FACES

When I was young I was fascinated with faces. I spent hours and hours drawing different faces from my own head. Yup, I was quite an imaginative kid. Every time I drew a different character, it somehow ends up looking somewhat like me. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. A lot of artists end up unintentionally painting themselves. It's definitely not vanity, it's simply inherent. Faces have been the primary focus of my early works so naturally, in photography, faces became my favorite subjects. I'm so lucky to be surrounded by lovely people with different features that exude different kinds of beauty. I particularly love taking candid pictures of people in their natural environment (a la Brigitte Lacombe). It's incredibly difficult to capture people's genuine expressions that somehow contribute to their own peculiarity, like Julia Robert's laugh, Drew Barrymore's smirk, or Dakota Fanning's stare. Reproducing the essence of a person is timeless photography, which I believe Brigitte Lacombe masters effortlessly. One day I want to be just like her - the master of her own craft.