Haochen Yu grew up in Beijing and graduated with a master’s degree in architecture from Columbia University, where he also worked as a monitor in Thomas Romas Dark Room. Since 2014, he has worked at Danish Architecture Company BIG New York and London offices as an architectural designer and he was involved in several landmark projects. Aside from architecture-related design work, he spends most of his time on street photography as a way to record his own life abroad. By using traditional film and manual focus cameras, Yu takes photos of strangers he meets on the street, in parks and on subways.
“Film photography and traditional manual focus cameras slow the process of producing photos, both before and after shooting, which gives me more time to think. The results are also unpredictable or, in other words, never the same as expected when shooting. It is always worse or better and such surprises become the biggest motivation and reward in the end.”
--Haochen Yu