I photograph feelings before I photograph places.
My work lives in the space between longing and connection — the moment before two people touch, the street that holds the memory of someone who is no longer there, the light that outlasts everything except the feeling it once illuminated.
I shoot on film because film remembers the way people do — imperfectly, emotionally, with grain and light that digital cannot replicate. There is a cinematic truth in analog photography that aligns with what I am always chasing: the feeling that a moment has always existed, and always will.
As a Korean-American raised in the United States, I have spent my life navigating the space between cultures, between belonging and searching. This sensibility shapes every image I make. Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo — these are Places where I see myself reflected in streets I was not born into but somehow recognize. Las Vegas, where I chose to plant myself, is a city of transience and light — a place where everyone is passing through, and connection becomes more urgent because of it.
For twelve years I have danced tango — an art form built entirely on longing, melancholy and the search for connection between two people who are strangers until the music begins. Tango changed what I photograph. Tango changed what I see. I used to chase cities and light. Now I chase the moment just before connection — the held breath, the almost, the space between two people who were always going to find each other. My camera has become an extension of the embrace.
The story I tell across every image is the same one: hope and the meaning of connection. I want the person standing in front of my work to feel the longing to be closer to someone. To remember what it felt like to be held. To believe that somewhere, across a city they may never visit, someone is looking for them too.
That is what I am always photographing.
That is what film remembers.
That is what never leaves.
Thank you!