Getting to Know Portraitist Cielo Yu and His Art

Talented Taiwanese photographer Cielo Yu's portraits are not your ordinary bust shots and lookbook frames. In a sensual, elusive fashion, his portraiture work is a puzzle, a mystery not to be solved, but to be appreciated.

Enjoy our conversation with Cielo Yu as well as his breathtaking photographs.

Hi Cielo, welcome to Lomography Magazine! Firstly, what's the first thing you notice about a person when meeting him/her for the first time?

According to the current environment, timing, feeling, awareness will have different attention. If it's the first meeting of a stranger, I may first observe his / her looks and what he / she may be wearing. If there is a prior understanding of this person, you may want to know how he speaks, conversations, behavior, and imagination are close. But these are not my standard answers and doesn't happen all the time.

Your portraits are almost environmental in nature. How did you come up with the compositions?

In fact, I was in the early photos of the more natural environment, but I live in the urban area of Taiwan, if there is no car to the natural beauty of the environment is very difficult, I just want to try if I use the various environments in the city. Most of the photos have me and my friends traveling off so we can shoot.

If you can photograph one thing forever, what would it be?

If you can only shoot one thing, I will want to shoot the entirety of my life. For me, to remove the work of art and creation and just take images related to your life, will be a nice record. I want to see, feel everything.

Your colors fit so much with your composition. What's your photographic palette and aesthetic?

I have a great interest in the clean and simple picture in most aspects in my life: what I'm wearing, the models... In photography too, I will observe the color used by my life In my picture. Let them be clean and neat.

Where do you draw inspiration from? Whom are your muses?

Broadly speaking, everything in life can be my inspiration, can be magazines, poetry, novels, movies, music, etc... I have a lot of muses: Hiroshi Sugimoto, Thomas Ruff, Vincent Fournier, Viviane Sassen, Yoshiyuki Okuyama, and such.

If you could work or collaborate with any photographer, who would it be?

Since I have a lot of muses, I find it very difficult to choose one, hahaha.

Describe to us -- what's a day in the life of Cielo Yu?

If it is a normal day, I will get up at 6:30, prepare a cup of coffee and breakfast to go out to work because I am an office worker... so 8 am to 6 pm I will be in the company. After getting off from work I will go jogging, reading, watching movies or editing photos. In the holidays I will go out to take pictures.

What do you usually do during your downtime? Any on-going project, or other plans you're keen to work on?

During the downtime I usually read books, watching movies, sports, cooking, but usually, I still take pictures in the studio, or plan art.

Read our first feature of Cielo here. For more of his photography, visit his Instagram and Facebook.

written by Ciel Hernandez on 2017-07-09 #people #portraiture #portrait-photography #cielo-yu