"If not me, then who will?"

That's coming from the emo momo during one of our photojournalism classes where we had to do an assignment on our immediate family. So of course our family members had to ask why we are being their paparazzi. And the momo said: "If not me, then who will?" I thought that was a simple yet strong enough reason to be photographing what we think is important to us as a family. For the past two years, I haven't been celebrating many traditional festivals that I used to take for granted during my childhood, such as Chinese New Year, Qing Ming (tomb-sweeping festival) and all those random visits to the temples. I asked a few friends of my age if they still bother to do something as traditional as tomb-sweeping, and the majority said no, unless they really have nothing better to do. Who the hell would bother to wake up at 4am to climb through the jungles of Mount Pleasant (ha, I bet you don't even know there exists a huge plot of land with old graves right next to the PIE...) just to pay respects to an ancestor who has been resting in peace for the past 50 years?

These days, I feel compelled to document the daily happenings around me, especially among my family. It's like I have this sense that things will not last for long. And judging from how rapidly our dot has been progressing, I don't think I am too far off in my sensing. In a way that is back to the basics of photojournalism for me. To document, to tell stories through pictures. I may or may not become a photojournalist in the future, but I think I really start making pictures when I feel the need to document something. Take away all the deadlines, commissioned work, school projects, stress and "you are a photojournalist so please take some wow pictures", and I will start to see the world with wide-eyed wonder again. Alas such a way of photographing will unlikely pay the bills for me. I realised most of my best pictures come from none of the abovementioned categories. Most of them exist because I felt compelled to make those pictures. In other words, photography for me has to be intrinsic. Even if everyone hates these kind of pictures I take, I really am not too bothered by it, because to me it is the process, the compelled feeling of taking that picture that matters to me, and not the various responses to my pictures.

I am not James Nachtwey, who can make award-winning pictures of human suffering. And I don't wish to do that either. Why should only stories and photos of human suffering be worthy of winning awards and capturing the world's attention? To me, I feel more compelled these days to photograph the 70-year-old uncle who runs the neighbourhood Chinese medicine shop and my family going tomb-sweeping each year. Leave the human suffering pictures to the likes of Nachtwey. I don't want to end up being another Kevin Carter, because really, journalism can do that to you. I keep reminding myself that I am a human being first with my own culture and family, and not a journalist who is just out to get that sexy quote or that sensational story or that particular human suffering award-winning picture.

So I am listening to what my heart tells me to take and document these days. Even if I get a bad grade for doing that, then so be it. I want to be a photographer by passion, not just by profession.