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May Xiong

@abstract_numbers

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Creating cinematic portraits inspired by light.

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We Were Once Here (2023) | 05.06.23

Here are the last frames from this set with @laurenwithrow this past weekend. Big thanks again to you Lauren and @taraviolet for finding a space that encapsulated the feeling of dusk so perfectly.

For better quality & size, head over to:

mayxiong.com

Swipe for a closer look.

Thanks for looking.

MX

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We Were Once Here (2023) | 05.06.23

I want to say thank you to the continued support on this platform and outside of it. Sometimes when you don’t bloom often, you wonder if anyone is even paying attention. But when you realize that people still do, you feel that tenfold.

Photography has truly been a gateway for my sense of self and how I want to be seen. Whether it’s through these characters that I create or the places I choose to photograph, creates those characters for me — photography is all about how you see the world in your own unique way, the choices you make in framing your storytelling and how vulnerable you want to be through each layer of that. I love that it gives me the space to breathe in a way I can’t elsewhere.

Thank you again for taking the time to look a little deeper.

Much appreciation to @laurenwithrow in sharing this quiet space together.

Swipe for a closer look.

MX

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We Were Once Here (2023) | 05.06.23

After some time away from creating personal work and finding time to reconnect back with my own mind and body, it was refreshing to dive into a creative space with zero pressure. Being able to create from a place of curiosity and patience with light has a way of reshaping how I breathe around a space/environment.

We were lucky enough to have this location to ourselves and take in the quietness. Big thanks to @taraviolet for the location rec! 🙏🏼

Swipe for a closer look.

Thanks for looking and for sticking around.

MX

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Back to the days when traveling was what enriched our souls and now what we yearn for even more so. I left a part of myself within these walls and have been dreaming to go back to see where those parts of me have drifted off to.

MX

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Who’re you living for? Who’re you making art for? Who’re you working for? Where are you going, and what’s pushing you there? If it’s not for yourself, and if it’s for someone else, would they do the same for you? Is that fair? Are you being fair to yourself, or others? Are you doing it for someone’s approval, or your own content-ness? If you could live without any strings attached, what would you do today? Where would you be? Who’s presence would you want to be in? What sounds would you want to fill your ears?
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This is the second of two photos inspired by friends May and Ben, yet maybe this time it’s leaning a bit towards Ben. Ben’s entrancing and intriguing design lately brought on this desire for something clear and distorted. Understandable and unclear. These are dried daisy petals I will be making into paper for them soon, and printing a print onto afterwards.
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Near and far, small and large, all the help and encouragement is how we are here. This is for you May and Ben.

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Well here’s a small update. A month or so ago, May (@abstract_numbers ) was so extremely kind to take a few portraits for me. They felt like a necessary thing, and it probably won’t happen for another 10 years. Thank you, May, yet again. They are simple, soft and direct. I’m so grateful for them and you! Also, thanks to @bethanyicenhower and @nelsonicenhower to share their home the day of for this. Also love y’all and am thankful for you.

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Heavily inspired by films and music, it’s become an essential for me and my process. Sometimes you get stuck creatively and all you need is that simple push from listening to a song, or watching your favorite films again.

Music became a huge part of my life when I felt the most stuck. My depression at the heaviest it had been back then, I needed a way to escape my reality onto another. Together music and photography became my staple of pushing through.

Despite the heaviness in which I still deal with from time to time, my work has allowed me to give parts of me away that has been healing. I’m grateful that this medium made me better understand both the light and the dark of my own experiences.

Last but not least, here is my short series “CONFRONTATIONS” (2019).

This is @abstract_numbers signing off for the day.

Huge thank you to @womxnsphotographybmore for allowing me to share my voice and my work on here.

May we all continue to lift each other up during these difficult times.

Thank you for looking/reading!

Cheers,
May

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Throughout the years of doing photography and navigating what it meant to me, it was also during that time that I found myself drawn to cinematic portraiture.

What initially got me into photography was writing this short story my freshman year of High School. I remember listening to the album “Streamside” by The Album Leaf while writing the story and all I could picture was it in moving form. The feelings that tied to the characters and story itself was inspired by that very album. This was around the time I had gotten a camera for my 15th birthday. I eventually found myself exploring my neighborhood, trying to capture what I felt when writing that story and what it meant to me.

Cinematic portraiture was something I knew I wanted to do but didn’t know how. I eventually came across the incredible work of Gregory Crewdson in college and was immediately blown away by his photographs. Watching his documentary called “Brief Encounters” based on the series of his own, completely solidified the very meaning of my own work.

“I don't deliberately look for something dark or bleak or disconnected, in fact that's not something I'm even conscious of in the work as I'm making it. I'm always trying to create beauty, reveal hope, show the sense of longing that exists in isolation and loneliness, and capture the search for something greater inside all of my subjects.

Gregory Crewdson”

The parallel in Crewdson’s work alongside my own was something I couldn’t forget. He became the sole reason why I shifted into doing strictly cinematic portraiture.

Here is the set of my short series, “Someplace Else” (2019) To view the non cropped versions of my work, feel free to head over to my website : mayxiong.com

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Hello everyone! This is @abstract_numbers, Seattle-based photographer, taking over the next 12 hours.

Born and raised in the Central Valley of California, I grew up in a big family of creatives. It’s easy to say that we were drawn to outlets that let us express that the creative freedom from within. From that very same expression, I later found myself wrapped up in the world of photography 15 years ago.

Photography not only has been a gateway for me to share these worlds that I’ve created, but a window into parts of me that I struggled with for majority of my life. As an artist who has struggled with heavy depression from a young age of 10 and having that extend well into my adulthood, photography has always been a medium that allows me to open myself in a way I don’t think I can ever fully express verbally.

My work stems from a place of longing. Longing to be seen, to be somewhere else, to see between the gaps of time and moments we sometimes often forget to notice. The exploration of those isolated feelings and letting the environment give power to that.

Here is the set of my short series “In Between” (2019).

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Sometimes you want to share moments that give you life and in doing so, you sacrifice a bit of yourself. Catching the last bit of the sun moments ago. Haven’t posted a three tier layered photo in a while so here is one.
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Shot on my iPhone.
MX

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These two ✨

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It’s been a while since I’ve shared a self portrait that truly reflects my state of being for the last couple of months. The amount of waves that come and go, the pulling and tugging of feelings that seem familiar yet new; it’s been a whirlwind of searching for what makes my heart feel full and whole. It’s getting closer to where the days of feeling twenty is coming to an end and four seasons I have left to embrace before the bend. I’ve come to realize that the search for oneself doesn’t have a timeline. That there is no ending to a feeling that arrives at your door and leaves you questioning the very fiber of what it is to exist in this world that we are very much alive in. We choose to seek for what fills in those gaps that we do not fully understand and perhaps that’s what keeps us float. Maybe there are parts of me that will always be out there, waiting to be found and collected not by me, but by others.

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