involved when he pressed the shutter. Lee is like a storyteller. He uses his photograph to tell the viewer the story behind the image.

I like the style how Lee focuses on the subject’s eyes and shows the details on their face to create a close up shot. He also uses of a very shallow depth of field which makes the background blurry and forces us to “stare” back at the subject which he was focusing.

Lee also photographs full-body shot for his street portraits. He used different composition and angle to combine well with the subject itself and the background.

I really love the way how Lee captures the moment down on the street, particularly those black&white close up shots which express the combination of their appearance, their energy and their story. I will be using the concept of black&white street portrait for my project brief 2. I will focus on the subject’s eyes and use a shallow depth of field to ensure the viewers only focus on the subject. I think it is going to be a fun challenge.