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I have been working photographing women of SF Chinatown since the pandemic.
Dream Project –
I’ve started photographing women from San Francisco Chinatown since December of last year, my initial thought was this project is my contribution to my local community which was one of the hardest hit community for small businesses during the pandemic in San Francisco Bay area, and crimes were rising in our chinatown neighborhood. Even with having the danger of being open, during the small window of operating hours of these business would open, especially when women they were so welcoming, and if I’ve asked to photographed inside their stores as a backdrop for my engagement or wedding portrait clients, they were generously agreed and feed us free food as well. And I’ve noticed there are many hard working women working at these business for long hours behind the scene, and I feel if I can use my talent, resources & skills to put these women in a more glamours & fashion style light, perhaps will bring them happiness, confidence & photos which they can treasure for the rest of their lives.
What I’ve Achieved on –
Having an accent was one of the biggest short coming in high school, college & even professional work. But I am bilingual for a reason to tell the stories of these women, understand them, and give them a voice, to share their product of their hard works and life stories to the world thru the medium of photography & video.
If you don’t mind me sharing something incredibly personal.
I was thinking oh yeah, so I’ve donated a huge chunk of time to photograph them, all on my own dime and sacrifices for this project, as a mommy but having to bring my kids on these photoshoot sets at times and taking them to SF Chinatown to meet these women, my kids can finally practice the language we’ve spoken at home, and they felt great about using them outside of our own home.
What I am grateful for:
Thank you Sony for sponsoring this project, the BTS video is now on Sony Alpha Universe, the reels on Sony Alpha Instagram account has made huge impact for people both in/outside of the SF Chinatown community to get to know how charming & wonderful of these hard working these woman of SF Chinatown.
What I’ll need:
To take this project to the next level, gathering additional funding so that I can complete photograhing the series and publish a book is really what I am working on at the moment. if I may pick the brains of fellow creators who has published your work, I would love to publish a coffee table style picture book about this project. So that I can have a full page devoting to each heroines to write & showcase their photographs on print and in hopefully publish in other languages as well. Also to work with an excellent PR/Media team to expand this project in an international level.
