*

Time: Midsummer, midnight, feels like 68 degrees.

Location: Living room, forty something floor of an apartment building, Long Island City. A blanket and a pillow on the floor next to the floor-to-ceiling window. The room is quiet and neatly organized, barely illuminated by the lamp on a desk.

Characters: Boy in dark green t-shirt, five eight, appears to be in high school. K, girl, appears to be in high school, details unknown.

[The phone hangs up]

The boy has just finished his shower, standing alone in the middle of the living room drying his hair with a big towel. Pacing around while looking concerned. He immediately dials another number but is still not answered. He makes a few more attempts and fails.

Boy: [Sitting on the floor cross-legged] Shit. [Takes a deep breath, looking out the window anxiously]

The boy walks towards the chair at the corner of the living room. His backpack is on top of the chair. He starts to pack, putting his items from tabletop into his pocket and backpack, wallet, laptop, and coins.

[A call from WeChat, picks up]

K: [Murmurs in a muted voice] What is happening?

Boy: [Takes a deep breath] I must go. [Puts down things in his hands. Walks to the window] Where you at right now?

K: [Pauses for a few seconds] They called?

Boy: [Looks down, slightly swinging his body] Mm-hmm. Where you at right now?

K: [Silent for a few seconds] I’m downstairs. I can’t come back right now.

The boy does not respond. He looks up and glances over the room, then he stares at the reflection of the interior on the window.

K: [Pauses for a few seconds, then hesitantly] Should I come up? Wait till I’m here.

Boy: No worries, I’ll head back myself. Sorry for the trouble. Oh, I just showered, by the way.

K: That’s alright. [Pauses for a few seconds, then in a muffled voice] It’s me who should apologize. It was me who kept you.

Boy: Nah, it was me who wanted to stay… [Voice gradually becomes hesitant and blurry] I’ll get going, then.

K: Mm-hmm. Be safe. Text me when you get there [Silent for a few seconds, then continues] Is it okay, really?

Boy: Yeah, all good. [Purses dry lips] Not a big deal. [Dry laughs, unnaturally]

Silence on the other end.

Boy returns to the chair and packs the rest. He puts on the backpack and walks to the door. He turns around and glances over the room, pauses for a few seconds, then takes a deep breath.

[Someone ended the call]

[The boy gently pushes the door open with a narrow gap, squeezes out, then softly closes the door behind him]

The room looks voided now. Things are neatly organized, barely illuminated by the lamp on a desk. A warm glow.

[Silence]

[The scene darkens]

Long Island City

I photograph to remember. Casual snapshots have taken the place of a written journal, while location-based documentary has been my focus. They are ways for me to reconcile my identity with a space. I adore the mundane, believing that there is indeed power and potential embedded within the vernacular vision, if look close enough—and it is usually after the spontaneous capture that I can reevaluate what lies between my images.

Long Island City is an image-based series documenting the neighborhood of Long Island City in Queens, New York. Long Island City reflects and portrays me moving through the space, while traces of prior industrialization and commerce have been gradually fading away. City archives of rezoning proposals, press materials, real estate documents, and other related historical sources are being researched and examined, offering the fundamental perspectives of this project. Long Island City builds a portrait of the neighborhood as a site, illustrating the change of time and space, as well as these in-between moments that I have arrived to and experienced through introspective landscapes with a large format camera. The photographic process magnifies these prosaic glimpses and turns them into a close study of the mundane.

Within the scope of photography and urban studies, Long Island City delves into the history and topography of a single neighborhood. This not only includes archival sources found in Queens Library and New York Public Library to inform the image making process, but also the direct inclusion or appropriation of different found visual sources through the libraries’ archive, including scans, collages, digital media, and recorded video/sound. These are effective elements that are embedded into the body of work. In the form of a fluid image grid and a photo book, large format film is used to capture both colored and black and white images of the neighborhood, offering a more fluid perspective of photorealism. Short stories in the form of autofiction accompany the images. These stories are clues to my interactions and memories associated with Long Island City. The anonymous pseudo-protagonist is a metaphor to the individuals experiencing their routine lives in the neighborhood, as I found these vernacular moments to be very powerful when we consider our identity to land and the solitude experience.

In the end, my interaction with these places inspired me to photograph them and bring together my perception of Long Island City—where I have arrived at and will on someday depart from. My body of work, ultimately, aims to preserve a glimpse in this ephemeral moment, a slate of time, that portrays my flâneur movement in the neighborhood, in addition to how the local environment has been transitioning. Long Island City is also my reactive process towards the surroundings, my habitual space. These transformations that have occurred and continue to occur in the neighborhood are also manifested into my lifestyle, impacting the way I perceive home and seek comfort.

text and image

2019 - 2025

***

Time: Mid-winter. 8PM.

Location: Long Island City. Feels like -4 degrees. A food truck selling fried chicken at the main intersection, covered by the glow of teal and pink neon signs. Cars frequently passing by.

Characters: Man in his twenties, in a black jacket, five nine. Vender in a black hoodie, likely male, details unknown.

[Wind and tire noise]

Man: [Approaches, shrugs his shoulders, hands in his pockets, then looks up] Aye, hello?

The window of the van is covered by stickers and ads. The vender leans against the window scrolling Tik Toks, and he does not respond.

Man: [Tiptoes and waves his hand] Hello?

Vender: [Opens the window slightly, raises his head and looks down at the man, still on Tik Tok] Ten minutes.

Man: [Breathes in with a hiss, gently sways his body in the wind, tiptoes and glances over the interior, breathes out a mist into the cold air] You take cards?

Vender: Cash or Venmo.

Man: You do Zelle?

Vender: Plus tax.

Man: [Leans back, stares at the menu on the left for a few seconds] A chicken chop, garlic.

Vender: [Raises his head but looking down, still on TikTok] How you pay?

Man: Zelle.

Vender: Seven sixty. Number on the window.

Man: Okay, okay. [Glances over the window and sees two numbers] Eh… which one is it?

The vender is still on TikTok and says nothing.

Man: [Types in the first number and pays] Oh, I got it. [Turns his phone screen to the vender]

Vender: [Ignores the man’s phone, puts down his phone which is still on Tik Tok on the narrow counter, then turns around and walks straightly to the fryer] Ten minutes.

Man: Okay, okay. [Puts his phone back to the pocket, then walks back a few steps and stands next to a fence]

[Wind and tire noise]

[Cars pass by constantly]

[The scene zooms out and darkens]