I was 34 in 2017
Commercial Photos by Feng Yu
I felt I became a different person
I really doubted myself
Feng Yu’s Self-Portrait
“Am I a good photographer”
“Am I a good daughter”
“Will I get married in the future”
Every morning when I woke up
I felt several black rocks falling on me
Then I thought I should do something
Feng Yu | I want to record their stories
Beijing
My name is Feng Yu, and I have been photographing for around 15 years
The Herstory series
It started in 2017
I photographed and interviewed some women at my age
The first idea was the story from her
Then the two words “her” and “story” were combined to be “herstory”
When I photographed a former colleague
Her father just passed away
She had not worn makeup for a long time
She told me one night she rouged her lips
And posted her selfie on social media
Surprisingly someone commented, “Your selfie is too scaring to see at night”
She said no one really knew how she felt then
So I started to realized that in such an age of internet and information fragmentation
There were a lot of misunderstanding and tags
Which would cause more barriers between people
Feng Yu in Her Childhood
We were raised differently and have different experiences
Which make each one of us unique
So we make different choices
At the fork
There was a cool girl who paid much attention to her appearance
In my mind she changed her hairstyle a lot
It was until the day I photographed her
That I found she wore wigs
She told me her scalp was covered by various scars
She was seriously ill at 18
And lost all her hair because of chemotherapy
She said she should cherish life since her suicide had failed
There was one woman who was really positive and passionate about life
I often saw her posts about cooking at home on social media
And she decorated her home well
She mentioned that when she was a little girl
Her father suffered from severe depression
And often beat her mother
She was afraid of going home
Later I asked her
“Are you prepared for your story to be read by so many people”
She said yes
She wished the people with similar experiences could be inspired and recover as soon as possible
Lots of people asked me
How did you dig out those stories
The women are like sacks of sand
I just poked a hole on the sacks
And the sand flows out naturally through the hole
During the photographing, I asked them the same questions
Such as “What is a good mother like?”
I found they have different answers
There was a stay-at-home mom with two kids
She got married for the first time in her hometown
But she chose to work in Beijing
So she left her first daughter in hometown and her parents took care of the child
In her second marriage
She gave birth to the girl in the photo at 40
And she began to reflect
Whether earning more money to support the family
Is better for a child
Then she resigned to take care of her children
To her
Parenting was her career during that period
Life is complicated itself
I want to make my photos a bridge
While I try to know these people
I think I’m learning about myself too
The Her series is composed of photos taken by Feng Yu and self-portraits of the interviewees
In 2019, I did another project
It’s named Her
I photographed some females
And taught them how to take a picture of themselves
Using the equipment
Before taking photos, I asked each of them two questions
At the beginning I wanted to find an answer
In the end, however, I realized I didn’t need a standard answer
The period between 30 to 40 is only a stage of growth
It’s not a symbol
Fragile, sentimental, sensitive
They’re just tags on girls
If you don’t care about the tags
You can choose and live more freely