Sheila Zhao

Komorebi

To be completely honest, I don’t believe that I lead a life particularly out of the ordinary. Most days are a series of self-prescribed routines and social interactions with a self-prescribed group of people that passes peacefully and quietly. I recognize that I have been bestowed many blessings in my life, of course, and have the privilege of calling many wonderful people my friend, both of which I’m tremendously grateful for. However, I am also aware that day-to-day or month-to-month, there are not many happenings or stories that I can tell which are of marked interest to anyone other than those who know me. I think it is because of that, consciously or subconsciously, life’s smaller moments have always interested me more. The French author, Georges Bernanos, was quoted to have said: “Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.”

 

 

Komorebi is a personal series that I have been photographing since 2011, exploring these small moments of life, which are continuously at play around us. Seemingly mundane moments are for me tiny seconds-long scenes to be appreciated. They are seconds of mystery, longing, love, flight, humor, whimsy – they are the scenes of life. Komorebi is a Japanese word, which means sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees. Like the soft patches of light that comes through the leaves above, this series is my own meditation and subsequent collection of the quieter moments of life that has made my otherwise ordinary life quite extraordinary.

 

 

Bio

Sheila Zhao is a photographer based in between Shanghai and Beijing, China. She has worked on documentary and reporting projects around Asia. Her work has appeared in publications such as BusinessWeek, GlobalPost, and Globe and Mail.

 

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7 thoughts on “Sheila Zhao – Komorebi”

  1. mw

    Really nice work, imo. Rare to see an essay with such fine sense of narrative. I thought the repetition worked well in 9 and 11, maybe not so well elsewhere. Numbers 5,16,17,18,and 20 kind of threw me out of the mood. Hopefully, with ongoing project, can cut some and replace with others. Several truly excellent stand alone pics, especially 21 with very nice use of negative space. Overall, combination of narrative and single shot excellence makes this some very good work to my eye.

  4. bob black

    I have always loved this new series of Sheila’s…and for me, it both marked a turn in her work (away from color) from beautiful observation sense of light and gentle fractured moment from afar, to a turning inward of that light…..what i loved about this series when i saw it first when she shared it was it’s willingness to surrender to the accident…and i’m not talking about the accident of monocrome and light splintering all over the place, but how the voice of the work, of the person creating it is spilled out and away from the light that came from the surrounding place and people…the movement from clean observation to an allowance of being observed….

    in other words: to be bold in both celebration and failure, to be unafraid of speaking out about the love of light as it fractures itself all over the place….

    that tumbling is the tumbling of her heart and i love and respect and cherish that about this work…..

    and i’ve always been in love with both her double self-portrait in the elevator (not here) and pictures 3 and 4…..

    lovely in its spilling and swaying:

    ============================================

    The Story of the Stone, the Sequel
    I carried this stone down from the mountains
    all the way to Beijing. What’s this? Jian asked me
    I said it’s a stone
    he said I know it’s a stone
    what he meant to say was: what’s it doing on the bed?
    so I said
    I only put it on the bed
    just now

    -Yang Li

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