Photographer Zhonglin has made the most out of the lockdown days: With Project 365 the Malaysian-Chinese photographer challenged herself to publish one image for one whole year, capturing the subtleties of everyday life. Her photographs are cinematic, dreamy, and surreal. Find out about the photographer’s endless inspiration, the challenges, and the outcome of her project.

 

This is an extract of the new 2021 Print Magazine “The Reconnect Issue”, which is available here!

 

“Personal, personal, personal”, is how artist Zhonglin describes her work. One look at her Instagram, which is the photographer’s own little gallery and platform of choice for publishing her art, proves exactly that: It’s a collection of poetic beauty portraits, surreal fashion shots, intimate close-ups of tearful young women, and many more, all shot around Taiwan. The whole body of work is part of Zhonglin’s Project 365, for which she challenged herself to publish one image a day for an entire year.

 

When she found herself sitting at home during lockdown when the pandemic first hit the world, the self-taught photographer got to think: “What was it in the first place that got me into photography? It was the ‘creating’, the ‘sharing’, and the ‘exploring’. That’s when I started to look deeper into my heart, to see what I really want to achieve with Project 365. I began to allow spontaneity to enter my decision-making process and to live by my new mantra ‘enjoy to create’ every single day of shooting.”

 

​​Read the full feature in our print magazine – The Reconnect Issue – to find out more about Zhong Lin’s magical world and her challenges and learnings of Project 365.

Along with other exclusive interviews with legends in the industry like gallerist Johann König, documentary photographer Martha Cooper and designer Erich Brechbuehl, the fourth Forward Magazine print issue is out now!