I really enjoy supporting my fellow creatives, especially when it’s someone who I practically shared an office with! When I took on this blog full time, I started working at The Warehouse Cafe on a daily basis and that is were I met Emily Tan, a super talented music journalist and photographer. We would always chat about work, life and she may have taken a few of my #lotd ‘s (looks of the day pics).  Emily is so sweet, and as soon as she messaged me about her photography project I had to go out and support her.

What’s your name? Emily Tan.

What do you do? I’m a music journalist and photographer.

Tell me about your show. This was a project that I started in 2007. It started out as me taking headshots of people at school and it grew into something that I always explore which was people’s expressions. From then I started asking different people questions and captured their reactions to the questions.

So who are these people you photographed? A lot of the people I know. Some are friends, others are people I met in grad school, a lot of the photos here are from 2011-2016. Anyone who is international, I took while I was living in the U.K. and going to grad school.

What was the inspiration behind it? The moment that I start photographing people’s headshots I started to notice moments that they didn’t intend to happen but were beautiful in their own way. After looking at more and more of them I started to see that this could evoke something else. I was very inspired by the fact that even though you’re not intending your face look a certain way, it’s still beautiful in that sense.

Are you from Jersey City? Yes, born in Manhattan, raised in Jersey City.

How do you feel Jersey City has changed in the past couple years? I went to college in New York City and then would come back to Jersey City and see the changes. In the past three years, things have been moving so quickly. I live by Country Village in Greenville and things seem the same, but the moment I come Downtown, I don’t feel like it’s the city I grew up in, in a good way. I was never allowed to come Downtown when I was a kid, but now this is the place to hang out.

What is your favorite hangout spot? I tend to go to Kanibal Home a lot and chill with the owner Kristen. I always go to Another Man’s Treasure and I love Dullboy and you’ll always probably find me at Porta, eating something.

Anything else that you’d like people to know about your show? This is definitely something that I’m continuing. My original idea was to photograph one hundred people, but now that I’m nearing ten years into the project I don’t feel like I’m ready to be done yet. If anyone wants to have their photos taken, answer a few embarrassing questions that aren’t going to be recorded, I would love to capture those people’s faces.

Ask me one of the questions. One of the questions would be, “When was the last time you masturbated?”

I don’t mind answering that…..