IN MY ROOM, The Opening

I decided to wait for 3 days before sharing my story about the opening of In My Room to you, just to calm myself down a bit. But what the heck, WE ROCKED THE NIGHT!! WOOHOOO!!

Over 100 public figures have been photographed. Over 100 media came to the press conference, which was held 2 hours before the opening, at the same venue. Over 500 guests enjoyed the opening. Over 5000 people visiting it in its first weekend.

Am I happy? Yes. Am I satisfied? Yes. But allow me to share you what’s actually important for me.

An exhibition, with its successful opening, big media coverage or its following flashy events, is just an exhibition. It is a celebration that we have to enjoy and being grateful about. But once the curtain is closed, what will remain is nothing but the work itself and how it has touched its audience’s hearts. In other words, it’s about how we, as artists, make a little change in this crazy world through what we can do best: making arts. No matter how small it contributes, it may generate changes.

I see IN MY ROOM from two perspectives: how it affects me and how (I hope) it inspires people.

The main reason of doing this project is nothing but to get out of my comfort zone. We should keep evolving. I’ve done different exhibitions: fashion, landscape, human interests, graphic. Femalography, my first book, was about females in their unique beauties. It was all about creating. It was conceptual, technically proper and very much well prepared. It was a comfort zone for me. That’s why I decided to make photo shoots that are not being discussed, not conceptual either and technically unprepared with minimum equipment, in a genre that I’ve never exhibited before: portraiture. It’s about capturing, not creating. In short, I just trapped myself in a situation that forced me to explore the other side of my abilities in photography.

I never took a long time to shoot In My Room. I mainly spent less than 20 minutes to complete each shooting. All were spontaneous. Almost all were fun too. And just to add some spices, all the public figures had not seen their portraits until the exhibition.

I spent 2 years in completing it. It was exhausting, but damn worth it.

Now, let’s talk about how, I hope, the exhibition may inspire people. I believe that an exhibition has to be entertaining. It has to be able to grab people’s attention, without sacrificing its real purposes, as attention generates appreciation. Who knows, it might brighten somebody’s day and make him/her a better person for that day. Or at least, make them smile for 10 minutes. And for other young fellow photographers, hey, if we want to make it happen, the universe will conspire to help us!

P.S. Some friends asked me, how did I manage to have these great people open their bedroom doors for me? I told them, I was just lucky.

To see more photos of the opening, just click here. Enjoy!