Capturing Real Life

When I was young, I would often go with my family to one of the many traditional markets in Taipei. As a young girl, stepping into a traditional market was a raucous and chaotic ordeal—where the hawking of the vendors over the vast crowd and the sight of butchers slicing and dicing poultry and meat would often overwhelm my senses. As an adult, however, I soon realized that there was a sense of organized chaos behind the raucous and spontaneous movement of the crowd. The shoppers and the vendors were like actors on an energetic stage production, where shoppers would often jostle each other to buy from their favorite long-time vendors, and the vendors would reciprocate the shoppers’ loyalty by often throwing in a few extra pieces of meat or handfuls of produce on top of the purchase as a bonus. These unique interactions represent the genuine emotions from all walks of life. As an observer, I wanted to capture the unscripted human warmth from each movement and expression as a result of these raucous interactions. Although some say that life is a stage, it is these unscripted genuine moments that make life most interesting.