In 'Read Your Photography,' we focus on the narratives behind photographs—stories that cannot be encountered by simply looking. Alongside works gathered through the cizucu-hosted and social media, cizucu Magazine translates the backgrounds and unique moments behind each image into 12 languages, sharing them with the world.
Choosing to keep a story in your heart is one option. Yet, that sentiment may quietly touch someone else and give rise to a new, unseen emotion.
This time, we introduce works by three artists from around the world.
Let us gently peer into these singular stories.
WenYang’s Story
Photo by WenYang
WenYang
📚 01
The railway station in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was filled with wandering elders, abandoned orphans, and people lost to addiction. I walked back and forth along the platform, searching for compelling subjects.
Then, I noticed two small yellow dogs basking in the sun, napping on the platform. A boy, barefoot and covered in dirt, approached the dogs and began to gently pet them. One of the puppies stood up, leaped onto the boy, and the two small beings embraced each other.
Perhaps the boy has no family, no place to return to. Yet, those two puppies were never truly stray.
cizucu Editorial Team
This image powerfully moves the heart with its pure and gentle interaction, exchanged in such a harsh environment. In the moment when the boy and the puppy embrace, there is a palpable sense of comfort and warmth that transcends words. In stark contrast to the harsh reality unfolding in the background, this small relationship emerges as a fleeting salvation. Even if they may have no place to belong, they quietly become each other's home.
taitai.chun’s Story
Photo by taitai.chun
taitai.chun
📚 02
That afternoon, beneath the large tree, there were again several pairs of shoes placed in plastic bags.
To others, they might seem like mere cast-offs or things to be discarded. But to me, they appeared as a form of 'unspoken kindness.'
If someone needs them, they can simply take them, and those who leave them do not need to feel as though they are offering charity. This practice—'please take them if you need'—has continued for years, never ceasing, even during the most challenging days of the pandemic.
cizucu Editorial Team
The presence of shoes quietly placed in a tranquil alley stands as a silent act of kindness. The roots of the large tree and the casually arranged bags seem to symbolize an 'invisible cycle' quietly persisting within the city. This act, offered for someone yet belonging to no one, blurs the boundaries between giving and receiving, gently illuminating the unspoken compassion woven into everyday life.
HSU CHIEN HSIAO’s Story
Photo by HSU CHIEN HSIAO
HSU CHIEN HSIAO
📷 SONY α7C
📚 03
In Taiwanese farewell rituals, 'circling the coffin' is the final, silent dance shared between the living and the departed.
Within the frame, the coffin remains quietly at the center of time, standing like a silent island. Meanwhile, relatives and friends, moving in procession, become overlapping afterimages through a slow shutter, a gentle intersection of life and death.
Within each slow step, countless unspoken feelings reside. As we quietly circle around you, it is as if we are retracing the years we spent together through the corridors of memory. The interplay between the flowing figures and the unmoving coffin forms a silent dialogue, reminding us that life is, at its core, a journey that must always move forward. The living eventually step back into the flow of time and noise, while the love of the departed remains forever anchored in our hearts.
This is both a farewell steeped in Eastern philosophy and a gentle resonance with the universal act of parting. In our circling steps, we gently release our attachments to this world and softly send you on your way.
cizucu Editorial Team
This image vividly reveals two layers of time: the stillness of the coffin and the flow of people circling around it. The overlapping figures, created by the slow shutter, evoke a sense of 'prayer' that transcends individual existence. The contrast between the unmoving center and the ever-circling periphery creates a quiet dialogue between life and death, conveying the tenderness and universality inherent in the act of farewell, deeply and serenely.
In Closing
How did these stories resonate with you?
We want to turn our attention to the allure that cannot be fully expressed through visuals alone. 'Read Your Photography' is a project designed to focus on the thoughts and emotions behind photographs, receiving them as stories.
What is captured is but a fleeting moment. Yet, behind it, there is a flow of time and unspoken feelings that have continued on.
We invite you to savor these works as if reading a photograph, as if turning the pages of a book.
How to join
On cizucu Threads, spontaneous 'photography themes' are posted.
Simply reply with 'your photograph' that fits the theme.
The only requirement is to follow cizucu on social media 💙
From among the submissions we receive,
those selected will receive a message from the cizucu editorial team!
'Read Your Photography' also features works exhibited in the cizucu-hosted .
ppp may be held in your country as well. Encounters connected solely by a shared love of photography are now spreading across the globe.