What actually defines being an artist?

Is it knowing how to paint? To write poems? To use a camera?

Today, it seems almost enough to do something creative in your free time and the title follows. “Artist” has become something we give ourselves.

I went to photograph one famous building in Hong Kong, but I left realizing I no longer saw buildings as objects—they had become subjects with presence, and that curiosity stayed with me for five years.

For fifteen years, my photographs have found their place on the walls of Paris Photo—and for fifteen years, I have never missed a single one. Each time, I walk through those halls with the same anticipation, the same heartbeat of curiosity, wondering how people will respond to my works.

I have many boxes of Polaroid 803 and 804 film, expired for almost twenty years now. The chemicals in the pods have completely dried out, and I was tempted many times to throw them all away—but somehow, I never did. And now I’m very glad about that.

The true role of the muse in art—from Rodin to Modigliani. Discover how love, emotion, and collaboration shape timeless photographic portraiture

… Photography is my passion, my pain, my dedication — simply my way of life. What fascinates me again and again is how photography connects me with people, how it opens unexpected doors, and how much it teaches and shapes me along the way. If you truly live it, it becomes something much bigger than taking pictures. I love that! It’s gives energy (and sometimes a lot of frustrations).

We often dream of the lives of Picasso, Modigliani, and Cézanne—modern masters who seemed to breathe art. In their time, and partly through them, the gallery world in Paris blossomed…