Contact sheet:

Yellow selection:

For the Yellow selection I simply filtered the photos by quality, regardless of whether this fit my vision. These are those that appear to stand out as only well-captured, not “bad.”

Green Selection:

The photographic images should emit a sense of stagnation, where nature and everyday life blend effortlessly together. It is about finding beauty in the simplicity of the moment, for example, a duck gliding across the water without a struggle, which is effortless yet with purpose. Whether it be the rippling of the water around the duck or the reflection of the light on its surface, these images capture delicate interplays between movement and stillness, tradition and change. Inthese choices, I try to convey an interaction with nature at a deeper level-with those tranquil, hushed moments of life in its simplestdimensions.

Red selection:

Image 1: Man Sitting on Stairs, Watching Phone

This photo is a silent, solitary moment with urban hurry. A man sits crookedly on a flight of stairs, absorbed in his phone while a shadow stretches across the ground, enhancing the feeling of isolation amidstthe hustle and bustle of street life. A scene so telling of tradition meeting modernity-a theme very pertinent to my vision for the project. The stairway itself seems to represent the very traditional, agedarchitecture, contrasting with this modern activity that he is engaging in with his phone. It symbolizes the interplay of past and present within the Hutongs.

Indeed, the fishing is shown here in terms of my photographic techniques: I waited when the shadow would fall correctly for the man,align with the stairs to create an evocative contrast of light and dark, and this gets the viewer’s attention to the stillness of the individual against the active urban environment. The background focus isunsubtle and quite significant here. Aged stairs and architecture formthe background in which the focal point develops: the man and,importantly, his shadow. The interaction between this figure and his environment gives way to a broad theme of personal space versus overwhelming presence of the city.

Last but not least, the following picture illustrates working the scene: I framed the shot to let the shadow become the protagonist, telling its story. There, the man is a modern figure who interacts with thishistorical space, similar to the continuity of time within the Hutongs.

Image 2: Crowded Street with People Walking

This photo captures the high-energy pulse of life in the Hutong: a crowded street, with people passing by each other, their bodies blurred by motion. The image evokes movement and change, but within that chaos, there‘s a stillness. It speaks to the ongoing process of adaptation in a space that‘s old and new. The jostling crowd could be takenmetaphorically to represent the pressures of modernity–people makingtheir way through lives as the infrastructure around them decays slowly. This photo fits well with the vision of capturing “layers of time” in the Hutongs, where every pedestrian‘s rushed step and his or her story get lost in the sea of faces rushing through time.

Here, the fishing technique is applied in waiting for the exact moment when a large group of people converges. The photo was taken at a time when the movement of the people created this almost symbiotic flowthat highlighted the temporality of individual lives in a place of constant change. Now, here, the focus is on background: the people in the foreground move, while the background, with the architectural elements of the Hutong streets, suggests a contrast between slow-moving enduring physical space and rapid human activity. Working the scene involved placing myself in the right position to allow both moving pedestrians and still architecture to coexist, illustrating the tension between people and place. The sense of a layered environment—human figures woven with their surroundings—visually communicates the coexistence of past and present in the Hutong life.

These two pictures represent my vision for “Hutong Life: Layers of Time and Space“ through the display of everyday life‘s fluidity within a historical setting. Each image balances moments of stillness and movement, traditional and modern elements, highlighting how each individual moment fits into the greater picture of a neighborhood in flux. Utilizing the techniques of fishing, focusing on the background, and working the scene, I expose these layers to invite the viewer to reflect upon the stories lying within the urban environment.