Hello
I'm Daniel, a film photographer in any moment I can find.
ren began without a plan. Over the past 11 years, I've been shooting film across different places. From Bali and the Baltics, to Mongolia and Melbourne. I never set out to build a collection. I just kept noticing people living their everyday moments.
A vendor focused on her grill at a Taipei night market. Someone playing fetch with his dog at a park in Lisbon. A couple sitting together by the coast in Busan, not ready to leave yet. At some point, I realised I wasn't just collecting photographs. I was collecting evidence of our shared experience.
The "We" themes came from looking at all the film images I've captured and grouping them not by place or year, but by emotional threads. A bus captain in Tateyama and nomadic porters in western Mongolia were all holding the day together with their hands. A trekker taking in the view at Mt. Batur and a fisherman overlooking Busan's coastline were both staying until the moment let them go.
Each "We" theme names a pattern I kept seeing. A shared gesture, a common impulse, a way of being in the world that doesn't depend on where or when.
ren is about what connects us. It'll keep evolving as I keep shooting and noticing.
仁 (rén) is a Chinese character that gets translated in different ways: benevolence, humaneness, the essence of being human. But the meaning I keep returning to is simpler: recognising yourself in someone else. That's what these photographs do for me, so it felt like the right name.
Every frame costs money, so I've become more intentional about pressing the shutter. There's no reviewing the shot, no LCD screen to fuss over. I commit to what's in front of me and stay present in the moment I'm photographing. That constraint has trained me to pause, notice, and actually see what's happening before I frame it.
And then there's the way film looks. The grain softens things, and the colours are a little unpredictable. I think that's part of why the photographs in ren feel the way they do.
There's a parallel to how I work as a UX researcher based in Singapore. In both cases, I'm looking for patterns in human behaviour, trying to understand what connects people across contexts. The difference is that UX research distills insights for decision-making. ren produces something less practical and, I think, more important.
ren's a living project. Themes will rotate or refresh as new photographs join the collection and old ones are archived.
If you'd like to get in touch about ren, a collaboration, or just to say hello, you can reach me at anddansome@gmail.com.