Feng Liu Chicago | Feng Liu Street Photography

Why I Photograph

Actually, I don't know exactly what photography is.

I have never thought of photography as simply pressing a shutter or creating a beautiful image. For me, it begins much earlier—when I am walking down the street, sitting in a café, riding a train, or simply passing through an unfamiliar place. Sometimes I see a person whose expression stays with me. Sometimes it is a small gesture between two strangers, a moment of loneliness, a sudden beam of light, or an ordinary scene that somehow feels extraordinary. There are moments when I see something and immediately feel that I need to photograph it. I cannot always explain why. I simply cannot resist.

Perhaps photography, for me, is a way of responding to that feeling.

The world is constantly moving. People meet, separate, grow older, fall in love, become tired, laugh, struggle, and continue with their lives. Most of these moments disappear as quickly as they happen. When I photograph them, I am not trying to stop time completely. Instead, I am trying to acknowledge a moment—to say, in my own quiet way, I saw this. I felt something here. This moment mattered to me.

That is why I am drawn to photographing people and everyday life. I am interested in the stories that exist behind what we see. A photograph may show only a few seconds, but behind those seconds is an entire life that I may never know. A stranger waiting alone at a bus stop has a destination. Someone walking quickly through a crowded street has somewhere to go. Two people sharing a quiet conversation may have a history that began years ago. I may never learn their stories, but photography allows me to wonder about them and to connect, even briefly, with the humanity of another person.

I also photograph because I want to express feelings that I cannot always put into words. Sometimes an image can communicate loneliness, warmth, tension, tenderness, or hope more honestly than language can. I do not always photograph because I have an answer. Sometimes I photograph because I have a question, an emotion, or simply a feeling that I want to understand.

Over time, I have realized that photography has changed the way I see the world. It has made me slower and more attentive. I notice the light at the end of a street, the way someone's hands move while they speak, the distance between two people, or the brief expression that appears on a stranger's face before it disappears. Things that might once have seemed ordinary have become meaningful to me.

Maybe this is what photography means to me—not a definition, but a way of seeing.

I don't know what photography will become for me in the future. My interests may change. My way of photographing may change. The places and people I encounter will certainly change. But I know that I will continue to look. As long as I am walking through the world and encountering people, there will be scenes and stories that make me want to reach for my camera.

For me, life and photography are not separate things. Photography follows life because it comes from life. As life continues, photography will continue too—not because I have to photograph everything, but because I will always want to pause when something moves me and say, for just a moment, this is something I want to remember.