When I was first given the brief for the zine project, my mind immediately gravitated to this series of work that I did a couple of years ago, about and for my grandma. This series of images are particularly important to me because this was where it all started; where I found my love for stories and documentary photography. It has given me so much, and its only right it gets to be printed like it deserves. I have decided to pair up the images with something unlike a letter to my grandma. It holds the words that I have always hoped that she knew, even though due to our asian heritage and our conservative nature, I have not actually told her directly.

Faithfully was done as part of the Objectifs Junior Shooting Home ’12 mentorship programme, an intensive programme where we were given a month to shoot what was “Home” to us. My work gravitated towards my grandma, as I tried to capture her unconditional love through my images.

For the design of the zine, space was an important factor. I wanted a floating feeling for my zine, where images could take centre stage while providing a kind of movement that flowed with the words. As a result, the composition of the zine put two images close together, but not touching. Similarly, the words lack capitalisation as well as punctuations. This is intentional, so the reader will not be able to understand where it starts and where it ends, which is a reference to how unconditional love never starts and never ends.

This work was exhibited in the National Library in 2012, as part of Objectifs Junior Shooting Home ’12 exhibition. More information can be seen at the links provided below.

http://objectifs.com.sg/jsh/donn-tan-zheng-yu-faithfully/

http://donntzy.format.com/faithfully

Thank you Shirley for being the most amazing 2D lecturer one can ask for. 🙂