Starting New Chapters

"We live in a small town in the agricultural plains of western Taiwan. My husband, Michael, and I moved here four months ago for a number of reasons; but most pivotally, I had made a relationship with the Chinese-speaking world that two years of previous living, working and traveling in mainland China did not suffice as enough. You too have a special place that awakened you in someway (I’d wage a bet). In the practice of photography, our ‘place’ is one of our most potent ingredients, right up there with the presence of light. Our place inspires and/or frazzles us to point a camera at it. I was inspired and frazzled by China via the undeviating attention and persistence it required of me. Admittedly and naively, I suspected that my China familiarity had trained me for whatever the island of Taiwan has to offer. But in truth, the assumption that I’m ever culturally equipped to photograph anywhere I land is sorely naive, and I try to check myself periodically. Photographing under this delusion is perhaps like fishing using a broad net with wide holes. You’ll definitely catch something impressive at some point, but there are the unfortunate dolphins, and all the smaller tasty ones that will slip back into the dark oblivion."

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