Feng Liu Chicago | Feng Liu Street Photography

I Don’t Know What Photography Is

Actually, I don't know what photography is.

I have never been able to give it a clear definition. Is it about light? Composition? Timing? Memory? Storytelling? Perhaps it is all of these things, but for me, photography begins with something much simpler: I see something, and I feel the need to photograph it.

When I walk through a street, I am constantly being interrupted by moments.

A stranger's face. Someone standing alone beneath a streetlight. Two people passing each other without speaking. A child holding an adult's hand. An old man sitting quietly by a window. A fleeting expression that exists for only a second. Sometimes it is not even a person. It might be the way afternoon light falls across a wall, a shadow moving across the pavement, or an empty space that suddenly feels full of emotion.

I don't always know why these moments attract me.

I just cannot resist them.

Perhaps I photograph because I am curious about the stories hidden inside ordinary life. Every person I encounter carries a life that I know nothing about. They have memories, relationships, disappointments, hopes, routines, and dreams. I may only see them for a few seconds, but those few seconds can make me wonder about everything that exists beyond the frame.

Photography gives me a way to hold on to that curiosity.

I don't photograph because I believe a camera can capture the whole truth of a person or a moment. It cannot. A photograph is only a fragment. It is a small piece of reality chosen from an endless flow of time. But perhaps that limitation is exactly what makes photography meaningful to me. Within one frame, I can preserve not everything that happened, but what I felt when it happened.

Sometimes I think I am photographing the world. Other times, I think I am photographing myself.

The things that catch my attention reveal something about who I am. The people I notice, the spaces I return to, the moments I choose to keep—all of them reflect my way of looking. Photography has taught me that seeing is not passive. To really see something, I have to pay attention. I have to slow down enough to notice what would otherwise disappear.

Because most moments do disappear.

A person walks away. Light changes. A conversation ends. A face that caught my attention becomes part of a crowd. Life continues without waiting for us to understand it.

The camera allows me to pause.

But I don't think I photograph simply to preserve memories. I photograph because I want to express something I cannot always explain with words. There are feelings that are difficult to name—loneliness, tenderness, distance, anticipation, uncertainty, connection. Sometimes I recognize these feelings in a scene before I recognize them in myself. Taking a photograph becomes a way of asking: Why did this moment move me? What am I seeing here? What am I feeling?

I may not always find an answer.

And I am beginning to believe that I don't need to.

Maybe photography is not about having the right definition. Maybe it is about continuing to look.

As long as I walk through streets, meet people, travel to unfamiliar places, and experience the ordinary days of my own life, there will always be something that catches me unexpectedly. There will always be a face, a gesture, a shadow, a silence, or a moment that makes me stop.

And when that happens, I will photograph it.

Not because I know exactly what photography is, but because something inside me says, look at this. Don't let this moment pass without noticing it.

For me, photography is inseparable from living.

As life goes on, I will continue to change, and the way I see will change with me. My photographs may become different, but the impulse behind them will remain: to look closely, to feel deeply, and to respond to the world around me.

Maybe someday I will understand what photography is.

For now, I am happy simply to keep photographing.