Cuauhtémoc, Mexico

For the past three days, I went to Cuauhtemoc, Mexico with the Better Together Mexico project which is a Christian missionary. I was documenting the whole trip.

Also, I photographed a portrait series in this jail in Cuauhtemoc. I got back to Albuquerque last night, and quickly picked one from the series. Here it is:

A inmate with his family in the Cuauhtemoc jail on Dec, 29, 2010.

On my way back from this trip, I was planning on the next project in Anapra, Mexico. Anapra is only 10 minutes away from Juarez, Mexico which is having the drug war going on nowadays.

For the new project, I want to use the idea of Kids with Cameras in the movie of Born Into Brothels. I will try to save some money and get some donations to buy cameras for the kids in Anapra. Hoping I can bring the photos the kid took back to New Mexico and have an exhibition to get some money to make kids' lives better.

Last day of 2010, a lot of new projects and hope in the coming year.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

It is the time to say good bye to the old year.

A lot of things that happened in 2010, school, work, family, relationship... Nothing has changed my goal of chasing my dream.

I'm looking forward to the new year.

For the last three day of 2010, I will be in Mexico documenting a Christian missionary trip to a prison nearby Chihuahua City.

I took the picture below on the day before Christmas Eve at a birthday party.

Finals Week

I finished all my finals a week ago. This week is mostly for me to relax and apply for as many summer interns as I can.

Monday morning, I got my first rejection letter from the Dallas Morning News. I was a kind of sad but later I realized that I might get more and more as time goes. Sooner or later, I will hear back from the Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Star Tribune.

I am already looking at some smaller newspapers to apply. Wish me good luck!

I took this photo last Saturday, for an ice skating show. The only thing I learned from shooting this kind of event is no matter how warm outside is, it is still very cold inside, cuz I have to stand on ice.

Groups of ice skaters warm up for the "It's a CooLLOOP" Christmas 2010 show at the Outpost Ice Arena in Albuquerque,N.M. on Dec, 11, 2010

Let's take a picture together

I went down to Las Cruces,NM with three friend to cover the New Mexico Lobos and New Mexico State Aggies basketball game. The game ended with 84-78, the Lobos won.

It was a fun trip. And I started noticing that people love getting together and taking pictures. It kept reminding me the first few paragraphs I read in Roland Barthes' book Camera Lucida, Barthes says "show your photographs to someone- he will immediately show you his: 'Look, this is my brother; this is me as a child,' etc.; the photograph is never anything but an antiphon of 'Look,' 'See,' 'Here it is'; it points a finger at certain vis-a-vis (It's French,I don't know what this means), and cannot escape this pure deictic language. This is why, insofar as it is licit to speak of a photograph, it seemed to me just as improbable to speak of the Photograph."

What do you think?

Anyway, I'm stressful today. To me, there is one more week left then the fall semester is over. I'm planning on the summer internships, the spring break trip to NYC, the NPPA workshop in Warwick, RI for next year.

I should just write my final paper for the art history class now.

BTW, my topic is about the ethics in photojournalism. I started with talking about Kevin Carter.

Bike Coop

I started my photo column Backstage on the Daily Lobo since Fall 2010 semester. It was an idea that has been in my mind for a really long time. I always want to go out and look for people's stories by myself and try to find something behind.

So far, I had a firefighter, a man in the Salvation Army Adult Rehab program, a Mexican boot maker, a barber, a veteran. This is my sixth column. It is about one of the oldest bike shop owners in Albuquerque, N.M

(Photo by Junfu Han)

Greg Overman, right, took over the Bike Coop on Central Avenue in 1998. He dropped out of New Mexico State University in 1972 because of financial problems. He was studying music at the time, and he worked in a bike shop in Las Cruces. He said he hadn’t planned on being a life-long bike mechanic.
　　
“But doing what you enjoy is quite a privilege,” Overman said. “Especially if that’s your job and you get to do what you enjoy.”

After moving to Albuquerque in 1973, he kept working on bikes in different shops around town. He said his mother taught him how to fix things.
　　
“When I was a little kid, I liked taking things apart and not always putting them together,” he said. “My mother made it clear to me that if I was gonna do that I have to learn how to put it back together, so it will work. And that’s how I started it.”
　　
“Life is short. All I have to do is enjoy as much as I can,” he said.

(My friend Chris Quintana helped me editing this essay. Thanks Chris!)