Art Archive | My Site 1

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, I donated most of my crochet toys to patients in the hospital. They smiled, hugged them tightly, and for a moment, everything felt light. There was one kid who couldn’t play with the toys because of an allergy, and that made me realize that even small acts of kindness require thought. For this reason, I began selling some of my crochet pieces and used the money to buy food, milk, and supplies for charity instead.

Crocheting became both my solace and my social lifeline. It helped me breathe again.

Today, I don’t crochet as much anymore since I’m better at managing my anxiety, but when things get to be too much, when school or family or the future feels overwhelming, I still find myself holding my hook.

I learned to crochet at a rather tough time.

A couple of years ago, I went to see a psychologist and found out that I have severe anxiety disorders. I’m never able to stay calm, and when I freak out, I literally can't breathe. For some time, I had no idea what to do about it. There were times I hurt myself just to release the pressure. It worked for a short while, but the scars stayed, and my mom told me it wasn't the way.

Then one day in eighth or ninth grade, I was totally stressed about a final exam that would decide whether I could enroll in an advanced class. I couldn't stop picking at my skin from anxiety until my best friend, whom I'd known since sixth grade, handed me her crochet hook and a ball of yarn.

She said, "Here, do this instead."

So I did. And somehow, it worked. The soothing rhythm of looping yarn around the hook made everything inside me feel just a little bit quieter.

When I first started, I crocheted just for stress relief, to relax. I made a bunch of stuffed animals, too many really, and they filled my room. But after a while, I realized that keeping them felt like keeping pieces of my anxiety with me. I didn't want that, so I decided to turn those feelings into something more positive.

I started giving them away.

So, first of all, I’m REALLY a girly girl.

I love trying different layouts of makeup, spending hours picking my outfit, and also, love taking pictures when I finish. From all these hobbies, I take up a completely different one: helping other girls with those things.

My friends usually come to me to ask me to do their eyeliners, to pick the pants that would go with their new tops, and especially, to take pictures of them. I’m quite proud of myself for being a reliable person to take digital ones to those one-time pictures, such as films or polaroids. About some years ago, I used to stand in front of people’s lenses, becoming the model in their photos.

But now, I’m always the one holding the camera in my hands to take pictures of my beloved ones.

When I started to take photographs, I largely worked outdoors: trees, clouds, streets, perhaps one or two animals if they kept very still. I enjoyed how predictable it all was. Nothing was moving too fast, nothing was changing too much. It was secure.

And then one day I was asked to photograph a live performance, my first little commission of my whole life. Suddenly, there were people laughing, moving, talking, living. At first I had the feeling that everything was mad because it was all rushing past so fast and I could do nothing to stop it. But in all that movement and noise, I caught glimpses of emotion, touch, life.

That's when I realized that photography is not always perfect lighting or perfect composition, though those are useful. It's the feeling it holds that really matters

Since then, I've started photographing more people. Not just portraits, but moments—the small ones that pass us by.

Now, that’s what I’ve been chasing all along: honest fragments of stories.

“We keep this love in a photograph” - that’s my inspiration to learn how to take emotional photos, to capture the best moments of everyone around me. I used to use my phone, my old Canon digital camera (it’s even older than me), my polaroid camera but about half a year ago, I finally saved up enough to buy my first mirrorless camera. It was a Sony Nex 5 (I’m saving to upgrade it by the end of this year) with 50mm f1.8 and 18-105 f4 lens (it was all my lucky money received in Tet holiday, my birthday money and also, my part-time salary as a tutor for nearly 1.5 years). Since then, I spent every weekend travelling around to practice, watch every tutorial video possible.

Looks like I’ve developed quite a lot!!!

Also, I love to immerse myself in nature as well as some really random things. I don’t really have a style or something I focus on. As I've said, images represent emotions, so it can be literally anything I find beautiful or memorable!