It’s hard to avoid talking about how images naturally communicate information. Every photo or piece of text shares something and tries to express an idea.

Photography, because it captures clear and specific visuals, often delivers messages more directly than other mediums. However, this clarity can be both its strength and its weakness.

I saw an online debate about a news photo that highlights this issue. The photo showed an incident where some students drowned while trying to rescue someone. A salvage team was brought in to recover the bodies, and the photo captured someone on the boat holding a body while the victims’ families watched from the shore. At first, people accused the salvage team of being heartless and bargaining over the price of recovery. Later, some said the person in the photo wasn’t negotiating but just directing the boat. Then, the blame shifted to the photographer, with people accusing them of framing the scene to mislead. Eventually, the photographer released more photos from the event, which proved the salvage team was bargaining. Public opinion flipped again.

This made me question: can a single photo truly communicate the full truth? I don’t think it can. A single image lacks the context of what happened before and after. As an artist, how can I use photography to clearly express my ideas? In the case of the news photo, it was only through multiple images that the truth became clear. Videos or sequences of photos can provide context, but photography’s strength lies in its ability to condense everything into a single, impactful frame. This creates a conflict between wanting clarity and embracing the ambiguity of one image.

The idea “all forms are formless” feels relevant here. One couple’s photo can’t fully represent their love, just as one selfie can’t sum up who I am. People form their feelings and ideas over time, like a reservoir filling drop by drop until it overflows into a moment of expression, like saying, “I love you.” We often capture that one big moment as a photo, but does that mean all the earlier moments aren’t important? For me, the process—the causes leading to the moment—matters just as much, if not more.

In my project Folding Landscapes, I moved away from single photos as the final result of my work. Instead, I tried to show the layered feelings and memories that build up over time. I took pieces of different images I’ve shot and recombined them, blurring clear boundaries and breaking the idea of one “perfect” moment. This process is about going back—returning to a more chaotic, natural state. While photography usually isolates one perspective from the world, I try to put the photo back into the larger context of life, connecting it to sound, touch, and other senses. My goal is to show the bigger, messy, interconnected reality, rather than a single, simplified moment.